Drone

Private Firms Track Terror Targets For US Drone Wars

August 11, 2015 Abigail Fielding-Smith and Crofton Black, www.thebureauinvestigates.com Educate! Drone, Wars and Militarism

By Abigail Fielding-Smith and Crofton Black in The Bureau Investigates - The overstretched US military has hired hundreds of private sector contractors in the heart of its drone operations to analyse top secret video feeds and help track high value terror targets, an investigation has found. Contracts unearthed by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism reveal a secretive industry worth hundreds of millions of dollars, placing a corporate workforce alongside uniformed personnel, analysing battlefield intelligence. While it has long been known that US defence firms supply billions of dollars’ worth of equipment for drone operations, the role of the private sector in providing analysts to comb through military surveillance video has remained almost entirely unknown until now. Approximately one in 10 people involved in the effort to process data captured by drones and spy planes is estimated to be non-military. And as the rise of Islamic State fuels what military commanders describe as an “insatiable demand” for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR), the Air Force is considering a further expansion of its contractor workforce, a spokeswoman confirmed.

Drones Will Now “Hunt” In Packs & Fly In Swarms

April 28, 2015 Royce Christyn, www.yournewswire.com Educate! Drone, Technology, Wars and Militarism

Drone technology is getting ever more deadly. The US Navy has released a video detailing LOCUST – the new tool allowing multiple drones to coordinate and swarm the enemy autonomously. It’s designed to protect large US vessels nearby. The concept was detailed by the Navy last year, which only this month allowed the Office of Naval Research (ONR) to demonstrate what LOCUST – or the Low-Cost Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Swarming Technology program – can do. They’re touting the tool as a new era in autonomous warfare. LOCUST is essentially a system that can launch swarming UAVs to overwhelm the enemy and provide the marines and sailors operating them with a massive tactical advantage, ONR explains in the press release.

March 4-6, 2015: Shut Down Creech!

February 28, 2015 Shut Down Creech!, www.shutdowncreech.blogspot.com Resist! Drone, Peace, Wars and Militarism

Join us March 4-6, 2015 at Creech Air Force Base, Indian Springs, Nevada, for a national mobilization of nonviolent resistance to shut down killer drone operations in Afghanistan, Pakistan,Yemen, Somalia, and everywhere. Sponsored by CODEPINK: Women for Peace, Nevada Desert Experience (NDE), Veterans For Peace (VFP), Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), Voices for Creative Nonviolence (VCNV) and others. (Learn more about sponsoring/supporting.) CODEPINK will also hold vigils daily on March 2nd and 3rd, prior to the official beginning of this Creech Convergence For Peace, and welcomes everyone to join them. In 2005, Creech Air Force Base secretly became the first U.S. base in the country to carry out illegal, remotely controlled assassinations using the MQ-1 Predator drones, and in 2006, the more advanced Reaper drones were added to its arsenal.

Man Flies Drone To Monitor Police Activity

November 9, 2014 Staff, www.filmingcops.com Resist! Drone, Police abuse

It began when officers told the man that he was not allowed to be filming their activity with his cell phone. They commanded him to walk away and to not view what was happening behind a white wall that separated them. The man can be heard asking in the video, “What are they doing back there?” He grew suspicious of why cops did not want him to see what they were up to. Given that they are public servants and they live off of the money that hardworking Americans make to support them, cops should expect to have their every action monitored and scrutinized publicly. Just one instance of pretending to be a “tough guy” and assaulting a citizen could make a cop famous online and cost him his job and reputation. Most cops are aware of this, given that everybody nowadays can begin filming them instantly with a cell phone. But these cops still acted alarmed when they saw a man filming them. Rather than obeying the officers’ commands to walk away like a domesticated cow, this brave man took out his own surveillance drone and launched it into the night sky.

Drone Resister Found Guilty

September 24, 2014 Upstate Drone Action, www.truth-out.org Resist! Arrest, Drone, Law

Syracuse, NY - Carrying flowers and three documents to Hancock Field Air National Guard Base can result in severe consequences. Drone resister Mark Colville of the Amistad Catholic Worker, New Haven, Connecticut, was found guilty after a two-day trial and fifty minutes of deliberation by a DeWitt Town Court jury. On December 9th, 2013, Colville and two Yale Divinity students brought a People's Order of Protection to the front gate of the base to demand an end to drone attacks which are carried out from Hancock. This action was in response to a recent request by Raz Mohammad, an Afghan national, whose brother-in law was killed by a U.S. military drone strike. Gate personnel rejected the petition.

