Drones

The Bill of Rights Defense Committee has produced two model ordinances to assist local communities against domestic surveillance and weaponized drones.  One creates a drone-free zone, while the second model establishes rigorous requirements limiting their use by law enforcement agencies and other public officials. The model regulating drone use (rather than prohibiting it entirely) allows drones to be used pursuant to a judicially issued warrant as well as for non-law enforcement purposes such as fire detection, hazardous material spill response, search & rescue, and natural disaster response.

The model legislation is available online:
•    http://constitutioncampaign.org/campaigns/resources//DronesAnnotated.pdf  (annotated)
•    http://constitutioncampaign.org/campaigns/resources//Drones.pdf

Read more about the model legislation on The People’s Blog for the Constitution.

Here's the story from Minnesota this week:

No drones have appeared over the Hennepin County city, St. Bonifacius Mayor Rick Weible said, but that day may come.

“There seems to be a rush to use this new tool within the U.S., but our state and county laws are fairly silent on the issue right now,” he said.

A few weeks back, he and four City Council members got to talking about drones, and all shared concerns about privacy of those who might unwittingly be caught on camera. Their fears, he said, were not unlike those expressed during recent debates in Minnesota and elsewhere about using unmanned cameras to photograph vehicles running red lights and ticketing their owners.

So they voted to ban drones from city airspace up to 400 feet; higher altitudes are managed by federal authorities. They made exceptions for emergencies and search warrants, and for individuals flying drones over their own property. Violation of the ordinance is a misdemeanor.

The city also called for a two-year statewide moratorium on drones until the public can weigh in on how the technology will be used, and whether its images and other data can be used as evidence in court.

And from Charlottesville in February. 

The state of Virginia has now passed a two-year moratorium.

By Elsa Rassbach

Leading national and local peace and justice organizations in Germany have launched a major campaign to oppose the German government's recently revealed plan to acquire combat drones (weaponized drones).

The organizations met together in Hannover earlier this month to begin the joint campaign. As a first step, they drafted an appeal—"No Combat Drones"—which was made public this past Sunday. Close to one hundred German organizations and hundreds of individuals have already endorsed the Appeal, signaling a very strong interest in this issue.

The Appeal will be circulated throughout Germany during the annual Easter weekend peace marches.  The German activists plan to continue the campaign until the German government and military agree to abandon the plan to make use of combat drones.

Contact:Nick Mottern  nickmottern@earthlink.nettel: 914-806-6179 (m); Joe Scarry jtscarry@yahoo.comtel: 773-610-2464 (m)

What:    Rallies, Protests, Visual Photo-ops
Where:  Across U.S.
When:   April, 2013

A nationwide, month-long campaign  of counter-drone teach-ins, rallies and protest, called "April Days of Action" by its organizers, will challenge the escalated use of drones for targeted assassination by the Obama Administration as well as domestic surveillance by police agencies around the United States. The actions will call for a total halt to drone killing and surveillance.

By Linn Washington, Jr.

The HISTORY channel is catching righteous hell for crafting the character of Satan in its miniseries “The Bible” to bear an uncanny likeness to U.S. President Barak Obama.

Is it just coincidence that the dark-skinned Satan in this HISTORY channel miniseries looks hauntingly similar to the first black man to occupy the Oval Office seat in America’s White House?

To sign onto the following letter, write to mobuszewski at Verizon.net

National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance
325 East 25th Street, Baltimore, MD 21218
Email mobuszewski at Verizon.net
Phone 410-366-1637

John Brennan, Director
The Central Intelligence Agency
Washington, D.C. 20500
xxxx xx, 2013
Dear Mr. Brennan:

We followed with great interest the progress of your nomination by President Obama to be head of the Central Intelligence Agency. Now that the United States Senate has confirmed you as CIA director and you were sworn into office, we must write to you about our deep concerns regarding the use of unmanned aerial vehicles, also known as drones, by the CIA in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and other places.

CIA-operated drones have been used to kill people who have not been convicted of any crime, including US citizens.  As you know, in 2011 in Yemen CIA drone attacks were used to kill, first, Anwar Al-Awlaki and weeks later his son.  They were U.S. citizens, who were never charged, brought to trial, or convicted of any crime.

