Entries by emptywheel

Online Personas and Congress

I’ve been meaning to return to our government’s contracting for persona software for a while. Last week RawStory had a good story providing details of the persona management contract the Air Force put out for bid. RS reveals that the contract was awarded to Ntrepid, a firm in LA with the kind of website that […]

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Nine Years of Nudity in American Detention

It’s just like old times! … the CIA interrogators also announced they planned to become Zubaydah’s “God.” They reportedly took his clothing as punishment, and reduced his human interaction to a single daily visit in which they would say simply, “You know what I want,” and then leave. Jane Mayer, The Dark Side In addition […]

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We Have Met the Enemy and He Is Us

The stated intent of the Wikileaks.org Web site is to expose unethical practices, illegal behavior, and wrongdoing within corrupt corporations and oppressive regimes … [snip] The developers believe that the disclosure of sensitive or classified information involving a foreign government or corporation will eventually result in the increased accountability of a democratic, oppressive, or corrupt […]

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Will DOJ Finally Finish Its “Review” of Faulty White Paper on Illegal Wiretapping on Monday?

Steven Aftergood reports that, as of December 10, DOJ was still “reviewing” the flawed January 2006 white paper that the Bush Administration used to retroactively claim the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force also authorized Bush to ignore FISA. In June 2009, Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) asked the Obama Administration to rescind certain classified legal […]

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Time to Reevaluate the Importance of Bradley Manning’s Alleged Leak?

Back when WikiLeaks leaked the Collateral Murder video, I was agnostic about the value of the leak. Surely, exposing the cover-up of the killing of the Reuters journalists was important. But I thought the response focused too much on the soldiers who had been trained to respond the way they had, and too little on […]

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Will Issa’s Fired Spokesperson Expose How Politico “Wins the Morning”?

When news broke yesterday that Darrell Issa had fired his spokesperson, Kurt Bardella, for sharing emails with NYT reporter Mark Leibovich, I suggested, I suspect Issa just fired his spokesperson because Issa cares more about staying in the good graces of Politico than NYT. #WinTheMorning It was John Harris’ complaint that his reporters’ emails had […]

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Liar Calls Access Journalist a Pot

Even before Tom Ricks handed his blog over to Bob Woodward to rip Donald Rumsfeld a new asshole, Ricks shared this quote from H.R. Haldeman about Rummy as a way to introduce Rummy’s dismissal of Ricks’ Fiasco and Woodward’s books. So in my research on the Vietnam War I was paging through H.R. Haldeman’s diaries […]

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American Girl, Made in China, The Reality Show

This is a really cool project. ABC’s World News has a series this week on whether or not a typical upper middle class family can survive without consumer goods made in America. It includes: Footage of a bunch of Americans claiming to buy America ABC’s news team going through the house of one family–the Usrys–and […]

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Bob Woodward, Blogger

Let me just say, without qualification, that of the high profile journalists whose techniques were discussed or entered as evidence in the Scooter Libby trial, Bob Woodward had the best note taking. Judy Miller, Matt Cooper, Bob Novak, Andrea Mitchell (and, I’m sure, Marcy Wheeler)? They all were put to shame by Bob Woodward’s exactitude […]

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