Drone Scribd Info by Al Mac

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Drone Scribd
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Drone Scribd
Reviews and synopses of Scribd Drone Info docs collection, and on International Law.
Collected by Alister William Macintyre Some reviews include suggestions to their authors, how they could improve future editions. I include relevant citations Last updated 2013 Mar 16
Version 5.19
Table of Contents Synopsis Whats This? (2 Oct 11) .............................................................................. 4 Road Map to Understanding (2 Oct 13).......................................................................... 4 Author ideological interjection (2 Nov 30)................................................................. 5 Drone Activist Directory (2 Oct 11) ........................................................................... 7 Drone Scribd Introduction (2 Sep 10)................................................................................. 8 Terrorism and Brutality (2 Sep 10) ............................................................ 9 Acronym Clarifications (2 Oct 2) ................................................................................. 10 Explain Child+ (2 Sep 8) .......................................................................................... 11 Explain Drone+ (2 Oct 8) ......................................................................................... 12 Explain Geneva Convention+ (2 Sep 9) ................................................................... 13 Explain International Law+ (2 Sep 8)....................................................................... 15 Explain Latency+ (2 Nov 01) ................................................................................... 16 Explain Targeted Killing+ (3 Mar 16) ...................................................................... 17 US Drone FAQ (3 Feb 18)............................................................................................ 19 ACLU Drone Lawsuits (2 Oct 10).................................................................................... 20 FOIA Lawsuit: Drone targeted killing (3 Mar 15)........................................................ 20 ACLU wins appeal against CIA (3 Mar 15) ............................................................. 21 Lawsuit: Yemen Children Massacred by US drone (2 Sep 7) ...................................... 22 Lawsuits: 3 US citizens killed by drones (2 Dec 25).................................................... 22 ACLU loses FOIA on US citizens killed by drones (3 Jan 07) ................................ 23 Legality of US Citizens killed by drones (2 Sep 11) ................................................ 24 ACLU FOIA: Drones in USA (2 Oct 24) ..................................................................... 24 EFF FOIA: Drones in USA (2 Oct 24) ............................................................................. 26 Drone Wars UK Briefing for 2011 (2 Sep 7).................................................................... 26 Reprieve Drone Lawsuits in Britain (2 Dec 28) ............................................................... 27 UN 2013 Investigation (3 Mar 04).................................................................................... 27 UN 2013 Investigation backlash (3 Jan 28) .............................................................. 29 UN 2013 Investigation background (3 Jan 24) ......................................................... 31 UN rapporteur on Brennan to run CIA drones (3 Feb 10) ........................................ 31 Pakistan Information gathering (3 Mar 15) .............................................................. 32
Located in my personal PC / Studies / Drones
Drone Scribd
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UN 2013 Inquiry Phases (3 Jan 25) .............................................................................. 33 UN 2013 Drone Inquiry Team (3 Jan 26) ................................................................. 34 Targeted Killing Legal Perspectives (3 Mar 16)....................................................... 35 Torture under Bush Administration (3 Mar 05)........................................................ 37 Legal Theories on Drone Usage (3 Jan 24) .................................................................. 37 International Law on Drones (3 Jan 24) ........................................................................... 39 Legal Geography of War (2 Sep 11)............................................................................. 40 UN Legalities of Targeted Killing (2 Sep 10) .............................................................. 42 UN action coming soon (2 Nov 29) .......................................................................... 44 Civilian Casualties of Drone Attacks (2 Sep 9) ............................................................ 45 Laws of Drone Warfare (2 Sep 9)................................................................................. 48 Pakistan Targeted by Drones (2 Sep 8)............................................................................. 51 Pakistan Living Under Drones (2 Oct 27) .................................................................... 51 Pakistan Numbers Attacked by Drones (2 Oct 3) ..................................................... 53 Pakistan Best Estimated Numbers (2 Oct 14)........................................................... 55 Military Drone Impact (2 Oct 4)............................................................................... 57 Police Drone Usage (2 Sep 7)........................................................................................... 57 Police Drone Concerns in Palo Alto, CA, (2 Sep 7) ..................................................... 58 Police Drone Miami-Dade FL info (2 Sep 7) ............................................................... 59 Predator Drone Hacking How To (2 Sep 6)...................................................................... 60 USAF Spy Info Oversight (2 Sep 7) ................................................................................. 61 Collection Categories (2 Oct 11) ...................................................................................... 61 Drones Legal (2 Oct 11) ............................................................................................... 61 Drones Military (2 Oct 11) ........................................................................................... 62 Drones USA (2 Oct 11)................................................................................................. 62 Factual Corrections (2 Sep 5) ........................................................................................... 62 Who may fly UA over USA (2 Sep 5).......................................................................... 63 Drones Authorized by FAA to fly over USA (2 Sep 5)............................................ 64 Drone Rules Confusion (2 Sep 6) ............................................................................. 64 Other than Manned Aviation, and Drones, over USA (2 Sep 6) .............................. 