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.
The buzz today focuses on John McCain’s latest gaff: in his weekly Sunday show appearance with Christiane Amanpour yesterday, he claimed that iPhones and iPads are made in the US. Host Christiane Amanpour spoke about her network’s project to empty a house of goods that are not made overseas. McCain responded: “I think it’s obviously […]
In January, I did a timeline of the key dates revealed in Manning’s July 6, 2010 charging document. I wanted to put the timeline laid out in yesterday’s charging document side-by-side with the earlier one to identify what new details there are, presumably showing us what the government has learned since July, as well as […]
Charlie Savage just tweeted that the Abu Ghraib tactics will continue for Bradley Manning. Quantico tells me Bradley Manning will now be stripped every night as a “precautionary measure” to prevent self-injury Remember, Manning was already being forced to sleep in his underwear. When PFC Manning goes to sleep, he is required to strip down […]
On February 4, Dennis Kucinich asked DOD to allow him to visit Bradley Manning so he could assess his conditions of confinement. On February 8, Robert Gates wrote Kucinich a short note telling him we was referring his request to Secretary of the Army, John McHugh. In a letter dated February 24–but apparently not received […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Aside from learning that we–the recipients of a bunch of information Bradley Manning is alleged to have leaked–are the enemy, what did we learn from the new charges the government filed against Bradley Manning yesterday? Most of the charges say the information Manning allegedly leaked were of a nature that they would bring discredit upon […]
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 […]
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 […]