The American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights brought a lawsuit in US federal court against the Obama Administration regarding the assassination of Al-Awlaki.  The suit was lost on procedural grounds, however, the judge in the case stated "Can the executive order the assassination of a US citizen without first affording him any form of judicial process whatsoever, based on the mere assertion that he is a dangerous member of a terrorist organization?"

 We find this case to be alarming as it goes directly to important constitutional issues, due process, and international law.  We concur with Michael Ratner, recent president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, who stated “The dire implications of this killing should not be lost on any of us. There appears to be no limit to the president's power to kill anywhere in the world, even if it involves killing a citizen of his own country. Today, it's in Yemen; tomorrow, it could be in the UK or even in the United States.”

In addition, the CIA drone program has been used to kill political opponents of foreign governments the US supports.  This happened in 2010 in Yemen, when a state governor who opposed President Ali Abdullah Saleh was labeled as a leader of Al Qaeda and killed by CIA drones. We do not see actions like this as promoting peace or stability in this troubled region. In fact, violent actions like this on the part of the US military and the CIA in sovereign countries like Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Yemen will only promote more terrorism directed at the US.

We are also disturbed by the lack of transparency and oversight by our congress. In spite of positive statements about you and the drone program by members of the US Senate Intelligence Committee, there appears to be lack of oversight and understanding of the CIA drone program. For example, committee chair Senator Diane Fienstein recently said, on the first day of your nomination hearing, that she didn’t know that all combat age males were considered targets by the US drone program. This particular fact of targeting of combat age males had been reported over a year ago by The New York Times and other news organizations.  If facts like this are public knowledge and members of congress are still unaware, then how much more ignorant can they be of the CIA drone program if they aren’t informed by your agency?

In spite of assurances from President Obama that the victims of drone strikes are surgical targets, it has been reported that hundreds of victims who are innocent of crimes against the US have been killed including civilian men, women, and children. These people have names and families who love them.  Furthermore, people attending funerals in Pakistan have been killed by drone strikes. Reporters with the United Kingdom based Bureau of Investigative Journalism have reported that “…between 282 and 535 civilians have been credibly reported as killed including more than 60 children. A three month investigation including eye witness reports has found evidence that 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 tactics have been condemned by leading legal experts.”

 We hope that you will take our concerns seriously as it is our position that the use of these drones to kill alleged criminals or terrorists without trial and conviction of any crime is illegal and immoral and increases the ill will directed toward the United States.

 We have written to President Obama and the Secretary of Defense several times in the past with our concerns. We must state again in this letter to you what we said to President Obama: “As members of peace and justice organizations opposed to your continuation of the Bush administration’s failed wars, we are writing to condemn your use of unmanned aerial vehicles (or drones) to kill citizens in at least seven countries. Besides opposing your war policies, we have great concern for people caught up in conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, the Philippines, Somalia and Yemen. The use of drones is wrong on many levels: the illegality and immorality of assassinations, the violation of international law and the Constitutional protection of due process, the targeting of civilian populations, and the disregard of sovereignty. We are especially troubled by your refusal to release the flawed document which purportedly gives you legal cover to determine who is on the kill list…We believe U.S. wars and drone attacks have been demonstrable failures. Now is the time to take the risks of peace. Imagine leading a country which has denounced the madness of war, and instead wants to assist and make friendship with the people of the Middle East and Central Asia.”

We believe the US killer drone program by the CIA and the use of drones to kill by the U.S. military must be brought to an end immediately.

Because we take seriously our Nuremberg obligations, we ask that you respond and meet with us to discuss the termination of the use of drones by the CIA and the U.S. military. We would be prepared to meet with relevant policy-makers from the CIA, the Pentagon, and the Obama Administration to discuss our proposal to immediately end killer drone strikes and to start a process of healing with the victims of U.S. wars. Please give serious consideration to our proposal of reconciliation and diplomacy rather than pernicious killer drone strikes.

We look forward to your response. Rejecting our proposal will mean more death and destruction abroad. We will then continue to protest, risk arrest, and denounce the CIA and U.S. military use of killer drones and a foreign policy of endless wars.