64 Safety Concerns (2 Sep 5)............................................................................................. 65 It cannot happen, until it does (2 Sep 5) ................................................................... 66 Disaster Risks (2 Sep 6)............................................................................................ 66 Congressional Oversight (2 Oct 11) ............................................................................. 68 Congress knows all about Drones (3 Feb 17) ........................................................... 69 Senate Intelligence Committee Drone Oversight (3 Feb 14).................................... 73 Privacy, Police, Military, Political, Concerns (2 Oct 09) ............................................. 73 Legal Issues (2 Oct 08) ............................................................................................. 74 Military Issues (2 Sep 08) ......................................................................................... 75 Policy Issues (2 Aug 29) ........................................................................................... 76 Police Issues (2 Sep 3) .............................................................................................. 78 US Drone Targeting rules (2 Sep 11) ....................................................................... 79 Counting Innocents attacked by Drones (3 Feb 26)...................................................... 80 Freedom of Speech in War Time (2 Sep 9) ...................................................................... 80 UK strips citizenship then kills (3 Feb 28) ................................................... 81 US Kill Americans memo leak (3 Feb 07) ................................................... 81
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Lawfare overall perspective (3 Feb 07) .................................................................... 82 Lawfare Feb-6-23 + overall (3 Feb 23) .................................................................... 84 Lawfare Feb-27 + overall (3 Feb 27)........................................................................ 85 Lots news Garbage on Memo Gate (3 Feb 09) ......................................................... 85 Lessons from news garbage (3 Feb 07) .................................................................... 87 What is in leaked memo? (3 Feb 21) ........................................................................ 87 View leaked memo (3 Feb 06).................................................................................. 88 US Justification for Targeted Killing (3 Feb 27) .......................................................... 89 Dangerous Precedents (3 Feb 14) ................................................................................. 90 Misconduct Perceptions (3 Feb 17) .......................................................................... 93 Lose Citizenship (3 Feb 10)...................................................................................... 93 Legal sources approving of memo (3 Feb 07) .............................................................. 93 Legal sources disapproving memo (3 Feb 09) .............................................................. 94 ACLU analysis of leaked memo (3 Feb 08) ............................................................. 96 FAS analysis of leaked memo (3 Feb 06) ................................................................. 96 Informed Comment on leaked memo (3 Feb 06)...................................................... 97 Opinio Juris on leaked memo (3 Feb 07).................................................................. 98 US Constitution relevance to Drones (3 Feb 09) ...................................................... 99 Civil and Human Rights Organizations react (3 Feb 07)............................................ 101 News Media reacts to leaked memo (3 Feb 09).......................................................... 102 Scribd reports related to leaked memo (3 Feb 06) ...................................................... 104 Bloggers on the leaked memo (3 Feb 07) ................................................................... 105 Social Media reacts to leaked memo (3 Feb 06)......................................................... 105 Petitioning US government (3 Feb 06) ....................................................................... 105 Inside Government commentary (3 Feb 06) ............................................................... 105 White House caves under pressure (3 Feb 15)............................................................ 106 Proposed improvements in current reality (3 Feb 07) ................................................ 107 Modify rule-book for battle-fields (3 Feb 10)......................................................... 107 Replace rule-book for secret wars (3 Feb 08) ......................................................... 107 Revise System for Classifying documents (3 Feb 08) ............................................ 108 Federal Intelligence Commission (3 Feb 21).......................................................... 108 FISC for Kill List (3 Feb 21) .................................................................................. 108 After Action Damages Court for Wrongful Victims (3 Feb 11)............................. 109 Congress Public Fact finding (3 Feb 11) .................................................................... 109 Which Memos many versions (3 Feb 07) ............................................................ 110 Wyden asks Brennan (3 Feb 19) ............................................................................. 111 Wyden questions (3 Feb 06) ................................................................................... 111 11 Senators ask President Obama (3 Feb 07) ......................................................... 112 Wyden asks Holder (3 Feb 06) ............................................................................... 114 Congress Prior Knew (3 Feb 06) ................................................................................ 115 How Know Who is Enemy? (3 Feb 10)...................................................................... 115 American Civil War precedent (3 Feb 11).......................................... 116 Al Mac Research split (2 Oct 11).................................................................... 117 Drone Research Sharing Sites (2 Oct 09) ................................................................... 119 Contacting author (2 July 10) ................................................................................. 120 Revision History (2 Oct 19) ............................................................................................ 120
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Drone Scribd started early 2012 Sept (2 Oct 15) .................................................... 122
Synopsis Whats This? (2 Oct 11)

I review Drone documents from the perspective of how important they are in the overall scheme of many reports on similar aspects of Drone usage and controversies. Where I see that the authors may be mistaken in their facts presentation, or where their recommendations are apparently messed up, I provide citations to help them improve future editions.
