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.
Apparently, the White House has decided it had one too many adults on its economic recovery board, so now Paul Volcker has been decided to step down. I realize that “has been decided” is not proper grammar, but look at how Reuters refers to this decision: The departure of Volcker as head of the President’s […]
The ACLU has a fascinating letter to Obama pertaining to his signing statement threat. It basically calls his bluff on his “pretend” problems with Congressional restrictions on his ability to close Gitmo. It does this, first of all, by pointing out that the provisions were part of the National Defense Authorization Act, and therefore limit […]
Eli alluded to this in his post on Antonin Scalia’s claim that women and gays are not included under the 14th Amendment, but I wanted to expand on it. Scalia, one of corporate America’s biggest friends on SCOTUS, just killed corporate personhood. What other conclusion can you draw after reading Scalia’s assertion that the 14th […]
The US government has a long history of refusing to turn over evidence on its torture program, most recently when DOJ refused to cooperate with a Polish inquiry into the black site at which Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times. So it’s no surprise that they are refusing to turn over the remains of […]
Robert Gibbs has made it official: he’s leaving the White House. (Applause!!!) Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary and close confidante to President Obama, said Wednesday that he will step down and become an outside political adviser to the president and his re-election campaign. [snip] Mr. Gibbs will remain part of the president’s inner […]
A number of outlets are reporting on the OMB memo requiring agencies to review their security procedures in response to WikiLeaks. Now, this memo is explicitly a response to WikiLeaks. It’s a follow-up on a memo sent in November that names WikiLeaks. On November 28, 2010, departments and agencies that handle classified national security information […]
I highlighted the NYT editorial that criticized Peter King’s planned hearing to fearmonger against Muslims the other day. In spite of the fact that the NYT backed off of highlighting King’s own ties to terrorism, instead focusing on how he ultimately helped to serve peace, King nevertheless responded in predictable fashion: In an interview with […]
Eight years ago I went to a conference for young breast cancer survivors. It was pretty useful to be around a bunch of other women who, like me, had been diagnosed with breast cancer in their twenties and thirties. It was also useful to hear doctors who had actually thought about things like long term […]
Robert Chesney had an interesting observation about the inter-agency group Dafna Linzer reports is working on some kind of statement with regards to Congress’ restrictions on Obama’s ability to move detainees from Gitmo to the US: the apparent non-participation of DOD in the group. Second, and perhaps relatedly, note that the story also describes the interagency […]
Remember the entire point of Karl Rove’s plot to fire a bunch of US Attorneys and replace them with partisan hacks? It was to advance the political career of the new USAs. Perhaps his most prominent success on that measure is Chris Christie. Though Christie abandons his state even in the face of blizzards–and then […]