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 Bureau of Investigative Journalism says there are 14 incidences recorded in today’s Wikileaks dump alleging that Blackwater fired on Iraqi citizens (their site appears to be overloaded, so be persistent). Two years before Nisour Square, on May 14 2005, the logs allege that Blackwater shot at a civilian car. The shooting reportedly killed the driver, […]
Le Monde did this graphic of the what kind of deaths the Wikileaks document dump records happening when (blue are American soldiers killed–darker–or injured; green are civilians killed or injured). In an article on another revelation in the Wikieaks document–tracing several more incidents of civilian deaths caused by a helicopter using the same call sign […]
Al Jazeera has this video and the Guardian a story on Frago 242, which both outlets say is one of the most alarming revelation in Wikileaks’ new document dump. From the Guardian: This is the impact of Frago 242. A frago is a “fragmentary order” which summarises a complex requirement. This one, issued in June […]
As you’ve no doubt heard, the right wing conspiracy does exist. As the NYT reported the other day, the Koch brothers host semi-annual secret get-togethers to strategize with other rich conservatives and media people about how to advance their views. The participants in Aspen dined under the stars at the top of the gondola run […]
I have been pretty critical of Obama’s appointment of James Clapper to be Director of National Intelligence. And while I still have my concerns about Clapper’s close ties to the Intelligence Industrial Complex, I am heartened by Steven Aftergood’s report that Clapper continues to express a willingness to allow GAO to review intelligence functions. DNI […]
I’m happy to see Juan Williams and his crappy analysis gone from NPR. But the whole ruckus over Juan Williams’ firing from NPR over his admission that he does a double take when he sees people dressed in obviously Muslim garb is missing a key point. Williams says he gets anxious when he sees people […]
Something has been nagging me about this HuffPo description of HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan’s briefing on the foreclosure crisis the other day. It’s the revelation that, in a review started in May, the government had found that foreclosure servicers are not complying with FHA requirements that servicers attempt to modify loans before they foreclose on […]
I’ve got a slightly different take than DDay on the news that Fidelity just established a policy requiring lenders to warrant all foreclosure sales going forward. Fidelity National Financial Inc., the largest U.S. title insurer by market share, will require lenders to sign a warranty assuring their paperwork is sound before backing sales of foreclosed […]
I’m not surprised by this–but I simply don’t understand how the Obama Administration can claim they haven’t found anything fundamentally flawed (though that could be HuffPo’s formulation) when thousands of people have been thrown out of their homes based on documents whose signers falsely attested to those documents. U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun […]
I wanted to return to yesterday’s report on the investigation in the Khost bombing. As I noted, the CIA had advance warning that Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi might be a double agent. The report also found a number of other operational problems in al-Balawi’s treatment. But Leon Panetta decided not to hold anyone responsible for […]