In peace,

Malachy Kilbride, National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance

(Signatures to follow in alphabetical order by last name, along with affiliation)

 

CONTACTS:
Jim Haber, 415-828-2506
Nevada Desert Experience Coordinator
Toby Blome, 510-541-6874
Ann Wright, Ret., 818-741-1141

March 18, 2013

by Debra Sweet, Drector, World Can't Wait              Two recent stories powerfully capture the illegitimacy of the US "global war on terror." 1. The former Obama press secretary says he was told to deny US drone program existed.  For four years, the President has been expanding U.S. use of drones, while developing the execution and legal justification for the targeted killing policy. A military drone program has finally been admitted, and there is fierce struggle over the CIA drone program, delaying the confirmation of John Brennan as CIA Secretary.

http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/

Congress has directed the Secretary of Defense to report on the handling of surveillance data collected by military unmanned aerial systems operating in domestic airspace.  A provision in the 2013 continuing appropriations conference bill approved by the House yesterday explained:

"The conferees are aware of concerns that have been raised regarding the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) and their sensors in domestic airspace. The conferees understand that the Air Force has policies and procedures in place governing the disposition of UAV collections that may inadvertently capture matters of concern to law enforcement agencies. These policies and procedures are designed to ensure constitutional protections and proper separation between the military and law enforcement. However, it is unclear if other Services and Defense agencies have similar policies and procedures in place, or if these policies and procedures need to be revised or standardized. Therefore, the conferees direct the Secretary of Defense to report to the congressional defense committees on the policies and procedures in place across the Services and Defense agencies governing the use of such collections and to identify any additional steps that need to be taken to ensure that such policies and procedures are adequate and consistent across the Department of Defense. This report shall be submitted not later than 90 days after the enactment of this Act."

The referenced Air Force policy on incidental collection of U.S. person data by its drones was reported in USAF Drones May Conduct 'Incidental' Domestic Surveillance, Secrecy News, May 8, 2012.

SATURDAY, MARCH 9, 2013

10AM

CIA HEADQUARTERS

900 block of Dolley Madison Blvd., Langley, Virginia

The US CIA drone program is the worst and bloodiest kept secret. Officially it’s functioning is covert and hidden from scrutiny. Around the world those concerned with international law are opposing the deadly extrajudicial program as thousands have now been killed by CIA and US Military drone strikes and left many others maimed and suffering the loss of loved ones.  According the Bureau of Investigative Journalism from 2004 to the present up to 3573 were killed by the CIA drones in Pakistan alone. Other countries where the CIA and US Military attack with drones include Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, and Afghanistan. Stand with us opposing CIA & US Military drones used in extrajudicial killings.

US killer drone strikes are illegal, immoral, and must stop now!

Supported by Pax Christi Metro DC, Northern Virginians for Peace & Justice, Episcopal Peace Fellowship (DC), Dorothy Day Catholic Worker of DC, Code Pink, Nova Catholic Community, Langley Hill Friends (Quaker), Washington Peace Center, Peace Action Montgomery County, MD, Little Friends for Peace, Maryland United for Peace & Justice, Veterans For Peace

For more information contact Jack McHale: 703-772-0635

This coming Wednesday the House Judiciary Committee plans to hold a hearing on "Drones and the War On Terror: When Can the U.S. Target Alleged American Terrorists Overseas?"

This is odd for a number of reasons.

1. Congressional committees usually don't do anything at all on such matters.

2. The vast majority of the men, women, and children being killed have not been targeted.

3. The vast majority of the men, women, and children being killed or targeted have not been Americans.

4. The president's nominee to direct the CIA refuses to deny that the president claims the power to kill Americans when they are not overseas, not to mention non-Americans within the United States and anyone at all overseas.

5. The three Americans we know the president has targeted and killed by drone strike in no way match up with the justifications for theoretical strikes found in the "white paper."