Road Map to Understanding (2 Oct 13)

Many documents and articles explore whats going on with drones, and critical issues of public accountability, but I think a handful stand head and shoulders above the rest, in helping readers rapidly gain full comprehension about whats happening, and what the key issues are. They include (read in this sequence); 1. CRS1 Kill US Citizen Legalities.2 (23 pages) 2. Drone Wars UK Briefing3 from Drone Wars Net.4 (36 pages) 3. UN report5 on legality of targeted killing. (29 pages) 4. Legal Geography of War.6 (20 pages) 5. Pakistan Living Under Drones7 (182 pages) 6. American Security Project Drone Bibliography.8 (11 pages) Other people also have recommendations. According to Kenneth Anderson,9 in Lawfare, Oct 4, 2012, there are two academic journals he recommends for research in terrorism and political violence studies from an interdisciplinary social science perspective.10
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CRS = Congressional Research Service. https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/target.pdf 3 I devote a chapter in Drone Scribd to this Briefing. 4 www.dronewars.net info@dronewars.net 5 http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/14session/A.HRC.14.24.Add6.pdf I have copiy of this 2010 May UN report in my Drone Info collections on Google Docs Drive and Linked In Box Net. Someone else uploaded it to Scribd: http://www.scribd.com/doc/36645111/UN-special-rapporteurReport-on-extrajudicial-Philip-Alston 6 I devote a chapter in Drone Scribd to this Legal Analysis by Kenneth Anderson, Targeted Killing and Drone Warfare: How We came to Debate Whether there Is a Legal Geography of War (April 2011), Future Challenges in National Security and Law, edited by Peter Berkowitz, http://www.futurechallengesessays.com 77 http://livingunderdrones.org/ INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS AND CONFLICT RESOLUTION CLINIC (STANFORD LAW SCHOOL) AND GLOBAL JUSTICE CLINIC (NYU SCHOOL OF LAW), LIVING UNDER DRONES: DEATH, INJURY, AND TRAUMA TO CIVILIANS FROM US DRONE PRACTICES IN PAKISTAN (September, 2012) 8 I copied the ASP Bibliography to my Drone Info collections on Google Drive and Linked In / Box Net / Drone Info / Drone Sources sub-folder. I originally located it here: http://americansecurityproject.org/issues/asymmetric-operations/the-strategic-effects-of-a-lethal-dronespolicy/drone-information-sources-annotated-bibliography/ 9 http://www.lawfareblog.com/author/ken/
Drone Scribd Journal of Terrorism and Political Violence11 Studies in Conflict and Terrorism12
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Author ideological interjection (2 Nov 30)

Many sources make certain claims, which are copied by many other writers, without question. The original sources may be: Describing a reality which is evolving rapidly, so the copied info becomes out of date, irrelevant. People are treating as FACT, something which was true several years ago, but no longer today. Some people exaggerate a technological development, confusing it with what we see in popular science fiction movies. Then other people say this must be a photo shopped fraud, urban legend, Onion satire, or science fiction story accidentally communicated as fact. Then they draw conclusions from that, oblivious to the fact that the original core story was in fact true real. They are reacting to the exaggeration, misleading their readers even further. There are in fact frauds out there, but there are also a lot of misguided people, reacting to other misguided people, out of touch with true reality. We live in a complex world, where a history of technology used by a history of the corporate world, world of politicians, regulators, academia, and others, have led to an evolution of practices which shape our world. Most college graduates learn state-of-art of science and technology relevant to their career, but not all areas, then as their career develops, they stay current ONLY in areas relevant to their career, so when they rise up to be the leaders of their company department or government agency, their info is 20-30 years out of date in most all areas other than their field of primary expertise. This can lead their policy making to reject the info coming from people in other professions, whose know-how is far beyond what the leaders remember from college. To understand what drones can do, and the