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.
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 […]
Remember the allegation that guards in Gitmo had flushed a Koran (which turned out to be false)? Well, DOJ Inspector General’s annual report of civil rights violations committed by DOJ employees includes this allegation from a federal prison inmate. A Muslim inmate alleged that a BOP correctional officer disposed of his Koran and personal letters […]
Back in 2008, David Rose had a fairly explosive article on Condi Rice and Elliot Abrams’ incompetent meddling in Gaza, which he compared to Iran-Contra. Here’s how I summarized its revelations at the time: The story explains how the Administration pushed an election for the Palestinians, not seeing what every sane observer saw–that Hamas would […]
[youtube]SKL254Y_jtc[/youtube] In Trash Talk, bmaz wrote about a “lunchpail” Superbowl, pitting two teams named after people who make things against each other: the Steelworkers versus the Meatpackers. And the game ended appropriately, with a team owned by the people of a small city, having gone to a monstrous stadium as much a tribute to one […]
On Saturday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told attendees at a security conference that our torturer, Egyptian Vice President Omar Suleiman, should manage the transition to democracy in Egypt. She backed off that stance yesterday. CBS White House Correspondent Mark Knoller: On flight home from Germany, Secy of State Clinton says “we cannot and would not […]
Alan Simpson claims he misspoke back in August when he called Social Security “a milk cow with 310 million tits.” He explains, “I meant to say that America was a milk cow with 300 million teats, and not just Social Security.” Oh. Okay. So Social Security is not the only way we suck at our […]
The key to understanding Omar Suleiman’s statement claiming there is “consensus” in how to move forward in Egypt is to see how he redefines the crisis from being caused by legitimate grievances voiced by the “youth” involved in protests into a lack of security caused by the protests. All participants of the dialogue arrived at […]