6. The president is targeting and killing people with a variety of technologies, not just drones.

7. The only remotely legal or moral answer to the question asked by the hearing is "never."

All such concerns will, of course, be brushed aside.  Congress ought to question the administration on its program of drone killing, regardless of what title the hearing is given, right?  But this is where things get really odd.  The witness list doesn't include the president or a single person who works for him, no one from the CIA, no one from the White House, no one from the Pentagon, nobody from the Office of Legal Counsel. As far as we know, and it seems extremely likely to be the case, the committee has not subpoenaed any documents.  If it invited any government witnesses, it has not subpoenaed them or made any plans to figuratively or literally hold them in contempt.  Instead, all the witnesses are outside "experts" who won't know any more about what's going on than the rest of us.

A defender of this approach explained it to me thus: Senators and Representatives are often remarkably ignorant.  Senator Dianne Feinstein doesn't even know that all military aged males killed by drone strikes are being declared militants.  Congress Members don't even read newspapers.  If some smart experts testify at a public hearing, then elected officials can't deny as many facts.  Plus, inviting government witnesses would just produce stonewalling or lying. 

In my view, stonewalling and lying are reasons for subpoenas and contempt, not a complete abdication of the power of oversight.  It's not that I think glorified public newspaper reading is worse than nothing.  I just think more is called for.

On the other hand, the notion that Congress needs more information before it should act is ludicrous.  What sort of memo could legalize murder?  What sort of due process could be applied to murder to make it not be murder?  As long as Congress is bringing in experts to talk about what's already public knowledge, I'd like to propose a different type of witness.  If witnesses from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Yemen are not deemed relevant, newspaper interpreters are not going to make them so.  I'd like to propose, then, as one of many actually useful witnesses a gentleman by the name of Leo Tolstoy, who had this to say well over a century ago:

"People are astonished that every year there are sixty thousand cases of suicide in Europe, and those only the recognized and recorded cases—and excluding Russia and Turkey; but one ought rather to be surprised that there are so few. Every man of the present day, if we go deep enough into the contradiction between his conscience and his life, is in a state of despair.

"Not to speak of all the other contradictions between modern life and the conscience, the permanently armed condition of Europe together with its profession of Christianity is alone enough to drive any man to despair, to doubt of the sanity of mankind, and to terminate an existence in this senseless and brutal world. This contradiction, which is a quintessence of all the other contradictions, is so terrible that to live and to take part in it is only possible if one does not think of it—if one is able to forget it.

"What! all of us, Christians, not only profess to love one another, but do actually live one common life; we whose social existence beats with one common pulse—we aid one another, learn from one another, draw ever closer to one another to our mutual happiness, and find in this closeness the whole meaning of life!—and to-morrow some crazy ruler will say some stupidity, and another will answer in the same spirit, and then I must go expose myself to being murdered, and murder men—who have done me no harm—and more than that, whom I love. And this is not a remote contingency, but the very thing we are all preparing for, which is not only probable, but an inevitable certainty.

"To recognize this clearly is enough to drive a man out of his senses or to make him shoot himself. And this is just what does happen, and especially often among military men. A man need only come to himself for an instant to be impelled inevitably to such an end.

"And this is the only explanation of the dreadful intensity with which men of modern times strive to stupefy themselves, with spirits, tobacco, opium, cards, reading newspapers, traveling, and all kinds of spectacles and amusements. These pursuits are followed up as an important, serious business. And indeed they are a serious business. If there were no external means of dulling their sensibilities, half of mankind would shoot themselves without delay, for to live in opposition to one's reason is the most intolerable condition. And that is the condition of all men of the present day. All men of the modern world exist in a state of continual and flagrant antagonism between their conscience and their way of life. This antagonism is apparent in economic as well as political life. But most striking of all is the contradiction between the Christian law of the brotherhood of men existing in the conscience and the necessity under which all men are placed by compulsory military service of being prepared for hatred and murder—of being at the same time a Christian and a gladiator."

It seems to me that the occasion of publicly discussing the U.S. government's targeting and killing U.S. citizens presents an opportunity for opening up even the narrowest of bigots to the contradiction between killing and protecting (whether or not one puts the latter in the religious terms of Tolstoy's day -- as I do not but most Congress Members sometimes pretend to).  Tolstoy may not be the ideal witness, as he's dead.  But he does have the advantage of having already posed to himself better questions than anyone would ask him if he were alive. (You know they'd be asking about the latest film adaptation of Anna Karenina.)

