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.
Glenn Greenwald catches the Democrats preparing to cave to Administration demands for retroactive immunity for the telecoms.
Mr. McConnell argued on Tuesday that the expanded surveillancepowers granted under the temporary measure should be made permanent.
Healso pushed for a provision that would grant legal immunity to thetelecommunications companies that secretly cooperated with the N.S.A.on the warrantless program.
The WaPo reveals that the White House pulled the Clement-Keisler headfake with no input from DOJ.
While Mukasey’s nomination is pending, the Justice Departmentwill be run by former civil division chief Peter D. Keisler, aconservative appointee who this week was a surprise replacement in thatrole for Solicitor General Paul D. Clement.Clement, who was publicly tagged last month as the temporaryreplacement for Gonzales, wound up officially taking the helm at 12:01a.m.
The WaPo has more on the logic behind the refusal of the 13 Congressmen subpoenaed yesterday to testify.
As required by House rules, the subpoenas were read into theCongressional Record late Monday evening. John D. Filamor, assistantHouse counsel, wrote Geragos on Sept. 6 to object to the subpoenas,citing House rules that forbid members from testifying in judicialproceedings unless their testimony is “material and relevant.”
Filamor also cited the “speech or debate” clause of
My buddy Pinch Sulzberger wrote me today. He said:
We are ending TimesSelect, effective today.
The Times’s Op-Edand news columns are now available free of charge, along with TimesFile and News Tracker. In addition, The New York Times online Archiveis now free back to 1987 for all of our readers.
Why the change?
Sincewe launched TimesSelect, the Web has evolved into an increasingly openenvironment.
Two days ago Iraq said it was kicking Eric Prince and his mercenary thugs out of Iraq. Yesterday, Iraq said it would review all the mercenary thugs (and legitimate security entities) to see if they could stay in Iraq. And today, the US announces a curb on land-based civilian travel.
The United States on Tuesday suspended all land travel by U.S.
The AP has the list of Congressmen whom Brent Wilkes has subpoenaed to appear at his trial. There are virtually no surprises on the list–all are either former or current Chairs of the Committees that knew of Wilkes’ behavior and/or noted earmarkers in their own right. Here’s why I think each person was subpoenaed.
Duncan Hunter, R-CA:
Following on yesterday’s announcement that it was withdrawing the license of Blackwater, Iraq’s government has announced it will review all the security contractors doing business in Iraq.
The Iraqi government said today that it would review the status of all foreign and local security companies working in Iraq after a shooting that left eight Iraqis dead.
I’m as skeptical as I was yesterday that this is going to achieve anything.
Remember that banana scandal, where a high-powered Republican lawyer advised Chiquita to go on paying right wing terrorists even though it was a felony? Where said high-powered Republican lawyer alleged that Michael Chertoff–the guy now in charge of protecting our country–told him that he could go on funding terrorists so long as he also cooperated with Administration investigations of the terrorists?
Back in June, the Bush Administration invited one of AT&T’s key lobbyists, Ed Gillespie, to serve as White House counselor. A few weeks after that, BushCo expanded AT&T’s resident lobbyist’s role to include most of Karl Rove’s portfolio. Just days after Gillespie took over that role, the DOJ made an unusual intervention into the FCC’s request for comments on Net Neutrality, weighing against Net Neutrality.
Well today, one of AT&T’s former key
Well, faced with losing his job, Michael Drake found a way to un-un-hire Erwin Chemerinsky.
UC Irvine Chancellor Michael V. Drake and Erwin Chemerinsky havereached an agreement that will return the liberal legal scholar to thedean’s post at the university’s new law school, the universityannounced this morning.
With the deal, they hope to end the controversy that erupted whenChemerinsky was dropped as the first dean of the Donald Bren School ofLaw.