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.
When Jim Comey testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, he refused to say the warrantless wiretap program was illegal.
SPECTER: Well, you don’t have to.
If the certification by theDepartment of Justice as to legality is required as a matter of law,and that is not done, and the program goes forward, it’s illegal.
MoveOn has a hot new ad in today’s NYT pointing out that Petraeus’ statements differ from all the known metrics out there. And boy has it made Sanctimonious Joe pissed. Not surprisingly, Joe is trying to call in those chits he got for agreeing to caucus with the Democrats in January.
The personal attack on Gen.
BushCo says that–since they haven’t seen Petraeus in a week–they clearly couldn’t have given him a script for today’s hearing.
The White House and its allies on Capitol Hill have pushed back hard atthis critique. Administration officials said they are not directing orreviewing the testimony of Petraeus and Crocker. A senior militaryofficial close to Petraeus said the general’s congressional testimonyhas not been provided to the White House or the Pentagon “and the
No, not to the seniors enrolled in Medicare, silly! To the private insurance companies. Yet another GAO report has found yet another contracting scam that BushCo is ignoring.
Private insurance companies participating in Medicarehave been allowed to keep tens of millions of dollars that should havegone to consumers, and the Bush administration did not properly auditthe companies or try to recover money paid in error, Congressionalinvestigators say in a new report.
What’s remarkable
Does it surprise you that the first company to sign an oil deal with Iraqi Kurds is Hunt Oil, a company with very close ties to Bush and our country’s intelligence infrastructure?
Texas’ Hunt Oil Co. and Kurdistan’s regional government saidSaturday they’ve signed a production-sharing contract for petroleumexploration in northern Iraq, the first such deal since the Kurdspassed their own oil and gas law in August.A Hunt subsidiary,Hunt Oil Co.
This Eric Lichtblau article provides a lot of dots that have been, heretofore, missing in our picture of the surveillance they’ve got us under. It’s no surprise the government has been using data mining on not just suspects themselves, but also on their friends and associates–a virtual “Friends and Families” plan of surveillance.
WTF is the Administration doing, claiming it has briefed members of Congress on the warrantless wiretap program when it hasn’t?
After the domestic surveillance program was revealed in 2005, formerSenate Intelligence Committee Chairman Bob Graham (D-FL) said thatWhite House briefings that he attended in the Vice President’s office failed to disclose that the administration was spying on Americans:
There was no reference made to the fact that we weregoing to…begin unwarranted, illegal —
Brad Schlozman remains unresponsive on a few of the questions he (finally) returned to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Take this question that asks for very specific details about any conversations he had with Mike Elston about indictments in WD MO:
Did you speak with Michael Elston regarding any other indictments filed while you were U.S.
Mcjoan has a post on how the DOJ intervened all of a sudden into the FCC’s consideration of Net Neutrality. As she points out, there’s something unusual about DOJ’s intervention: it came after the comment period had closed.
It was a curious filing, as IP Democracy’s Cynthia Brumfield describes:
What’s curious about the filing is that, first, it’s an ex parte, orlate, submission in the FCC’s Inquiry on Broadband Practices, mostcommonly known
Well, I guess that’ll make it harder to prosecute General Petraeus for lying to Congress.
In the latest twist to the ongoing saga over the Petraeus White House report, a senior military official tells the Washington Times today that there will actually be no report at all:
A senior military officer said there will be nowritten presentation to the president on security and stability inIraq.