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.
Omar Khadr is set to go on trial starting Monday, August 9. Today, his brother went free in Canada. A judge ruled that he could not be extradited to the US because the confessions on which his extradition request was based had been collected when he was illegally held and interrogated in Pakistan. Abdullah Khadr […]
You know how the Defendant-Intervenors submitted a premature request for a stay in the Prop 8 case yesterday? Well, the plaintiffs have now asked Judge Walker not to issue a stay without giving plaintiffs a time to weigh in. Dear Chief Judge Walker: I write on behalf of Plaintiffs in response to the obviously premature […]
So after a last minute dance with three Republican holds, James Clapper is poised to be confirmed as Director of National Intelligence. As I noted before, this means someone most Senators either have or have had concerns about will be approved by big numbers to head our intelligence community. But the more important story about […]
The ACLU and CCR just had a conference call to talk about their suit challenging the licensing scheme the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Asset Control uses to prevent lawyers from representing those on OFAC’s designated terrorist list. Much of the discussion pertained to whether Anwar al-Awlaki could be legitimately considered an enemy combatant given […]
Some weeks ago, the ACLU and Center for Constitutional Rights had planned to sue the government on behalf of Anwar al-Awlaki’s father. But in remarkable bit of timing, the government designated Awlaki a specially designated terrorist, meaning ACLU and CCR would have to get a “license” before they could engage in a transaction like legal […]
This is a rather stunning suggestion coming from the chief apologist for the guy who ordered Valerie Plame’s identity to be exposed. The United States should make clear that it will not tolerate any country — and particularly NATO allies such as Belgium and Iceland — providing safe haven for criminals who put the lives […]
That guy who used to use parliamentary maneuvers to be an out-and-out shit and get a lot of credibility for being a “Maverick”? He’s back. Sen. John McCain might delay confirmation of President Obama’s next national intelligence director, a spokesperson said Sunday. McCain is awaiting a report, content unspecified, that will determine whether he will […]
Adam Schiff–a CA Democrat (!)–just filed a bill aiming to not only give prosecutors 4 days to question “terror suspects” before bringing them to court, but also expressing the will of Congress to let them delay Mirandizing suspects “as long as is necessary.” The bill filed Thursday by Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) would change federal […]
As expected, SSCI just approved James Clapper’s nomination to be DNI. Surprisingly, though, there were no dissenters. Not Russ Feingold, with his worries about transparency on DOD covert ops. Not Tom Coburn, who was concerned about the timing of Clapper’s nomination (and who never met an obstructive tactic he didn’t like). Not even Kit Bond, […]
I don’t mean to be churlish. After all, Jay Rockefeller tried to conduct some kind of oversight over Bush’s illegal wiretap program. He even went so far as to write out by hand a letter to Dick Cheney telling him the wiretap program sounded like the data mining the Senate was in the process of […]