serious implications, you have to know the latest on a spectrum of topics, which no one person has: GPS applications and how vulnerable it is to hacking; artificial intelligence; how human-decision-making contributes to software bugs and policy dysfunctions; ethics; international law; foreign cultures. Sharing a bias, consciously or unconsciously, without investigating whether their allegations are valid. Then other media repeats the bogus information, undermining their credibility. This is a particularly annoying problem with the claims of how many innocent people killed by drones. Estimates are all over the place from none to 1,000 innocents killed for every 1 enemy. Many of the reports explain where the data came from, so we can judge for ourselves. Many people quote the summary without the explanation. Some people choose to believe one extreme or the other, without attempting to reconcile the different conclusions. There are wildly repeated statements claiming that ALL these reports have
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http://www.lawfareblog.com/2012/10/readings-two-leading-academic-social-science-journals-onterrorism/ 11 http://www.tandfonline.com/action/aboutThisJournal?show=editorialBoard&journalCode=ftpv20& 12 http://www.tandfonline.com/action/aboutThisJournal?show=editorialBoard&journalCode=ftpv20
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questionable methodologies, disregarding the fact that SOME of the researchers compared methodologies to explain which ones are most reliable. Here is an article which seeks to undermine all opposition to drones, by claiming that the people who oppose drone use are either pacifists, or allied with enemies of our nation.13 There are many people in the US who are in denial regarding official reasons for invading Iraq and Afghanistan, what happened on 9/11, who won which elections, and why. There are also people who do not believe any conspiracy theories, but dispute that our strategy and tactics are in the best interests of long term peace and security of the nation. We can support a nation, a religion, a people, without having to support 100% of their actions. A true patriot supports the good stuff a nation does, and speaks out against the bad stuff. It is true that a lot of activists are anti-war, pacifists, but not everyone who opposes the use of nuclear weapons is an enemy of the state, or a pacifist, or other ideology. Some people favor national defense, but at the same time have a deep problem with the morality of some of the tactics used. I personally do not like the reality that in fighting for our survival, we often use tactics that guarantee the nation will be embroiled in more wars for centuries. We now are engaged in a war on terrorism, which really is a war on enemies we created during the Cold War, which was a war to contain communism, and in the process, considered everyone in all the nations of the world which were neither part of the west, nor part of communist world, to be expendable. Similarly, in history prior to WW I and II, there was behavior with the great nations, terrorizing people in weaker nations, laying the seeds for great wars of the future. We have a war on drugs, which is not designed to stop people being addicted to drugs, but instead to help the drug cartels become nastier enemies, so that this war will last forever. I agree that there are no easy solutions. US Foreign Policy, and Domestic Policy is often run by people who are enemies of the values enshrined in the US Constitution. 14 We have a revolving door in the US between people who own coal mines, work in oil industry, Wall Street, military industrial complex, etc. and the government regulators of those industries, where those regulators are often more loyal to the industries than to the government, or the people. We are now in a situation of our own making, where we cannot get good intelligence regarding the locations of our enemies, so we pay informants to identify targets for drone attacks, and those informants are more interested in the money, than in the truth, so many drone attacks are against innocent victims.
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http://www.patheos.com/blogs/frenchrevolution/2012/10/26/yes-drone-strikes-are-legal-and-moral/ See my Drone Terms comments on how Fusion Centers have brought back the same evils discovered by the Church Commission.
