Marcy Wheeler is an independent journalist writing about national security and civil liberties. She writes as emptywheel at her eponymous blog, publishes at outlets including Vice, Motherboard, the Nation, the Atlantic, Al Jazeera, and appears frequently on television and radio. She is the author of Anatomy of Deceit, a primer on the CIA leak investigation, and liveblogged the Scooter Libby trial.
Marcy has a PhD from the University of Michigan, where she researched the “feuilleton,” a short conversational newspaper form that has proven important in times of heightened censorship. Before and after her time in academics, Marcy provided documentation consulting for corporations in the auto, tech, and energy industries. She lives with her spouse in Grand Rapids, MI.
There’s an interesting passage in this government filing to get Judge Leonie Brinkema to reconsider her guidelines regarding James Risen’s testimony in the Jeffrey Sterling suit. It seems to address Brinkema’s suggestion in her ruling that there might be recordings of Sterling passing classified information to Risen. The government has not stated whether it has […]
As I noted last week, the VA earthquake last week happened in Eric Cantor’s district, just miles from a nuclear power plant. I reported then that the plant had lost power and switched to backup diesel generators. But it turns out that switchover didn’t happen without a hitch. One of four generators failed to start. […]
I got really behind on these for a few days, so some of these are dated. A senior military officer claims they’ve finally “got our arms around” contracting to Afghan contractors. But if that doesn’t work, a senior congressional staffer says, they’re going to have “to reduce the [U.S.] footprint in Afghanistan.” Japan has reintroduced […]
That’s not the technical term for violating economic sanctions against Cuba, Sudan, Iran, and Liberia (and FWIW I think the sanctions against Cuba are stupid). Nevertheless, that’s basically what the sanctions JP Morgan Chase just admitted to violating amount to. The big dollar amounts involve $178.5 million in wire transfers with Cubans. JPMC processed 1,711 […]
I confess. When I read Zach Carter’s account of his interview with Paul Kanjorski, my first response was to wonder why HuffPo had decided an interview with the former Congressman would make for the (admittedly very fascinating) article that resulted. Turns out the reason is Bank of America’s woes; as one of the champions of […]
For the record, I still doubt the 50-State-Less-the-Rule-of-Law-AGs Settlement will happen. A year in, they haven’t even agreed on the underlying guidelines for the settlement, like what they do with MERS. But this line in the LAT’s coverage made me think of another issue that could kill that settlement. New York and Delaware have more […]
I regret to inform you–and I do mean regret–that I’m going to have set aside a good deal of the next week “looking backward” at Dick Cheney’s career. His book is out next week and already he’s dropping some bombs, as only Dick can drop bombs. Such as, for some period during his tenure as […]
I find this article odd for the way it mentions nothing of Bank of America’s attempts to game the legal system to stay in business, much less Tom Miller, Shaun Donovan, and Kathryn Wylde’s increasing attacks on Eric Schneiderman. Because his conclusion: that BoA may go under and if it does it may take the […]
The AP’s Goldman and Apuzzo have another blockbuster counterterrorism article, this time describing how the NYPD has built its own intelligence service to target Muslims. It’s long, but it’s worth reading the whole thing. Keep an eye out for these key details: The program in part serves to overcome CIA failures to recruit a more […]
Charlie Savage has a story reporting on the number of assessments the FBI opened in the last two years that turned into preliminary investigations. It shows that over the period, the FBI has conducted assessments of 77,100 Americans whom they determined were not a cause for concern. Their investigations of 3,315 others turned into preliminary […]