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.
In a post I’ll write some day, I will show how the WikiLeaks cables show that every time a partner government threatens to use the high tech intelligence toys we share with it–notably our telecommunication wiretapping–to spy on domestic opponents, the Obama Administration makes a very concerted effort to disavow such efforts (if not end […]
At some point the courts are going to have start calling bullshit on the government’s transparent attempts to use State Secrets to hide embarrassing information. From Charlie Savage, we have the story of Kevin Shipp, who tried to sue the CIA for all the medical problems his family suffered from being housed in a house […]
The Chamber of Commerce has responded to ThinkProgress’ reporting of the Chamber’s discussions with Hunton & Williams about an intelligence campaign against USChamberWatch and other anti-Chamber efforts. It purports to deny any connection with Hunton & Williams and HBGary. More Baseless Attacks on the Chamber by Tom Collamore We’re incredulous that anyone would attempt to […]
[Ed: Read the documents about the US Chamber’s plan to spy on unions.] I noted yesterday how mind-numbingly ignorant analysis of Glenn Greenwald’s motivation as a careerist hack that was provided by HBGary. And if the allegations in the excerpts of former WikiLeaks volunteer Daniel Domscheit-Berg’s book are accurate, HBGary’s analysis about WikiLeaks itself is […]
After successfully petitioning the court to unseal them, EFF has posted the motion to vacate, motion to unseal court records, and motion to unseal motions it filed in the government’s effort to get Twitter information on several people in its investigation of WikiLeaks. The first motion to unseal has a detail I didn’t know before: […]
DDay and Zach Carter both reported yesterday on the NY Fed’s conclusion that the 2005 Bankruptcy Bill had pushed an extra 200,000 people into foreclosure. Here’s Zach: Economists at the New York Federal Reserve have concluded that a controversial 2005 law backed by banks and credit card companies pushed more than 200,000 people into foreclosure […]
Wikileaks has posted the presentation three security companies–Palantir, HBGary Federal, and Berico Technologies–made to Bank of America, proposing to help it respond to Wikileaks. In addition to the degree to which the proposal emphasizes the national security ties and military background of the employees of the company (particularly Berico), the presentation fleshes out what the […]
On Saturday, private security firm HBGary Federal bragged to the FT that it had discovered who key members of the hacking group Anonymous are. In response, Anonymous hacked HB Gary Federal and got 44,000 of their emails and made them publicly available. You believe that you can sell the information you’ve found to the FBI? […]
There’s Matt, who froze Gul Rahman to death in the Salt Pit. Paul, his boss and the CIA Station Chief of Afghanistan, who ignored Matt’s requests for more help at the prison. There’s Albert, who staged a mock execution of Rahim al-Nashiri, and his boss, Ron, the Station Chief in Poland, who witnessed the forbidden […]
Donald Rumsfeld, channeling Julian Assange, has now made the database of documents accompanying his book available. As Spencer notes, making these documents available is largely self-serving; a way for Rummy to point to early moments of reflection that were followed by later moments of rash stupidity or lies. To put it uncharitably: when you’ve got […]