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.
Greg Sargent and Steve Benen have interesting taxonomies of the Democrats who should buck up and clap louder. I think both bring some needed nuance to the discussion. As part of that, both include some kind of category of lefties who oppose Obama to defend important principles. Sargent doesn’t limit that category to any one […]
Adam Serwer does a pretty thorough job debunking Obama’s lame effort to defend his civil liberties record. When people start being concerned about, “You haven’t closed Guantánamo yet,” I say, listen, that’s something I wanted to get done by now, and I haven’t gotten done because of recalcitrance from the other side. Frankly, it’s an […]
I’m pretty fascinated by this attempt by one of John Cole’s readers to defend the Administration’s stance on assassinating US citizens. It’s fascinating and not a little disturbing, but it deserves a response, if only to clarify precisely what the problem with the Administration’s filing last Friday is. The reader starts with this: On Al-Awlaki, […]
This article not only describes the hundreds of people who protested FBI raids of peace activists last week, but it provides more detail on what the FBI was looking for. Agents were seeking “evidence relating to activities concerning the material support of terrorism,” the FBI said. Chicago FBI spokesman Ross Rice declined on Monday to […]
I realize some of you who, like me, are sitting right across the pond from Soldier Field might imagine this is just a special NFC North Edition of Monday Night Football Trash Talk. But this is different. I need your help. You see, on Wednesday I leave for a little trip to Scotland with my […]
In my post on the government’s invocation of state secrets to hide the things national security officials have already leaked to the press, I linked to David Ignatius’ largely-overlooked report that Yemen first asked us to target Anwar al-Awlaki, and only thereafter did we get around to targeting him and telling courts they had no […]
I trust it’s not a coincidence that at the same time David Axelrod is skewering Rahm from within the White House, Greg Craig is getting picked up on a live mike (oops!) skewering him from the outside. “The great thing about it, if Rahm goes to run for mayor, is that Eric survived,” Craig said, […]
It seems the Administration has declared today “Power Grab Monday.” Charlie Savage reports that the government is again asking for a “technical fix” (as they have during PATRIOT debates) that extends CALEA to cover all the Toobz. Federal law enforcement and national security officials are preparing to seek sweeping new regulations for the Internet, arguing […]
As I noted yesterday (and Glenn has examined at more length), in addition to asserting that the government can target Anwar al-Awlaki … because they said so, the Obama Administration also invoked state secrets in its motion to dismiss the ACLU/CCR suit challenging targeted killings. The Obama Administration has officially positioned itself to the right […]
The most striking aspect of the government’s motion to dismiss the ACLU/CCR lawsuit challenging the use of targeted killing is that the government does not commit to the basis for its authority to kill an American citizen like Anwar al-Awlaki with no review. This starts as soon as the filing tries to lay the ground […]