CIA Drones Can Kill You Without Knowing Who You Are

[n2doc]

By Spencer Ackerman November 4, 2011 | 11:00 am | Categories: Drones

The expansion of the CIA’s undeclared drone war in the tribal areas of Pakistan required a big expansion of who can be marked for death. Once the standard for targeted killing was top-level leadership in al-Qaeda or one of its allies. That’s long gone.

This is the new standard, according to a blockbuster piece in the Wall Street Journal: “men believed to be militants associated with terrorist groups, but whose identities aren’t always known.” The CIA is now killing people without knowing who they are, on suspicion of association with terrorist groups. The article does not define the standards are for “suspicion” and “association.”

Strikes targeting those people — usually “groups” of such people — are called “signature” strikes. “The bulk of CIA’s drone strikes are signature strikes,” the Journal’s Adam Entous, Siobhan Gorman and Julian E. Barnes report.

And bulk really means bulk. The Journal reports that the growth in clusters of people targeted by the CIA has required the agency to tell its Pakistani counterparts about mass attacks. When the agency expects to kill 20 or more people at once, then it’s got to give the Pakistanis notice.

more
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/11/cia-drones-marked-for-death/

[Lint Head]

1. Drones will be here too. Texas cops get drone that can carry weapons.

By John Roach

If you see cops in a Conroe, Texas, donut shop with a laptop on the table, don't assume they're checking Facebook. They could be operating a crime-fighting drone.

Officers in the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office are undergoing training to operate a laptop-controlled, unmanned Shadowhawk Helicopter they recently acquired with a $300,000 grant from the Department of Homeland Security.

http://futureoftech.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/11/03/8618608-texas-cops-get-drone-that-can-carry-weapons

[deaniac21]

12. A 50 pound monster that spits out bean bags.

[Lint Head]

15. It's just the beginning.

[leveymg]

2. Mission creep - creepy mission. They'll kill anyone, US Citizen or not, anywhere.

That's what happens when the guy at the top is essentially still carrying out the Bush Administration agenda and lets the Intelligence Community and law enforcement do pretty much everything they want, everywhere, to anyone.

[Uncle Joe]

3. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, n2doc.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

4. And, the "heroes" who push the buttons probably go home have a beer and watch the game.

I will never understand people who do this kind of thing willingly.

[kenny blankenship]

5. So we move from "precision munitions" and "surgical strikes" back to the Free Fire Zones of yore

and back to "let Buddha/Allah sort them out."

[Cali_Democrat]

6. We need to put a stop to this

[eShirl]

7. ...before they unleash autonomous AI killer drones on the world

[RC]

8. And if we do not, some other or more countries will.

This does need to stop. How are we different from the terrorists except in the degree of tech we use?

[gratuitous]

9. Another change we can all believe in

Before you post it, no, I'm not saying I prefer whatever tool the Republicans put up to run for president. But this shit is not only illegal and immoral as all hell, but it achieves the exact opposite of enhancing national security, which is the usual bad reason for doing stupid stuff like this. Not even the bad reason is correct, because indiscriminate killing of random individuals doesn't make us more secure, it makes us less secure.

There's also the issue of the stress this puts on the guy running the controller. For a while, he might move the joystick, push a button and watch the boom with detachment, but somewhere in his brain he knows that there are people under that explosion, and the brain has a real nasty way of paying us back when we're doing something that heinous.

This needs to stop. Yesterday.

[dtexdem]

10. Hey, it's easier that way: the remote flyer doesn't have to determine who the target is ....

and doesn't have to deal, immediately, with who the target is.

[GeorgeGist]

11. Michelle, Malia and Sasha must be so proud.

[gratuitous]

13. Also, I called these missile strikes "indiscriminate"

And I got taken to task for that by another DUer. I will once again assert that these strikes are indiscriminate.

[Cali_Democrat]

14. You are correct in your assertion

That other DUer is definitely wrong.