Drone Scribd
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Some of the stories about the Benghazi, which I do not yet know if true or not,15 claim that: US intelligence agents are confined to the grounds of our embassies; Foreigners, acting as our agents, visit our embassies and consulates to report to our intelligence agencies; They have to go thru security which uses contractors, composed mainly of personnel from the local nation; Thus, most foreigners, who could be the best agents, are not going to do this, because then the contractor personnel will know who they are; Those contractor personnel were outraged by the video, which attacked their religion, so they deliberately withdrew support when the extremists attacked the consulate, thinking the US deserved to be punished for the video. If we are entirely justified in warring against our enemies, under the UN Charter, and history, then there should not be the secrecy opposing investigations of alleged attacks on total innocents, where lawyers journalists etc. who are seeking the truth, are targeted by the US government as if they are enemies of the state. When innocents are killed by the war, the war fighters leadership should make an effort to compensate the families. This is not happening yet. Instead, we are recruiting enemies to support the military industrial complex make profit from wars into the 22nd century.
Drone Activist Directory (2 Oct 11)

More info, of this kind, is in my general Drone Notes. Good starting points for seeing what info is available, includes: Bureau of Investigative Journalism16 (TBIJ) CNN regarding US Drone attacks in Yemen17 Code Pink18 Drone Wars UK19 Foundation for Fundamental Rights (FFR), a Pakistan Non-Profit Legal Advocate for Drone Victims.20
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See my Petraeus research notes for what has been determined to be true about Libya, Afghanistan, and other related hot foreign policy issues. 16 Bureau of Investigative Journalism, based in London Britain. http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/category/projects/drones/ http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/category/projects/drone-data/ http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2011/08/12/attacking-the-messenger-how-the-cia-tried-toundermine-drone-study/ 17 http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/11/opinion/bergen-yemen-drone-war/index.html 18 http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2012/05/24/the-uphill-fight-against-obamas-drones-an-interviewwith-code-pinks-medea-benjamin/ 19 Drone Wars UK see Drone Scribd Info. https://dronewarsuk.wordpress.com/ 20 http://livingunderdrones.org/report-introduction/ INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS AND CONFLICT RESOLUTION CLINIC (STANFORD LAW SCHOOL) AND GLOBAL JUSTICE CLINIC (NYU SCHOOL OF LAW), LIVING UNDER DRONES: DEATH, INJURY, AND TRAUMA TO CIVILIANS FROM US DRONE PRACTICES IN PAKISTAN (September, 2012)
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Know Drones21 travels to voter districts to educate the voters about drones, when their elected officials have had major votes on the topic. Long War Journal (LWJ) (use their search for drones to see massive article collection)22 The Middle East Policy Council.23 New America Foundation24 (NAF) Pakistani Body Count25 tracks both drone attacks (by USA), and suicide bomb attacks, both of which allegedly target a hell of a lot of innocent civilians. Pakistan Human Rights Commission26 Pro Publica27 o Drone Math, asserted by US officials, which is not internally consistent.28 Reprieve,29 based in Britain, promotes the rule of law around the world. UN Human Rights Council accepts complaints regarding alleged War Crimes.30
Also see Links at: Living Under Drones;31
Drone Scribd Introduction (2 Sep 10)

I have created a collection of links to Scribd documents, which I believe are informative, educational, eye-opening etc. about Drone topics, and I made it moderated, which means the collection belongs to me, but other people may suggest additional articles, but need my approval for them to be added.
