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.
I wanted to put a few details about what happened to Bradley Manning in January together. The other day Manning’s lawyer, David Coombs, revealed he had been about to file a habeas petition when DOD suddenly decided to move Manning to Fort Leavenworth (where he arrived last night). At issue was a meeting that occurred […]
DOD has filed charges against Abd al Rahim al-Nashiri, the alleged mastermind of the USS Cole bombing. (h/t jl) The Department of Defense announced today that military commissions prosecutors have sworn charges against Abd al Rahim Hussayn Muhammad al Nashiri of Saudi Arabia. The chief prosecutor has recommended that the charges against Nashiri be referred […]
Back on March 11, in response to Jake Tapper’s question whether he agreed with PJ Crowley’s judgment that Bradley Manning’s treatment was “ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid,” President Obama said the Pentagon had assured him that the treatment met DOD standards. Tapper: The State Department Spokesman PJ Crowley said the treatment of Bradley Manning by […]
Back in January, long-time Pentagon reporter Jim Miklaszewski caused a stir when he published a story with two big scoops. First, that investigators had been unable to tie Bradley Manning to Julian Assange. More importantly, Miklaszewski cited “military officials” saying that Brig Commander James Averhart had improperly put Manning on suicide watch on January 18. […]
The Air Force is using stimulus dollars to rebuild some family housing at Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska. Since they’re using stimulus dollars, they have to get a waiver for anything they say they can’t source to an American company. Among the list of items that can’t be sourced in America? Screws: 1″ Collated […]
The Independent reveals what we’ve always known: the Iraq War was about oil. Or rather, there were significant discussions in Fall 2002–the period when the US and UK were busy lying us into war–about who would get Iraq’s oil. (h/t Susie) The article describes BP’s judgment that Iraq was “the big oil prospect. BP is […]
There’s something deeply ironic about the beltway’s most tawdry purveyor of the Village narrative, Politico (“Win the morning™”), treating former State Department Spokesperson PJ Crowley’s investment in a strategic narrative dismissively. Ben Smith seems like he has never heard of something called “a narrative” or, on a larger scale, “ideology” before. Secretary of State Hillary […]
Michelle Shephard reports on an effort Omar Khadr’s military lawyers are making to win clemency for their client. (h/t JL) Much of it focuses on the role psychiatrist Michael Welner, who testified that his interview with Khadr proved he’d never give up violence, played. As Jeff Kaye showed at the time, Welner’s report on Khadr […]
On Saturday, I described how the democratically-elected government of Benton Harbor, a poor, segregated MI city about an hour south of me, lost its power to the city’s Emergency Financial Manager. There are two parts of the story that I didn’t explain, which this post from wizardkitten does well. First, the EFM law goes back […]
The NYT has what I assume to be a bizarre form of beat sweetener on Goldman Sachs today. It spends most of 1,300 words speculating on who might replace CEO Lloyd Blankfein if he were to step down, exploring three possible candidates in depth. But here’s the explanation for why they think such speculation appropriate: […]