Author Archive for: emptywheel
About emptywheel
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.
Entries by emptywheel
Cell Phone Serials
/8 Comments/in FISA/by emptywheelScribe sent me this. It sort of makes you wonder who the NYPD is sharing this database with cell phone serial numbers with, doesn’t it?
The NYPD is amassing a database of cell phone users, instructing cops to log serial numbers from suspects’ phones in hopes of connecting them to past or future crimes.[snip]
A recent internal memo says that when cops make an arrest, they should remove the suspect’s cell phone battery
Sunsets Give Way to Dawn on Section 215
/30 Comments/in FISA, PATRIOT/by emptywheelIn my last post, I showed how Section 215 authority grew over time, potentially in response to legal challenges to other domestic surveillance programs. I’m going to look at what that might mean for the expanded use of 215 authority in 2006 in a later post.
But first, I want to look at one passage in the 2007 IG Report on Section 215 that is relevant to current efforts to reauthorize PATRIOT.
Bush’s Illegal Domestic Surveillance Program and Section 215
/19 Comments/in FISA, PATRIOT/by emptywheelI wanted to turn to the two IG Reports Glenn Fine did on the PATRIOT Act’s Section 215, the section that allows investigators to get business records and other tangible items. (2007 report covering 2002 to 2005; 2008 report covering 2006)
Although we were required to review calendar years 2002 through 2004 in this first review, we elected to include data from calendar year 2005.
Conyers to Holder: Give Us the 215 Info
/21 Comments/in PATRIOT/by emptywheelI guess I’m not the only one who noticed that DOJ is trying to reauthorize Section 215 without leveling with the American people how they’re using it. John Conyer, Jerrold Nadler, and Bobby Scott have written Eric Holder, requesting that he make more information on the way Section 215 is used public.