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.
The House Armed Services Committee Mark-Up for next year’s Defense Authorization is out. And it includes funds to build drone hangars at four bases in the Continental US. The bases are–with images showing how far a Predator drone might be able to fly with its 2,300 mile range–are below: Fort Riley, KS ($60 million) Fort […]
Normally, Marc Thiessen’s torture apologies aren’t worth my time. But seeing as how I didn’t whack any piñatas on Cinco de Mayo, why not Thiessen’s latest, in which he claims those who deny CIA interrogations played a part in nabbing bin Laden are the latest birthers? Note the formulation, though: Thiessen’s not talking about torture. […]
Condi Rice is, of all Bush’s top aides, the best at managing her reputation. Which is why her interview with Fareed Zakaria yesterday is so interesting. Sure, there are some examples of Condi’s signature lies, such as when she claims the dedicated group to hunt Osama bin Laden–which was shut down between 2005 and 2009, […]
As I noted in an update to my Mushroom Cloud Brigade post, even Univision joined in the torture apologist fun, inviting Alberto Gonzales on to talk about the killing of Osama bin Laden. And Gonzales did defend torture. Jorge Ramos: Mr. Gonzales The New York Times reported that the information that led to the capture […]
I noted this already, but it so exceeds even the abysmal standards of the Sunday show bookers, I’m going to repeat it. To celebrate Mothers Day, the Sunday shows have brought you the Mushroom Cloud Brigade–Condi Rice, Rummy, and Dick Cheney–the three people who, on September 8, 2002 used the Sunday shows to trumpet the […]
One more point about the case of Mohamed Mohamud, the accused bomber from Oregon. A government filing submitted last month addresses the defense’s requests for notes regarding various interactions Mohamud had with the FBI. It describes two sets of hand-written notes from a FBI agent(s). The first are the notes an FBI agent took after […]
All those drones we’ve been dropping on the tribal lands of Pakistan? Well, they must have come close to hitting OBL once before–because a drone in Waziristan apparently killed one of OBL’s daughters. Amongst those left behind by the evacuating Navy Seals were Osama’s three wives, two of them highly educated Saudis, his elder son […]
The Pentagon has released video found at Osama bin Laden’s home. It shows a grey bearded OBL watching images of a black-bearded OBL engaging in jihad. The video has to be less than two years old: note the juxtaposition of images of Obama and Osama at :29. And if this is more recent–that is, if […]
Teddy did a diary this morning on a newly-reported detail in the case of Mohamed Mohamud–the Portland man accused of attempting to set off a bomb. The FBI had contacted him a year earlier than originally disclosed. The first contact with Mohamud the complaint describes took place in June 2010, after Mohamud was prevented from […]
There’s not all that much in this Bob Woodward piece on the raid to get Osama bin Laden that hasn’t already been reported generally elsewhere: just some details about the surveillance leading up to the raid (which I’ll discuss below) and a cute anecdote about how they measured bin Laden’s corpse to make sure it […]