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http://www.wdtn.com/dpp/news/local/montgomery/know-drones-tour-lands-in-dayton http://www.longwarjournal.org/ http://www.longwarjournal.org/pakistan-strikes.php 23 http://www.mepc.org/journal/middle-east-policy-archives/drone-warfare-blowback-new-american-waywar?print 24 http://counterterrorism.newamerica.net/drones 25 http://pakistanbodycount.org/drn.php http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/05/pak-site-drones-only-killed-one-terrorist-in-2010-if-you-dontcount-taliban/ 26 http://www.deathandtaxesmag.com/184803/the-un-would-like-the-white-house-to-please-explain-all-thedrone-killings/ 27 https://www.propublica.org/article/everything-you-ever-wanted-to-know-about-drones 28 https://www.propublica.org/special/how-obama-drone-death-claims-stack-up#1 29 http://reprieve.org.uk/ 30 Reprieve, Complaint Against the United States of America for the Killing of Innocent Citizens of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan to the United Nations Human Rights Council, http://reprieve.org.uk/media/downloads/2012_02_22_PUB_drones_UN_HRC_complaint.pdf?utm_source= Press+mailing+list&utm_campaign=89f3db0a752012_02_23_drones_UN_complaint&utm_medium=email. 31 http://livingunderdrones.org/links/ INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS AND CONFLICT RESOLUTION CLINIC (STANFORD LAW SCHOOL) AND GLOBAL JUSTICE CLINIC (NYU SCHOOL OF LAW), LIVING UNDER DRONES: DEATH, INJURY, AND TRAUMA TO CIVILIANS FROM US DRONE PRACTICES IN PAKISTAN (September, 2012)
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Here I will attempt to review and summarize those Scribd documents, their general value, like a bibliography. This review has a version # on the end of its naming, which I will increment as I replace it with re-writes. In parentheses after each chapter heading is date in format (Year Month Day) when I last updated the contents of that chapter. I have adjusted reference names of the documents, to try to better clarify what the contents are all about, and the source of the material, since many uploads are by people other than the original authors. See footnote soon after each document referenced, to show the original Scribd link. I plan to review many documents in the collection, then upload revised editions of these notes, as I make significant progress doing so. Initially, I am skimming over many documents, to get the gist of them here, in my notes, so as to assess their relevant value and context, noting which ones I need to return to later to study in more detail, as my time permits.
Terrorism and Brutality (2 Sep 10)

Terrorism has been used by non-state actors in many nations for decades, such as hijacking planes and demanding the release of ideological brothers, or they will kill the airline passenger hostages. Many nations have had freedom fighters, demanding independent nationhood for their people, using attacks on the civilians as a tactic, such as the Irish Republican Army in Britain. In the USA, terrorism was not much on the radar screen of the American people until 9/11. This was the latest in a series of brutal attacks against America by Islamist Fundamentalists, not the first on American soil, since there had been an earlier truck bombing in the World Trade Towers. There had also been other prior terrorist attacks inside the USA, by other than Islamist Fundamentalists, such as the Oklahoma City bombing. Many of the Islamist Fundamentalist terrorist attacks before 9/11 led to the deaths of hundreds of Muslims, such as the bombings of US embassies in Africa. The attackers saw nothing wrong with this, because they believed it is wrong to be working in support of the USA. Those Muslims deserved to die, they believed. The war on terror response sometimes appears to strike at our humanitarian values. We attack groups of people over a large geographic area, in which everyone is supposed to take the US government word for it, that they are legitimate targets. Drone attacks into towns, lead to fire fighters and ambulances rushing to the aid of people in buildings demolished by the attacks, then the drones return to attack the rescue workers. Logistically, this is conceptually similar to rescue workers at 9/11 being killed by the falling twin towers. While more died in the 9/11 event than any one drone attack, the collective drone attacks may have killed more people than 9/11 deaths. This is justified by the US now being at war with an enemy, where in any war, there will be brutal tactics.
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Drone Scribd
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Just as the US protests that workers in WTC were innocent civilians, so do nations around the world protest that the people killed in drone attacks were innocent civilians. Al Qaeda plotters claimed alleged abuse by US foreign policy as justification for their attacks, they believe a lot of Jews work in US Financial Industry, and they hate Jews, so they see nothing wrong with what they did. The local people, where drone attacks occurred, think those who were attacked were innocent of involvement with Al Qaeda or the Taliban, and that maybe the next attack might be against them. This generates recruits for our enemy, which would not have occurred without the drone attacks. Have the terrorists won, in the sense of inciting us to destroy many of our traditional values? One of the reasons for bin Laden to fund 9/11 was he wanted to incite America to attack the Middle East, where he expected Americas wealth to be drained, as it would incite attacks on America by like minded interests. We have seen in Iraq and Afghanistan that there are many attacking US forces, far beyond the influence of Al Qaeda. Also the Western world is now gripped by a brutal Great Recession. Bin Laden did not directly cause it, but without 9/11 aftermath, it might never have happened.
