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.
Data octopus. That’s how one European Parliament official described the US’ continued grab for unfettered access to more and more European data. (h/t WM) “The Americans want to blackmail us,” said an agitated Alexander Alvaro, home affairs spokesman of the Germany’s Free Democratic Party (FDP) in the European Parliament. The Americans have become “like a […]
Because that’s just how these carefully crafted bills are treated by Presidents guarding their Executive Power. DDay pointed me to the signing statement that Obama issued in conjunction with the new Intelligence Authorization. There are three key points, IMO. Presidents still control all the secrets One thing Obama does is reaffirm the President’s right to […]
The usual suspects are out wailing that Judge Lewis Kaplan’s order, excluding the testimony of Hussein Abebe from Ahmed Ghailani’s trial, proves civilian courts don’t work for terrorism. Glenn rounds up more of the whiners and notes that you really can’t complain about Kaplan’s decision and still claim to believe in rule of law. I […]
Jeebus: Goldsmith may be getting a hang of this blogging thing, but I’m not: John Rizzo, not John Brennan. So the stuff I originally said about Brennan doesn’t make any sense. I may not always agree with Jack Goldsmith, but he’s getting a hang of this blogging thing. Today, he posts the answer John Brennan […]
Given that our President now holds that he has the authority to assassinate US Citizens with no due process–and he doesn’t have to explain that authority to any court–it should be no surprise that the DC District Court has upheld its earlier decision dismissing the suit of a filed by the families of a bunch […]
As DDay noted, it looks like we’ll finally have an intelligence authorization bill. The bill is a partial win for Speaker Pelosi, as it makes full briefing to the Intelligence Committees within six months of the start of a program the default (though the Administration can still avoid doing so if it provides written rationale). […]
The reporting on the latest torture documents released in Binyam Mohamed’s suit in the UK is damning enough (Beeb, Guardian). They show the highest levels of the British government–up to and including Tony Blair–were getting warnings that Americans were using torture within six months of 9/11. Yet they placed those warnings aside so they could […]
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, […]