The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit seeking the release of government records on drone strikes that killed U.S. citizens in Yemen last year. The suit says the government has failed to adequately respond to Freedom of Information Act requests to disclose the information. The ACLU also says the Obama administration has falsely claimed state secrecy privilege on the drone attacks, citing President Obama's recent public comments defending their use.
"Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who writes the laws. - Mayer Rothschild
"Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience! People are obedient in the face of poverty, starvation, stupidity, war, and cruelty. Our problem is that grand thieves are running the country. That's our problem!" - Howard Zinn
"If there is no struggle there is no progress. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and never will" - Frederick Douglass
** SPECTER OF A "HOLLOW FORCE" CALLED INTO QUESTION ** CONGRESS CALLS FOR ACCELERATED USE OF DRONES IN U.S.
SPECTER OF A "HOLLOW FORCE" CALLED INTO QUESTION
Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and other officials have warned that if U.S. military spending is cut significantly, the unacceptable result would be a "a hollow force incapable of sustaining the missions it is assigned."
But a new critique from the Congressional Research Service suggests that the use of the term "hollow force" is inappropriate and unwarranted.
"Historically, there were two periods-- post-Vietnam and again in the 1990s-- when the term 'hollow force' was used to describe the U.S. armed forces." It referred to "forces that appear mission-ready but, upon examination, suffer from shortages of personnel and equipment, and from deficiencies in training."
But a close review of the circumstances that generated a hollow force in the past does not support the use of the term today, the CRS said. "Most of the conditions that existed in the 1970s do not exist today."
Among other things, defense procurement spending has surged in recent years to enable significant modernization of military forces.
"Even if modernization funds become more limited in future defense budgets, overall budget data suggest the Services would enter this period after having invested in modernized forces about as substantially as in the weapons-driven buildup of the 1980s."
"CRS has calculated that when recent amounts for weapons modernization are compared to amounts in the mid-1980s, the total inflation-adjusted dollar value of relatively modern equipment available to forces today (i.e., equipment purchased within the past 10 years) appears relatively robust."
"Given these conditions, it can be argued that the use of the term 'hollow force' is inappropriate under present circumstances," the CRS report said.
CONGRESS CALLS FOR ACCELERATED USE OF DRONES IN U.S.
A House-Senate conference report this week called on the Administration to accelerate the use of civilian unmanned aerial systems (UAS), or "drones," in U.S. airspace.
The pending authorization bill for the Federal Aviation Administration directs the Secretary of Transporation to develop within nine months "a comprehensive plan to safely accelerate the integration of civil unmanned aircraft systems into the national airspace system."
"The plan... shall provide for the safe integration of civil unmanned aircraft systems into the national airspace system as soon as practicable, but not later than September 30, 2015."
The conference bill, which still awaits final passage, also calls for establishment of UAS test ranges in cooperation with NASA and the Department of Defense, expanded use of UAS in the Arctic region, development of guidance for the operation of public unmanned aircraft systems, and new safety research to assess the risk of "catastrophic failure of the unmanned aircraft that would endanger other aircraft in the national airspace system."
The Department of Defense is pursuing its own domestic UAS activities for training purposes and "domestic operations," according to a 2007 DoD-FAA memorandum of agreement. ("Army Foresees Expanded Use of Drones in U.S. Airspace," Secrecy News, January 19, 2012.)
_______________________________________________
Secrecy News is written by Steven Aftergood and published by the Federation of American Scientists.
Flight of the Hummingbirds Spy Drones Over Arizona
by BRENDA NORRELL
TUCSON.
Arizona, already struggling to free itself from racist state officials, banned books and profiteering private prisons, is now targeted as the test site for private spy drones.
Arizona military profiteers are pushing for Arizona to become an expanded drone test site for "commercial and nonmilitary" uses of unmanned aircraft. The federal government announced it will set aside airspace.
The Arizona Daily Star in Tucson seems to think making Arizona an expanded base for drones is a good idea. This drone promotion by the Star magnifies how the Arizona media is part of the continued degradation of Arizona, as it cheerleads for the promotion of the militarization of Arizona. This agenda includes the criminalizing of people of color.
Drones are used worldwide by the US for targeted assassinations, without trials. The reckless murders carried out by drones worldwide, by soldiers seated at remote computers in Nevada, are often based on flawed intelligence.
The Arizona Daily Star proves to have a short memory about the danger of drones, forgetting that already a drone has crashed nearby in Nogales, Ariz.
