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 was something I appreciated about the Holder press conference capitulating on trying the 9/11 defendants in civilian trials. He didn’t try to spin it as a good idea. Not only did he reiterate his judgment that trying KSM in a civilian trial was the right decision, he also noted that it’s not clear whether […]
Holder: I stand by decision that best venue for prosecution civilian court. Had developed plans for dealing with classified evidence. “Members of Congress have intervened.” Decisions about who, where, to prosecute have always been made by members of Executive Branch. Yet they’ve taken one of the nation’s most tested counter-terrorism tools off the table. We […]
Reports are trickling out that Eric Holder will announce an epic cave this afternoon on his earlier decision to try the 9/11 defendants in civilian courts. Attorney General Eric Holder today will announce that self-proclaimed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammad will be tried in a military commission, CBS News has learned. A source says […]
I’ve been thinking a lot about SWIFT lately. Partly that’s because of the renewed discussion on how some big banks relied on cash from drug cartels to survive as the housing bubble began to pop. Partly that’s because of advance publicity for Nicholas Shaxson’s Treasure Islands and coverage of corporate tax dodging. And partly it’s […]
Last June, Bloomberg did a long story on the Deferred Prosecution Agreement that Wachovia negotiated with DOJ. As “punishment” for helping Mexican drug gangs to launder more than $363 billion through casas de cambios for three years, Wachovia had to pay $50 million fine and a $110 million forfeiture of the proceeds that were clearly […]
Noah Shachtman points to NextGov’s unsuccessful attempt to define how much DOD plans to spend on cybersecurity next year. DOD or its components have offered three different versions: DOD’s mid-February report it would spend $2.3 billion Air Force’s mid-February report it, by itself, would spend $4.6 billion DOD’s March 23 revised report it would spend […]
The University of Wisconsin issued two documents in response to the request for Professor Bill Cronon’s emails: a message from the Chancellor, and a letter from the General Counsel to WI’s GOP. As the GC letter describes, UW has withheld the following documents, among others. 4. Personal communications. The Wisconsin Supreme Court’s decision in Schill, […]
Darrell Issa has no credibility when it comes to matters of transparency. We’ve seen Issa’s rank hypocrisy in the past. He dismissed concerns about Karl Rove doing business on RNC emails as a political stunt. And he suggested that apparently deliberate attempts to dismantle email archives at the White House was all about technology. So […]
This is horrible. Protesters angered by the burning of a Koran by a fringe American pastor in Florida mobbed offices of the United Nations in northern Afghanistan on Friday, killing ten foreign staff members and beheading two of the victims, according to an Afghan police spokesman. Five Afghans were also killed. The attack began when […]
Mark Hosenball, who yesterday broke the news that Obama had issued a Finding authorizing the CIA to operate covertly in Libya in the last 2-3 weeks, today says “intelligence operatives” were on the ground before Obama signed that Finding. U.S. intelligence operatives were on the ground in Libya before President Barack Obama signed a secret […]