"'How can you kill people, when it is written in God's commandment: "Thou shalt not kill"?' I have often inquired of different soldiers. And I always drove them to embarrassment and confusion by reminding them of what they did not want to think about. They knew they were bound by the law of God, 'Thou shalt not kill,' and knew too that they were bound by their duty as soldiers, but had never reflected on the contradiction between these duties. The drift of the timid answers I received to this question was always approximately this: that killing in war and executing criminals by command of the government are not included in the general prohibition of murder. But when I said this distinction was not made in the law of God, and reminded them of the Christian duty of fraternity, forgiveness of injuries, and love, which could not be reconciled with murder, the peasants usually agreed, but in their turn began to ask me questions. 'How does it happen,' they inquired, 'that the government [which according to their ideas cannot do wrong] sends the army to war and orders criminals to be executed.' When I answered that the government does wrong in giving such orders, the peasants fell into still greater confusion, and either broke off the conversation or else got angry with me.

"'They must have found a law for it. The archbishops know as much about it as we do, I should hope,' a Russian soldier once observed to me. And in saying this the soldier obviously set his mind at rest, in the full conviction that his spiritual guides had found a law which authorized his ancestors, and the tzars and their descendants, and millions of men, to serve as he was doing himself, and that the question I had put him was a kind of hoax or conundrum on my part.

"Everyone in our Christian society knows, either by tradition or by revelation or by the voice of conscience, that murder is one of the most fearful crimes a man can commit, as the Gospel tells us, and that the sin of murder cannot be limited to certain persons, that is, murder cannot be a sin for some and not a sin for others. Everyone knows that if murder is a sin, it is always a sin, whoever are the victims murdered, just like the sin of adultery, theft, or any other. At the same time from their childhood up men see that murder is not only permitted, but even sanctioned by the blessing of those whom they are accustomed to regard as their divinely appointed spiritual guides, and see their secular leaders with calm assurance organizing murder, proud to wear murderous arms, and demanding of others in the name of the laws of the country, and even of God, that they should take part in murder. Men see that there is some inconsistency here, but not being able to analyze it, involuntarily assume that this apparent inconsistency is only the result of their ignorance. The very grossness and obviousness of the inconsistency confirms them in this conviction."

Congress would hear something worth hearing from this witness, I believe.  But so might twenty-first century U.S. peasants as well.

By Daniel Garrett

I wonder if in the end

there will be something of us

left in them:

that the great circling metal wings

might find themselves wanting

to circle with another span

of metal wings

so attracted to the glint

and gorgon eyes

that in the blue-arched rhapsody

of their fling

they might at last begin to sing

songs of desperate desire

and of earth

I do know that the

poor fucks we scorched

were scorched by us

with missiles

we sent from our

hellfire holes

that the air sucked out of daughters’ lungs

by high explosive hits

was sucked out by us

that the dismembered children

what is left of them that can be

remembered

were ‘bug-splattered’

by us

and those later

born deformed

from all the depleted

by Debra Sweet                    With the kind of "kabuki theater" questioning the Senate gave John Brennan last week during a public hearing, it's certain they will confirm him as Director of the C.I.A. This should not be any surprise. Diane Feinstein, Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee hasn't met a national security "concern" yet that didn't trump the rights of the people; we know she was one of the select few briefed by the Bush regime when they began torture, or excuse me, "enhanced interrogations."

Dear Friends,

Greetings from the Federal Prison Camp in Yankton, South Dakota!  As of this writing, I am two months into a six month sentence imposed due to my protest of war crimes committed by remote control from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri against the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Betsy accompanied me here to Yankton on November 29, and that evening the Emmaus House Catholic Worker community, Beth Preheim, Michael Sprong and Dagmar Hoxie, hosted an evening of music, good food and good company to see me off.  Activists from around the Midwest attended, including some sisters from the Benedictine monastery here.

In the morning after a great breakfast and Gospel prayer, Betsy and Dagmar and Michael, along with Renee Espeland and Elton Davis, Catholic Workers from Des Moines, and Jerry Ebner, a Catholic Worker from Omaha, walked a “last mile” with me to the gate of the prison where I expect to remain until the end of May.

By Nicholson Baker via John Amidon

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