In southern Arizona, Sierra Vista has been used for a base for border drones. This is where the Army Intelligence Center at Fort Huachuca produced the School of Americas torture manual, made public in 1996. The US training of Latin American military using this manual resulted in the assassinations, torture and exile, of tens of thousands of Indigenous Peoples in the 1980s and 1990s in Central and South America, as corporations seized their homelands for mining, development and exploitation.
The Sanctuary Movement in Tucson was born from the results of these tortures and assassinations of Indigenous villagers. The result was an underground railroad that took Indigenous Peoples to safety. There is real history in Tucson, and the Arizona Daily Star doesn't have to prostitute itself with its advertisers like Raytheon Missiles.
The drone promotion article in the Arizona Daily Star reveals how the universities have become co-opted in the agenda of militarization and criminalizing people of color. Arizona universities have become infested with global cyber spies and border training that targets people of color.
The University of Arizona in Tucson stands out for its human rights abuses regarding Native Americans. The primary example is the placing of telescopes on Mount Graham during years of protests by Apaches and other Indian Nations. Now, the University of Arizona is involved with the design and creation of drones, unmanned killing machines.
The drone creation at the University of Arizona was also part of Advanced Ceramics, the company that was initially accepted, then rejected by the Pascua Yaqui. After being rejected by the Yaqui, the Tohono O'odham's San Xavier District's Development Authority became partners in Advanced Ceramics. A portion of the company was later sold to BAE.
Although initially Advanced Ceramics Research was wrapped in secrecy, it is now known that it was creating drones at the site, on Tohono O'odham land near the Tucson International Airport.
Traditional Tohono O'odham oppose the use of drones and targeted assassinations, stating it is a violation of the O'odham sacred way of life, the himdag.
As the battles rage over the banning of Mexican American Studies, the seizure of books, the racial profiling by law enforcement, and the imprisonment of people of color for the profits of private prisons, Arizona is now targeted with private spy drone testing.
Under the National Defense Authorization Act passed in December, the Federal Aviation Administration must move to integrate unmanned aircraft systems, or UAS, into the National Airspace System.
The report says Arizona is under consideration as the private spy drone test site for these reasons:
Fort Huachuca's status as a major UAS training center.
Other military training such as a Marine Corps UAS squadron based in Yuma.
UAS research and development by companies including Raytheon Missile Systems, BAE Systems, Boeing Co. which makes its Hummingbird rotorcraft UAS in Mesa and smaller firms.
Academic research support including wind-tunnel and other test facilities at the University of Arizona, a UAS minor program at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, and an aerospace-defense research collaboration at Arizona State University.
Flagstaff, Yuma and Benson targeted
The article also reveals how the Flagstaff, Yuma and Benson regions have been targeted for this dangerous drone research.
The Star includes this nauseating quote: "We like to say, We were UAS before UAS was cool,' " said Robin Sobotta, chair of Embry-Riddle's aviation business program and chairwoman of the UAS advisory committee.
The committee identified three prime locations for a UAS test range, including two in "non-exclusionary," or unrestricted, airspace.
The report states that the highest-scoring site is at the Benson Airport, identified as San Pedro North, with airspace stretching northeast to the eastern slopes of the Santa Catalina Mountains.
The second-ranking site is around the Seligman airport, about 60 miles west of Flagstaff.
The committee also identified a third site, in exclusionary airspace at the edge of the U.S. Army's Yuma Proving Ground. The Yuma site has served as a test site for UAS technology developed by Tucson-based Raytheon Missile Systems, including its bat-winged "Killer Bee."
As it turns out, Mesa, Arizona, in the Phoenix Valley, is the location of the top secret US research facility Arizona Labs.
Jip Ripley writing at the East Valley Tribue in Mesa, Arizona, reported on the meeting to bring the test site of spy drones to Arizona. It was held at Mesa Mayor Scott Smith's office on Jan. 4.
"According to my sources, those at the meeting included (retired General John) Regni; (Mesa Chamber of Commerce President) Sterling; William Harris, president of Science Foundation Arizona; Karrin Kunasek Taylor, executive vice president of DMB Associates Inc.; General Thomas Browning, who until funding expired last September headed up the Arizona Aerospace & Defense Initiative along with Regni; Brian Campbell, a Phoenix attorney who heads up the Arizona Labs oversight board; Nancy Cooke, an ASU professor who also runs a business called the Cognitive Engineering Research Institute; Steve Shope, a physicist who heads Sandia Research Corp.; Dane Mullenix of defense contractor Alion Science and Technology Corp., which manages the Arizona Labs; and Chuck Coughlin, founder of HighGround, an influential political consulting company," Ripley wrote.
