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.
In my review of Tim Shorrock’s important Spies for Hire, I summarized one of the most important parts of the narrative he tells in the book. Shorrock describes, for example, [Mike] McConnell’s key role in the formation of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance (INSA), a trade organization that serves as a bridge between large […]
Remember that important NYT story from early this year describing the growing number of Americans whose sole income consists of food stamps? About six million Americans receiving food stamps report they have no other income, according to an analysis of state data collected by The New York Times. In declarations that states verify and the […]
Pages 100-102 of the Jay Bybee Transcript are worth reading closely, not least for the way Jay Bybee tries to shift the focus of discussion on torture from “severe physical or mental pain or suffering” to “prolonged mental harm” to avoid the obvious fact that CIA and DOJ approved extended sleep deprivation without having any […]
When Jerry Nadler asked Jay Bybee whether or not it would legal to disappear someone for three years, the Appeals Court Judge refused to answer, saying he might have to rule on such an issue. Nadler: Let’s assume you had been asked the question, would it be legal to keep people incommunicado in solitary confinement […]
On May 26, the House Judiciary Committee interviewed Jay Bybee about the circumstances that went into the Bybee Memos authorizing torture. Here’s the transcript of that interview. I’m going to read them in depth, but for now I wanted to point out this detail. Bybee confirmed that a number of techniques reportedly used on CIA […]
Okay, this is one for the ages. Karl Rove is out today with what is presumably an excerpt from his book, revealing his biggest mistake. He doesn’t verbalize what that mistake is, really. Rather, he bitches about a list of Democrats. But the initial complaint appears to be that on July 15, 2003, Ted Kennedy […]
Remember Liz Fowler? The former WellPoint VP whom William Ockham noted was the literal author of the health care reform bill? I’m sure you’ll be thrilled to learn that WellPoint’s former VP will be in charge of consumer issues and oversight as our country implements the WellPoint/Liz Fowler health insurance bill. (h/t Glenn Greenwald) Liz […]
Judge Lewis Kaplan has basically concluded that if the government can persuasively argue that government believed the torture necessary at the time, then they can torture a detainee as long as he still has intelligence value without infringing on the detainee’s right to a speedy trial.
At the point in the World Cup when five South American teams had made it to the knockout round and European teams like Italy and England performed badly, I wondered whether this year’s Cup would be a kind of revenge on the IMF. All these South American countries that had spent much of the 80s […]
Don’t get me wrong. I’m happy that–after all these years–someone on the right is calling out Presidents Bush and Obama on their abuse of power (watch the video to hear Andrew Napolitano complain about Obama’s targeting of Anwar al-Awlaki). Nader: Is that what you mean also about throwing people in jail without charges violating habeas […]