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Drones

War Zone Tactics: Pentagon Admits Domestic Spy Drone Use

March 11, 2016 Lauren McCauley, www.commondreams.org , ,
By Lauren McCauley for Common Dreams - An internal Pentagon report made public on Wednesday revealed that the U.S. Department of Defense has been using unarmed drones to conduct surveillance missions over American soil since 2006. The Pentagon inspector general report, entitled "Evaluation of DoD Use of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) for Support to Civil Authorities," obtained by USA Today through a Freedom of Information Act request, said that "less than 20" such missions occurred between 2006 and 2015, though they anticipate many more in the years to come.

Inaccurate Metadata Analysis Used To Kill Thousands In US Drone Strikes

February 26, 2016 David Brown, www.wsws , ,
By David Brown for World Socialist Web Site - According to leaked documents, the Obama administration's use of metadata to identify and target terrorists in Pakistan would misidentify over 99,000 innocent people. The SKYNET program, named after the antagonist in the Terminator movie series, is used to examine the cellular network metadata of over 55 million people in Pakistan and flag suspicious patterns to target for “counter-terrorism” operations like kidnapping, interrogation or drone assassination.

Activists Entering Drone Base With Loaf Of Bread Arrested

February 25, 2016 Joy First, www.PopularResistance.org ,
By Joy First for the National Coalition for Creative Nonviolence. On February 23rd, two peace activists with Voices for Creative Nonviolence, Brian Terrell and Kathy Kelly, were arrested when they attempted to deliver a loaf of bread and a letter to drone operators at Volk Field, an Air National Guard Base in Wisconsin, which trains pilots to operate Shadow Drones over other countries. Voices activists have lived alongside ordinary people in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and Gaza. People who can’t flee from drone surveillance and attacks have good reason to fear people from the U.S., but instead they have broken bread with Kelly and Terrell and have welcomed opportunities for deepened mutual understanding. Kelly and Terrell carried the loaf of bread to signify the worth of relying on words rather than weapons.

Afghanistan Civilians Being Killed At Highest Rates By US

February 23, 2016 Jack Serle, Abigail Fielding-Smith and Payenda Sargand, www.thebureauinvestigates.com , , ,
By Jack Serle, Abigail Fielding-Smith and Payenda Sargand for The Bureau of Investigative Journalism - The rate at which civilians are being killed by US airstrikes in Afghanistan is at its highest point since 2008, an analysis of newly published UN data reveals. Research by the Bureau shows that on average a civilian was killed every fourth drone or jet strike in 2015 – up from one in 11 attacks the year before and the first time the casualty rate has risen since 2011. The rate was last at such levels at the height of the Afghan war in 2008.

Anti-Drone Activist Found Guilty, Judge Deaf To Argument

February 20, 2016 Joy First, www.popularresistance.org , ,
By Joy First of the National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance. Juneau County, WI - On Friday February 19 Phil Runkel was found guilty of trespassing in Juneau County, WI by Judge Paul Curran after a 22 minute trial. Phil had joined nine other activists in attempting to walk onto the Volk Field Air National Guard base and meet with the commander to share our concerns about the training of drone pilots that takes place there. District Attorney Mike Solovey followed his standard procedure of calling Sheriff Brent Oleson and Deputy Thomas Mueller to the stand and identifying Phil as one of the people who walked onto the base on August 25, 2015 and refused to leave.

A Grandma Drone Resister’s Letter From Prison

February 16, 2016 Mary Anne Grady Flores, www.alternet.org , ,
By Mary Anne Grady Flores for AlterNet - Joy swept through our cell block, Jamesville County Jail, Pod 4, Thursday, January 28. That evening some of the 59 women in our pod rushed up and knocked on my cell door. They reported the six o’clock news had shown 12 drone resisters handcuffed, sitting on a roadside curb, waiting to be taken into custody. I just started my six-month sentence on January 19, for photographing protesters of the drone warfare directed out of Hancock Air Base in nearby Syracuse, New York. These eight protestors, many of whom are Catholic Workers, were later acquitted.

Drone, Norwegian-Made Documentary

February 3, 2016 Joanne Laurier, www.wsws.org , , ,
By Joanne Laurier for World Socialist Web Site - Drone, directed by Norwegian filmmaker Tonje Hessen Schei, about the illegal CIA drone program, has been screened at various documentary film festivals and played in certain theaters in North America. The use of drones by the United States for purposes of assassinations has greatly increased over the past decade. Hessen Schei’s movie brings together opponents of this specialized killing tool, including authors, commentators, human rights attorneys and investigative journalists.

Jerry Berrigan Memorial Drone Blockade

January 29, 2016 Bruce K. Gagnon, www.space4peace.blogspot.com , ,
By Bruce K. Gagnon for Space for Peace. Syracuse, NY - Jerry Berrigan, who died on July 26, 2015 at the age of 95, was a husband, a father, a brother, a teacher and someone who – like his brothers Dan and Phil – dedicated his entire life to Jesus’ command to love one another. Jerry came to the base on a bi-weekly basis whenever he was able, in Jerry’s words, “to remind the base commander of our government’s pledge under the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, a treaty to safeguard non-combatant’s well-being in any warzone in which U.S. forces are engaged in combat.” And further, “to register horror and indignation at reports of bombing missions by drones in Afghanistan and Pakistan which resulted in the deaths of many innocent civilians; men, women and children.”

