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.
At first, when I read this story describing how Hamid Karzai’s government is insisting that a bunch of security contractors pay back taxes before he’ll recertify them to work in Afghanistan, I though it was just out of a desire to get rid of contractors. The Afghan government issued its unexpected tax demand last month, […]
Yesterday, the Center for Public Integrity revealed the contents of a secret FBI memo treating a top ABC journalist–who turned out to be Christopher Isham (currently CBS’ DC bureau chief)–as a confidential source for a claim that Iraq’s intelligence service had helped Timothy McVeigh bomb the Murrah Federal Building. Isham claims he alerted the FBI […]
As I have posted several times, the response to WikiLeaks has ignored one entity that bears some responsibility for the leaks: DOD’s IT. Back in 2008, someone introduced malware to DOD’s computer systems. In response, DOD announced it would no longer allow the use of removable media in DOD networks. Yet that is precisely how […]
One of the most intriguing details of the Khalid Sheikh Mohammed indictment is this entry: 126. On or about July 23, 2001, in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, KHALID SHEIKH MOHAMMED applied for a U.S.-entry visa, using the name “Abdulrahman A.A. Al-Ghamdi,” which application was denied. That’s interesting for a number of reasons. Such a reference doesn’t […]
I’ve written two posts on the software that Bradley Manning is alleged to have loaded onto SIPRNet (here, here). Wired has now gotten a little more detail about what the software was: DOD says it was some kind of data mining software, though they won’t say of what kind. Wired goes on to suggest that […]
As Eric Holder said, he had the December 14, 2009 indictment of KSM and the other 9/11 defendants unsealed. Here is the indictment. Page 3: Note in their description of why al Qaeda targeted the US, they make no mention of Palestinians, even though they were mentioned explicitly in the Fatwa? Page 3: Note the […]
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 […]