Brenda Norrell edits Censored News.
"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.â€
Buckminster Fuller
AMY GOODMAN: The CIA's drone campaign in Pakistan has killed dozens of civilians who had gone to rescue victims or were attending funerals. So concludes a new report by the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism. It found, since President Obama took office three years ago, between 282 and 535 civilians have been reported as killed, including more than 60 children. The investigation also revealed at least 50 civilians were killed in follow-up strikes when they had gone to help victims. More than 20 civilians have also been attacked in deliberate strikes on funerals and mourners.
The report was published days after President Obama defended his administration's use of armed drones during a "virtual interview" conducted last week via Google+ and YouTube. He also acknowledged the United States was carrying out drone strikes inside Pakistan. President Obama made the comments after he was asked how he feels about the large number of civilians killed by these drones since he took office.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: I want to make sure that people understand, actually, drones have not caused a huge number of civilian casualties. For the most part, they have been very precise precision strikes against al-Qaeda and their affiliates. And we are very careful in terms of how it's been applied. So, I think that there's this perception somehow that we're just sending in a whole bunch of strikes willy-nilly. This is a targeted, focused effort at people who are on a list of active terrorists who are trying to go in and harm Americans, hit American facilities, American bases, and so on. It is important for everybody to understand that this thing is kept on a very tight leash.
AMY GOODMAN: President Obama, discussing the drones program in a virtual interview.
Meanwhile, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a case last week to force the Obama administration to release legal and intelligence records related to the targeted killing of U.S. citizens in drone attacks in Yemen last year. The lawsuit charged the Justice and Defense Departments and the CIA with illegally failing to respond to requests made in October under the Freedom of Information Act.
To find out more about drone strikes, we go to London to speak to the lead author of the Bureau report. Chris Woods is an award-winning reporter with the Bureau of Investigative Journalism. He leads the Bureau's drones investigation team.
Talk about your research and exactly what you found, Chris.
CHRIS WOODS: Good morning, Amy, and thanks for having the Bureau back on.
We've been looking at this since August of last year. When we were putting together our massive database on CIA drone strikes in Pakistan, we noted that there were repeated reports at the time, contemporaneous reports in publications like _New York Times, news agencies like Reuters, by CNN, that there were these strikes on rescuers, that there were reports that there had been an initial strike and then, some minutes later, as people had come forward to help and pull out the dead and injured, that drones had returned to the scene and had attacked rescuers. Now, we didn't take that at face value when we began a major investigation, that's been ongoing for many months now, that we just published in conjunction with the London Sunday Times, where we looked at those 18 original reports, and we've been able to confirm, through our researchers on the ground in Waziristan, that a dozen of those attacks on rescuers, and also two attacks on funerals, have taken place in Waziristan. And we've been able to name just over 50 civilians that we understand have been killed in those attacks. In total, we think that more than 75 civilians have been killed, specifically in these attacks on rescuers and on mourners, on funeral-goers.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to read to you an excerpt of a quote that just appeared in the New York Times. "A senior American counterterrorism official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, questioned the report's findings, saying 'targeting decisions are the product of intensive intelligence collection and observation.' The official added: 'One must wonder why an effort that has so carefully gone after terrorists who plot to kill civilians has been subjected to so much misinformation. Let's be under no illusionsthere are a number of elements who would like nothing more than to malign these efforts and help Al Qaeda succeed.'" So said an unnamed senior American counterterrorism official in response to your report, Chris Woods.
CHRIS WOODS: I think, obviously, that is a disgraceful comment from an unnamed U.S. official. We've presented our findings in good faith. It's all available on TBIJ's website. Our data is transparent. We have linked to all of our sources. Our field investigators have put up their findings. We have eyewitness testimonies. We have a supported interview with the national security correspondent of the Washington Post confirming that his U.S. intelligence sources confirmed to him that CIA drones willingly and predictably carried out an attack on a funeral in Pakistan deliberately targeting people there. If the CIA's responseor rather, unnamed security official's responseto that is simply to accuse us of aiding al-Qaeda, then something is going significantly wrong at the CIA and in the wider U.S. intelligence community.
