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.
Katrina vanden Heuvel set off the twitters with this: WH (& others) indicate Elizabeth Warren 2 be nominated next week to head Consumer Financial Protection Agency. Kudos 2 all who worked 4 her. While I agree with vanden Heuvel that those who have worked thus far to make sure Warren gets the position deserve kudos, […]
Not only did our Kangaroo Court in Gitmo decide that it’s okay to threaten teeenaged boys with rape to get them to confess, but it also announced that the sentence for Ibrahim al Qosi would remain sealed until he was released. In one courtroom, Air Force Lt. Col. Nancy Paul, a military judge, announced that […]
Carol Rosenberg tweets: Omar Khadr’s military judge just ruled that ALL of his confessions from Afghanistan to #Guantanamo will go to trial. None suppressed. The Toronto-born captive’s defense had wanted his interrogations excluded on grounds they were not voluntary. Col. Patrick Parrish disagreed #Khadr‘s war court judge also agreed to use at trial a homemade […]
You all know I’m a big fan of the work Tim Shorrock has done to track the dangers of the privatization of the intelligence industrial complex. Today, he kicks off an ongoing relationship with the Daily Beast–so now we can read at the Daily Beast what the WaPo will cover in two years in warmed-over […]
Back in May, the DC Circuit decided that detainees at Bagram Air Force base were not entitled to habeas corpus because, since the base is in an active war zone, it would be unduly burdensome for the government to hold a real hearing. I’m wondering if the DC Circuit would like to rethink that decision? […]
Steven Aftergood has an important update on the continuing saga of whether or not GAO can conduct investigations of intelligence activities. He explores the source of current restrictions on GAO review: a 1988 OLC opnion written by Douglas Kmiec. The current dispute between the Obama Administration and some members of Congress over whether to strengthen […]
There was a fair amount of attention to Vaughn Walker’s scathing dismissal of professional anti-gay “scholar” David Blankenhorn’s testimony in the Prop 8 trial. The court now determines that Blankenhorn’s testimony constitutes inadmissible opinion testimony that should be given essentially no weight. But I’ve seen little commentary on the fate to which Walker consigned Dr. […]
You should read two pieces in conjunction this morning. First, this Andy Worthington piece from last week, that lays out new details on the black site CIA used in Poland in 2002-2003. On Friday, the Polish Border Guard Office released a number of documents to the Warsaw-based Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, which, for the […]
Nine years ago today, George W Bush was informed that “Al Qaeda [was] determined to strike in US.” And then he went out to clear more brush at his pig farm in Crawford. Obama is showing no such presidential manliness in the second year of his term. Yesterday, his Justice Department actually indicted 14 of […]
Tuesday, Philip Shenon reported that Wikileaks wanted the Defense Department’s help reviewing the next batch of documents it will release for names that should be redacted. Julian Assange wants the Pentagon’s help. His secretive WikiLeaks website tells The Daily Beast it is making an urgent request to the Defense Department for help reviewing 15,000 still-secret […]