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.
As we wait with bated breath to find out whether Obama or Stanley McChrystal wins this little war of big ego, some of the discussion has been focused on whether Obama can succeed in Afghanistan without McChrystal’s leadership (particularly given the way he has gamed alliances with Karzai and the British). But let’s look at […]
The breaking news this hour is the decision of Judge Martin L. C. Feldman of the Eastern District of Louisiana to grant a preliminary injunction to the moving plaintiff oil and gas interests and against the Obama Administration’s six month moratorium on deepwater drilling for oil in the Gulf of Mexico. It is a bad decision.
Politico reports that Stanley McChrystal saw today’s big Rolling Stone article before it was published but didn’t object to anything in it (and the Hill reports there was even more devastating trash talk that was off the record). Rolling Stone’s executive editor on Tuesday said that Gen. Stanley McChrystal did not raise any objections to […]
The Toobz are a-tizzy this morning with a Rolling Stone article revealing that Stanley McChrystal said mean things about Joe Biden–both publicly and behind his back. Last fall, during the question-and-answer session following a speech he gave in London, McChrystal dismissed the counterterrorism strategy being advocated by Vice President Joe Biden as “shortsighted,” saying it […]
The Supreme Court today ruled largely with the government in a case broadly interpreting the material support statute. At issue was whether human rights groups could work with organizations on the Foreign Terrorist Organization list in pursuit of humanitarian or non-violent goals. More broadly, SCOTUS reviewed whether things like providing expert advice to designated terrorist […]
I just got back from driving across the rust belt – Syracuse, Buffalo, Cleveland, Toledo, MI – and am catching up on all the interesting conversations you’ve been having this week while I was celebrating my mom’s birthday (thanks, once again, to bmaz for watching the liquor cabinet while I was gone). So for the […]
Main Justice reports that Pat Leahy and DOJ’s Inspector General Glenn Fine have been chatting about further IG review of the FBI’s use of the several PATRIOT provisions that were contentious issues in last years attempt to reauthorize the PATRIOT Act. This means that Fine is going to do what the legislation would have mandated–conduct […]