AMY GOODMAN: Where do you go from here now with this report? And especially, what do you understand is the scope of the drone program? How much is it expanding?
CHRIS WOODS: The drone program right now really does seem to have changed. There were a number of incidents at the back end of last year. The last year was a bad year for U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan. Many things went wrong. A lot of civilians were killed. There was a lot of bad publicity that was generated for the administration. And then, not actually a drone strike, but a NATO air strike which killed 24 Pakistani soldiers last November, effectively ended the drone campaign for about 55 days. It's resumed again, beginning January 12th, but so far this year we've seen four strikes, and the targeting does appear to have changed on the ground.
And just to be clear, the attacks on rescuers and mourners that we note, they've all occurred under the Obama administration between 2009 and July 2011. I think that date is quite interesting, because that's also when Leon Panetta stepped down as head of CIA. You have an interim CIA leader, and then David Petraeus comes in. We haven't had any reports from Pakistan since July of last year of attacks on rescuers. So there's an indication of a policy change, and there's also an indication of a targeting change on the ground. So, things may be changing at the moment. We're still trying to get a clearer understanding of what's taking place in Pakistan.
AMY GOODMAN: During President
CHRIS WOODS: I think the comments that these unnamed officials make really are unhelpful in these circumstances. I think the CIA should be lookingwe've given them the names of 53 people on this occasion, named individuals, their tribes, the villages in which they died, the dates on which they died. Their response to that should be to go and have a look at that and to look at their own evidence and to challenge it against what we're putting forward and to see whether they've perhaps got it wrong or perhaps have been misled. This does need an inquiry from CIA into their past targeting practice.
AMY GOODMAN: During President Obama's virtual interview last week with Google+ and YouTube, he also said the drones program was a less intrusive way of targeting al-Qaeda.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: We have to be judicious in how we use drones. But understand that probably our ability to respect the sovereignty of other countries and to limit our incursions into somebody else's territory is enhanced by the fact that we are able to pinpoint strike an al-Qaeda operative in a place where the capacities of that military in that country may not be able to get them. So, obviously, a lot of these strikes have been in the FATA and going after al-Qaeda suspects who are up in very tough terrain along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. For us to be able to get them in another way would involve, probably, a lot more intrusive military actions than the one that we're already engaging in.
AMY GOODMAN: Chris Woods, your response?
CHRIS WOODS: I think he does raise an interesting point. Of course, we know that U.S. boots on the ground in Pakistan is far more inflammatory than these drone strikes, which almost certainly have been taking place with the secret collusion of the Pakistan government. Boots on the ground would be a disaster for both Pakistan and the United States. And so, the President's view is that the drone strikes, I suppose, are the least worst way of engaging with al-Qaeda.
But I think the President also slightly misrepresents the case in terms of the strikes themselves. Although al-Qaeda are sometimes the target of these drone attacks, in the majority of occasions the targets are actually Afghan Taliban who are fighting an insurgency across the border in Afghanistan. So what we're actually seeing is a counterterrorism organization, the CIA, a civilian organization, carrying out counterinsurgency operations, military operations, relating to the war that's across the border. And that's a problem for the President and for the United States. This isn't just about going for al-Qaeda, which I think Pakistan would have a great deal of support for. Al-Qaeda is no friend to Pakistan. Pakistan has been absolutely key in tracking down and capturing and killing hundreds of al-Qaeda operatives within the country. This is also about the war across the border and about counterinsurgency. And that blurred line is part of the problem, I think.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the difference between attacking Pakistan and Afghanistan, legally?
CHRIS WOODS: When a drone strike occurs in Afghanistan and, for example, a wedding party is hit or civilians are accidentally killed, there is an automatic inquiry. These are military operations carried out by the U.S. military or their allies, and there's a line of accountability. And although people may not be happy with the conclusions that those investigations reach, there is a clear level of accountability.