Acronym Clarifications (2 Oct 2) See my document Drone Terms which defines over 750 acronyms and concepts
which I have come across, so far, while studying multiple Drone Info Sources. How to get at my various Drone documents is explained in Document Split chapter. Some acronyms and definitions of terminology of critical value to placing these documents and material information in perspective:32 Warning: In my effort to Grok this stuff, I might not yet be using some terminology precisely correctly. ACLU = American Civil Liberties Union33 Al-Qaeda = a global militant group founded by Osama Bin Laden to fight against governments for political and religious gains.34 AQ = Al-Qaeda. AQAP = Al-Qaeda in Arabian Peninsula AU = Aviation Unit AUMF = Authorization to Use Military Force Blame Game: because the opposition party is trying to win the next election, and whichever party wins US Presidency usually also gains majority in Congress, they often heap blame on current President for many challenges in which Congress, or Supreme Court, or The Fed, or other portion of government has a lot
32
I have expanded on terminology explanations in the various documents, to include what I have found elsewhere. 33 http://www.aclu.org/blog/tag/drones 34 http://pakistanbodycount.org/definitions
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more responsibility than the President. Just as the current President cannot fix the problem alone, nor can the next one. But this propaganda is used because it is negative advertising PR, which unfortunately is very effective in US politics. CAA = British Civil Aviation Authority is similar to the US FAA, in that they regulate what flies in the skies over Britain, and allegedly care more about security and safety, than privacy..35
CAOC = Combined Air Operations Centre
CBP = US Customs and Border Protection36 o CBP is the "largest law enforcement air force in the world," according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), with an air fleet comprising more than 270 manned aircraft.37 o Inspector General (IG) found many problems with CBP drone usage.38 See May 2012 in calendar of key drone dates, in Drone Notes. CCR = Center for Constitutional Rights
Explain Child+ (2 Sep 8)
Child = A young human being below the age of full physical development or
below the legal age of majority. o Pakistan Body Count is counting all below the age of 12 (male or female) as children.39 o One of the public accountability issues is the justification for our government killing children with drones. Civilian used to mean: unarmed pedestrian; person not on active duty in the armed services or police or firefighting force; who do not belong to any terrorist group or anti-government organization.40 o Now in the war on terror, any public gathering of persons of military age, may be labeled militants, Ok to be killed by the US CIA or military. 41 COA = Certificate of Authorization, issued by FAA to an organization, approving plans to fly drones where over USA, for what purposes. Collateral Damage: In warfare, and other conflicts, the nature of the weapon(s)
and skill(s) of their operators, can often mean that in addition to performing the
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http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2012/08/31/more-drone-than-debate-newsnight-loses-track-ofissues-at-hand/ 36 http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/06/what-the-heck-is-homeland-security-doing-with180-million-in-drones-mostly-sitting-around/258474/ 37 http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/06/21/drone_sweet_drone 38 Inspector General finds many problems with CBP use of drones. http://www.oig.dhs.gov/assets/Mgmt/2012/OIG_12-85_May12.pdf https://epic.org/2012/06/new-report-finds-border-survei.html https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/06/federal-government-moves-forward-drone-programs-despite-poorplanning-and-lack 39 http://pakistanbodycount.org/definitions 40 Webster and http://pakistanbodycount.org/definitions 41 http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2012/05/29/analysis-how-obama-changed-definition-of-civilianin-secret-drone-wars/
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intended damage by their users, many innocent bystanders and their property can also be hurt in the process. See Innocent Bystander.