Anti-Drone Activist Reports To Jail For Six-Month Sentence

January 21, 2016 Patrick O'Neill, www.ncronline.org , , ,
By Patrick O'Neill for NCR - Wondering if she will ever see her mother again, Catholic anti-drone activist and grandmother Mary Anne Grady Flores made a final stop Tuesday, Jan. 19, to say goodbye to her mother, Teresa Grady, before leaving Ithaca, N.Y., to report to jail to begin serving a six-month jail sentence in East Syracuse, N.Y. In a case that has dragged on for almost three years, Grady Flores, 59, chauffeured by two of her four children, headed off into a threatening winter snowstorm hoping to get to the Town of DeWitt Court by Tuesday afternoon, where she was remanded to custody at the Jamesville Correctional Facility.

Grandma Drone Protester Remanded to Jail for 6 Months

January 15, 2016 Judith Bello, www.PopularResistance.org , ,
By Judith Bello for Upstate Drone Coalition. On January 12, the National Day of Action to Stop Killer Drones, grandmother and drone resister Mary Anne Grady Flores learned that she is to go back to jail for six months starting Tuesday, January 19. Mary Anne had been out on appeal of a lower court convicting her of violating an order of protection. It had been given on behalf of Col. Evans of the Hancock Air National Guard Base 174th Attack Wing (in Syracuse, NY), to “protect” him from nonviolent anti-drone activists. She had been charged with violating the order while taking pictures of eight Catholics protesting the US drone assassination program at Hancock on Ash Wednesday, Feb. 13, 2013. Onondaga County Court Judge Miller upheld the lower court conviction. Of note is that all eight Catholic drone resisters were acquitted because they went to uphold law, not break it.

Guess How Many Bombs America Dropped In 2015

January 12, 2016 Micah Zenko, www.nationalinterest.org , , , ,
Micah Zenko for The National Interest. United States - The primary focus—meaning the commitment of personnel, resources, and senior leaders’ attention—of U.S. counterterrorism policies is the capture or killing (though, overwhelmingly killing) of existing terrorists. Far less money and programmatic attention is dedicated to preventing the emergence of new terrorists. As an anecdotal example of this, I often ask U.S. government officials and mid-level staffers, “What are you doing to prevent a neutral person from becoming a terrorist?”

The Tech Policy Battles Of 2016

January 7, 2016 Hamza Shaban, www.buzzfeed.com , , ,
By Hamza Shaban for Buzz Feed News - Encryption, or encoding messages to prevent unwanted parties from snooping, is regarded as a crucial tool for communicating and doing business on the web. But for American law enforcement, the mass adoption of strong encryption tools — which would prevent even technology companies from decrypting private messages — poses a national security dilemma. The FBI and U.S. intelligence agencies say that encryption can lead to tremendous harm.

Private Companies Fly Drones In War Zones

December 20, 2015 Corp Watch, www.opednews.com , , ,
By Corp Watch for Op Ed News. U.S. Air Force officials have begun to hire private companies to fly drone aircraft operating over Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. The unprecedented move is in response to demands from the Obama administration to dramatically expand the drone war just as the Pentagon faces a critical shortage of military pilots. As a result, civilian pilots will directly participate in military operations for the first time since the drone wars began about a decade ago. According to the Los Angeles Times, the Air Force signed contracts with two private companies in 2015 to provide enough pilots to fly two "combat air patrols" or 24-hour surveillance flights that would involve as many as eight MQ-9 Reaper drones per day.

Eight Arrested At Beale Air Force Drone Base

December 16, 2015 Occupy Beale Air Force Base, www.PopularResistance.org , ,
By Occupy Beale Air Force Base. Eight peace advocates opposed to U.S. drone killing were arrested here about 3:45 p.m. Monday / Dec. 14 as they walked onto Beale Air Force Base at the Wheatland Gate to deliver a letter to the base commander calling for an end to drone warfare, and explaining how the military contributes to climate change. The full letter is reprinted below. Hundreds of peace activists have been arrested at Beale AFB over the past four years protesting the use of U.S. drones, which have killed thousands of women and children around the world. Protestors Monday held a 36 foot "red line" in sympathy with climate change activists around the world participating in "red line actions." Eight peace advocates opposed to U.S. drone killing were arrested here about 3:45 p.m. Monday / Dec. 14 as they walked onto Beale Air Force Base at the Wheatland Gate to deliver a letter to the base commander calling for an end to drone warfare, and explaining how the military contributes to climate change. The full letter is reprinted below. Hundreds of peace activists have been arrested at Beale AFB over the past four years protesting the use of U.S. drones, which have killed thousands of women and children around the world. Protestors Monday held a 36 foot "red line" in sympathy with climate change activists around the world participating in "red line actions." See more on their Facebook page. Beale Air Force Base redline 12-14-15 Demonstrators called for "Peace for the World, Healing for the Climate" and an end to drone attacks and all wars for oil that cause death, suffering, and environmental devastation, including climate change.

Killer Drone News Blackout, Media Ignore Whistleblowers

December 7, 2015 John Hanrahan, www.exposefacts.org , ,
By John Hanrahan for Expose Facts - The polls show it and commentators of all political stripes often cite the figures: Killer drone attacks by the U.S. military and the CIA in the Greater Middle East and Africa have strong U.S. public support. According to the Pew Research Center’s most recent poll in May, 58 percent — up slightly from 56 percent in February 2013 — approve of “missile strikes from drones to target extremists in such countries as Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.” The numbers of Americans disapproving of drone attacks actually increased from 26 percent to 35 percent over that two-year period — a hopeful sign, but still very much a minority view.
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