The moment a drone goes across the border, even if it's targeting the same militant, if a civilian is killed, there is no accountability that we're aware of. Even CIA agrees that it's killed at least 50, and perhaps as high as 60, civilians. Their figures and ours are very different, and I think that's based on how they interpreted "civilian." But nevertheless, CIA agrees that they've killed 50 to 60 civilians. There's not been an investigation into a single one of those civilian deaths, and there's not been a cent of compensation ever paid to anyone who's been killed accidentally in Pakistan. And that's a problem. When you have a covert intelligence agency running a military campaign, your accountability effectively collapses. And I think it's worrying. And recently, the President announced more money going into covert drone strikes and U.S. Special Operations activities. Both of these elements are unaccountable. They're not held to the same levels of accountability as the regular U.S. military. And I think that should be raising concerns. As we've seen with these attacks on rescuers and funeral-goers in Pakistan, when there's an absence of accountability, things happen. And I don't think it's a coincidence that these attacks on rescuers and funeral-goers have taken place without accountability. They're doing it because nobody's stopping them from doing it and nobody's holding them to account for it.
AMY GOODMAN: Chris Woods, we have to leave it there. And I thank you very much.
CHRIS WOODS: And I think that's something that the President should be addressing.
AMY GOODMAN: Thanks, Chris. I want to thank you for being with us, award-winning reporter with the Bureau of Investigative Journalism in London, leads the Bureau's drones investigation team. We'll link to the report at democracynow.org.
"Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who writes the laws. - Mayer Rothschild
"Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience! People are obedient in the face of poverty, starvation, stupidity, war, and cruelty. Our problem is that grand thieves are running the country. That's our problem!" - Howard Zinn
"If there is no struggle there is no progress. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and never will" - Frederick Douglass
Nice technology to be used for the wrong and evil purposes. Very sad how the dark side of humanity is in control of the technology these days and using [or abusing] it at an accelerating pace. Here in Prague two days ago someone was flying a five rotor minihelicopter drone with camera underneath. It was very stable in flight and I could see he had a LCD screen where he could see the video and record it in his hands - along with the controls. Its size was about that of four frizbees piled one on top of another. There are smaller - and soon they won't be seen, or will be mistaken for insects. Nice. Not! While a few of these drones are to be used by alternative media et al to watch the watchers [such as police during demonstrations and denied areas that might be doing bad things] all too many to most are being used by the watchers over the population, in general. Now they have a way to invade our privacy anywhere, anytime and even into our homes and offices, workplaces, caves, etc.
"Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who writes the laws. - Mayer Rothschild
"Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience! People are obedient in the face of poverty, starvation, stupidity, war, and cruelty. Our problem is that grand thieves are running the country. That's our problem!" - Howard Zinn
"If there is no struggle there is no progress. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and never will" - Frederick Douglass
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[TD]Leon Emmett (Toronto)
(NEWS from the future we can still avoid...)
Second Accidental Child Death Mortifies Drone Manufacturers
Managing Director of Ryzky Aeronautics, Kurt Wilder, met with the
grieving parents of six-year-old Emma Child, to offer his heartfelt
condolences for the unfortunate death of their daughter due to a sensor
malfunction on one of their new GW-180 Civil Guard Drones. In a
prepared statement read at a ceremony in honor of Emma, Mr. Wilder
announced a donation of $1,000,000 to her school, as well as a new
RFID tracking system that would enable the school to protect their
students from kidnappers and sexual predators, and provide an additional
level of identification to better guide drone behavior.
Childs was found dead due to cardiac arrest as a result of being
struck by tazer darts fired by the drone, which was in pursuit of a
suspect who fled across the park in which she was playing. The suspect
was struck by a tazer dart and captured by the drone immediately after
the incident.
This tragic accident will likey fuel the controversy surrounding the
use of auxiliary policing drones in civilian habitation zones. A study
group formed last May to tackle issues relating to robotics enforcement,
and this latest tragedy will of necessity inform their deliberations.
Police departments have largely been eager to employ new policing
tools, although there have been growing voices of dissent in some
traditional-leaning quarters of the force when it comes to aerial
surveilance and interception drones. A.S.S.R.A.P.E., the Association of
Surveilance System Robotics and Proprietary Enablers has expressed a
desire that this terrible incident not cause a loss of confidence in
the valuable precision work performed by these vehicles in maintaining
an atmosphere of law and order - at home and abroad.
[/TD]
[/TR]
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"Where is the intersection between the world's deep hunger and your deep gladness?"
Quote: A.S.S.R.A.P.E., the Association of
Surveilance System Robotics and Proprietary Enablers has expressed a
desire that this terrible incident not cause a loss of confidence in
the valuable precision work performed by these vehicles in maintaining
an atmosphere of law and order - at home and abroad.
:noblesteed:
"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.â€
Buckminster Fuller