“Badhoneywell” Makes Its Nationwide Debut

September 1, 2014 Mathias Quackenbush, www.truth-out.org Resist! BDS, Drone, Israel, Nuclear Weapons, Wars and Militarism

The US government's complicity in the Israeli siege of Gaza is no secret. Israel has the eleventh largest military in the world, which is in large part due to US military aid of over $3 billion annually. What remains in the shadows, however, is the alarming extent to which United States corporations profit from the Israeli war machine. A prime example is Honeywell International Inc. Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade, a Canadian group, has documented a long-lasting and profitable economic relationship between Honeywell and the Israeli military, with many of their collaborations traceable directly to war crimes committed by the IDF. The 2010 attack in the waters outside Gaza against the "Freedom Flotilla," in which 9 activists were killed in an attempt to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza through the Israeli blockade, was perpetrated by a Sa'ar V Corvette, built by another US company, Northrop-Grumman. Yet that ship was armed by Honeywell-built torpedoes. This relationship, in which Honeywell profits from some component of weapons production without appearing to be prominently involved, appears frequently. Take Israel's M270 MLRS missile system, produced by Lockheed Martin and Israeli Military Industries (IMI). Honeywell produces Jet Reaction Control and Trajectory Correction Systems critical to the M270, which it notes can be "retrofitted into unguided artillery rockets for improved precision." In the same promotional flier, the company describes its Jet Reaction Controls as providing "unmatched agility, maneuverability, and end-game lethality to tactical missiles and precision-guided munitions."

Anti-Drone Activist’s One-Year Sentence Will Not Deter Movement

August 1, 2014 Ben Kuebrich, www.truth-out.org Resist! Drone, Prison, Protesters Arrested, Wars and Militarism

Like most of her supporters in the courtroom, I was enraged when I heard N.Y. Judge David Gideon sentenced Mary Anne Grady-Flores to one year in jail on July 10. But a deep hope prevailed, which characterizes the local anti-drone movement in New York and is no small part of the impact we’ve had. When Grady-Flores was handcuffed in DeWitt Town Court, the 115 people in attendance stood up and sang. Resonating deep from her roots in the Catholic Worker movement, we called out in unison that night in the courtroom: Rejoice in the Lord always Again I say rejoice Rejoice, rejoice Again I say rejoice We shook the room with our song. Some embraced each other and some cried, but everyone sang. When the court guards had enough and told us to leave, the singing only grew louder. We stayed for 10 minutes in that courtroom, repeating the same song, hoping that Grady-Flores could feel us through the court walls. Grady-Flores was sentenced to one year in jail for violating an order of protection at the behest of Col. Earl Evans of the U.S. Air National Guard’s 174th Attack Wing at Hancock Field in Syracuse, Judge Gideon gave her the maximum sentence despite a pre-sentencing report from the parole office recommending that Grady-Flores receive a conditional discharge, which would mean no jail time.

Anti-drone Protesters Jailed On Bonds Up To $10,000

July 28, 2014 Patrick O'Neill, www.ncronline.org Resist! Drone, Law, Protesters Arrested, Protests

Five people, including the granddaughter of Catholic Worker co-founder Dorothy Day, are being held on bonds ranging from $2,500 to $10,000 after a protest at Hancock Field Air National Guard Base near Syracuse, N.Y., home of part of the U.S. drone program. Seven people, among them Martha Hennessy, Day's granddaughter, and Elizabeth McAlister, a longtime peace activist and widow of Philip Berrigan, were arrested after crossing onto base property Wednesday. During a court appearance before DeWitt, N.Y., Judge Robert Jokl, McAlister, 74, and William Ofenloch, 64, were released without bail, but the other five are being held pending Aug. 5 and 6 court dates. All seven were charged with trespassing. Hennessy, 58, and Clare Grady, 55, are both being held on $10,000 bail. They face up to one year in jail because they were under a court order to stay off base property, where both have been arrested in prior anti-drone demonstrations. In addition to trespassing charges, Hennessy and Grady were charged with violating an order of protection that bars protesters from going near Col. Earl Evans, a base commander.

Video: Sentencing Hearing For Drone Protester

July 14, 2014 Upstate Drone Action Reports, www.upstatedroneaction.org Resist! Afghanistan, Drone, Law, Protest

Mary Anne Grady Flores Sentencing Hearing following her conviction on the charge of ‘Contempt’ by a 6 person jury in DeWitt Town Court before Judge David S. Gideon. Mary Anne was charged for walking in the highway in front of the access road leading to the guard shack, taking pictures of protesters who were protesting the piloting of MQ-9 Reaper drones from Hancock Air National Guard Base. These drones fly over Afghanistan where they target and execute people on the ground. Targets often include civilians in their homes and cars going about the business of daily life.

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