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.
It has been over 50 days since Scott Bloch, the head of the Office of Special Counsel, sent Bush a letter advising that Lurita Doan be disciplined severely for her violations of the Hatch Act. Yet there she is, still in charge of the government’s credit cards as the Administrator of the GSA.
If Doan weren’t a Bush appointee, her fate would be clear–she would have been fired fifty days ago.
What is it with news outlets and the who, what, why, when, where of briefings? The Hill, in its description of Specter’s 18 hour deadline for the Administration, names neither all the people who briefed Specter (it reveals Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell was one of the briefers) nor all the people who got briefed (“other Senators,” Specter says).
Actually, Dick’s comments about Libby are actually pretty interesting, so I thought I’d give them their own post. [My transcription.]
CBS: Have you spoken to your former top aide since his verdict?
Dick: I have.
CBS: Can you tell us anything about that conversation?
Dick: No. I’ve seen him socially on a number of occasions.
CBS:
There’s something particularly nice about this timing. First comes the news that Representative Jay Inslee will submit a resolution to start an impeachment investigation against Alberto Gonzales. My favorite part is that the resolution (unlike recent resolutions for censure) calls for an investigation, which would give us enhanced claim on subpoena power and a megaphone to explain Gonzales’ crimes to the American people.
RESOLUTION
Directing the Committee on the Judiciaryto investigate whether Alberto
Actually, my biggest complaint about this letter, from John Conyers, Jerrold Nadler, and Robert Scott, is that they don’t use the word “Data-Mining.”
We read with interest the disclosures in yesterday’s New York Times and Washington Postthat a 2004 dispute over the NSA’s secret surveillance program whichled to threatened resignations by Department officials involved a“massive electronic database†program.
Oh, this one merits an entire blogger ethics conference. So you’ve got the announcement for a rare public interview of a very important person.
Former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan, who helped shapethe nation’s economic and monetary policy for almost 19 years, talksabout the people he met, the issues he faced and the crises he helpedmanage during five different administrations.
This is just a quick post to register two disagreements with Glenn Greenwald’s post claiming the NYT’s data-mining story is a shiny object. First, Glenn claims that the stories were floated by “anonymous sources seeking to protect Alberto Gonzales” and “anonymous pro-Bush sources.” But then he goes on to point out that the NYT story (unlike the WaPo story) includes a detail–which I pointed out in my post on the story–that
Commenter joejoejoe sent me a superb timeline to show the chronology of Congress’ building opposition to the Total Information Awareness program as it relates to the NSA’s domestic wiretap program (how cool is that? I, the chronology weenie, am getting timelines out of the blue! Better than Christmas!!), which appears at the bottom of this post.
I’d like to pull out just a few salient dates and add four (in bold italics)
I’m thrilled by the news that Democrats intend to call Jack Goldsmith to testify on the domestic wiretap program.
Congressional Democrats plan to step up the heat in coming weeks,pressing for Justice memos and other documents. They also plan to calla potentially crucial witness: Jack L. Goldsmith, the former chief ofJustice’s Office of Legal Counsel.
Marty Lederman’s post on data-mining says what I’ve been trying to say for two years about the NSA program. Contrary to what the NYT and others suggest, we don’t have to look beyond data-mining to find something so horrible that a good conservative like James Comey would object. We just need to get to the point where the US is using data-mining of dubious connections to replace the idea of probable