Conspiracy Theory42 is where people explain an activity, in the context of some secret cabal, or people with a weird agenda. Such theories often come from people seeking simple explanations in a reality which is really very complex. Some Conspiracy Theories are concocted and promulgated by people who know better, but are doing it for propaganda purposes. o Some people assume that all drones are armed.43 From perspective of people on the ground, we probably do not know, until it is too late. o Here is some nonsense about the EPA and drones.44 o Some people in Pakistan think the drone attacks are intended to destabilize Pakistan to help with some plot hatched in India or Israel.45 DHS = US Department of Homeland Security46 DoD = US Dept of Defense47 Here is 2009 Dod Drone Roadmap. (4 Meg)48 Raffaela Wakeman writes July 10, 2012 in LAWFARE Blog,49 QUOTE o Conor Friedersdorf at The Atlantic50 looks closely at the 2009 Unmanned Systems Integrated Roadmap, the Pentagons plan for the use of drones from 2009 through 2034, and wonders whether we may get to a point when drones are completely autonomous. For the record, Missy Cummings of MIT says not in her lifetime.51 o UNQUOTE DoJ = US Dept of Justice
Explain Drone+ (2 Oct 8)

Drone traditionally has been used in many contexts.52 Contemporary interest is in unmanned vehicles, which are typically operated in the sky, 53 as robots on the ground, and can also be under the sea. Here are some pictures of drones, and their
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_theory http://thetandd.com/news/opinion/at-home-drones-spur-anger-at-obama/article_93f608a0-c0a6-11e18049-001a4bcf887a.html 44 http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-epa-spy-drones-20120619,0,2898522.story 45 http://paktribune.com/articles/Drone-Attacks-Damage-the-US-Interests-242932.html 46 http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/06/what-the-heck-is-homeland-security-doing-with180-million-in-drones-mostly-sitting-around/258474/ 47 http://www.defense.gov/ 48 http://www.acq.osd.mil/psa/docs/UMSIntegratedRoadmap2009.pdf 49 http://www.lawfareblog.com/2012/07/todays-headlines-and-commentary-222/ 50 http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/07/the-pentagons-vision-pervasive-drones-on-land-airand-sea/259541/ 51 http://www.lawfareblog.com/2012/03/lawfare-podcast-episode-5-missy-cummings-on-drones-dronesdrones/ 52 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drone A male bee, whose sole function is to get the queen bee pregnant. A human being who contributes nothing to our civilization. Make an unpleasant sound, like humming, machinery noises. Talk in a monotonous tone. 53 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unmanned_aerial_vehicle
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infrastructure, so we are on the same page of communications.54 Also see: COA; FAA; GCS; Nuclear Drones; R*; SAC; U*.in Drone Terms. Drone Warfare 101 Several links, via footnotes, provide a crash course in comprehending this topic, which has evolved dramatically in recent decades. 55 EFF = Electronic Freedom Foundation56 FAA = USA Federal Aviation Administration (FAA GOV).is in charge of coordinating flights over USA national air space (NAS), including unmanned aircraft.57 In times past, there were military operations separate from the FAA, but more and more is coming under this single umbrella. o FAA also = US Federal Arbitration Act. o Also see: DOT; CAA, COA, DOT; SAC in Drone Terms. FATA = Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan.58 o Also see: FCR; Jirga; Khassadar; Malik in Drone Terms. FOIA = Freedom of Information Act59 o A Citizen's Guide on Using the Freedom of Information Act and the Privacy Act of 1974 to Request Government Records, House Committee on Government Reform, September 20, 2005, House Report 109-226 (PDF)60. GAO = US Government Accountability Office
Explain Geneva Convention+ (2 Sep 9)
Geneva Convention(s),61 usually refers to international law treaties regarding

humanitarian treatment of: prisoners, of war and armed conflicts (military and civilian), the wounded, sick, and ship-wrecked, civilians in a military conflict; prohibitions against the use of torture; etc. o The Geneva Conventions generally focus on treatment of people who are no longer combatants, or never were legal combatants, in a military conflict. o The Hague Conventions focus on the conduct of the war, prohibitions against certain types of weapons, for example.
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http://cryptome.org/2012-info/killer-drones/killer-drones-controls.htm https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=drones&hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=5qM&rls=org.mozilla:enUS:official&prmd=imvnsul&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=RF7ZT8amJqJ6AGz3dnLAg&ved=0CHgQsAQ&biw=1432&bih=718&sei=-1_ZT_3SHcPH6gHMiK3LAg 55 http://www.mepc.org/journal/middle-east-policy-archives/drone-warfare-blowback-new-american-waywar?print 56 https://www.eff.org/ 57 https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/07/faa-releases-thousands-pages-drone-records 58 http://livingunderdrones.org/report-introduction/ INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS AND CONFLICT RESOLUTION CLINIC (STANFORD LAW SCHOOL) AND GLOBAL JUSTICE CLINIC (NYU SCHOOL OF LAW), LIVING UNDER DRONES: DEATH, INJURY, AND TRAUMA TO CIVILIANS FROM US DRONE PRACTICES IN PAKISTAN (September, 2012) 59 https://www.fas.org/sgp/foia/foia2007.pdf 60 https://www.fas.org/sgp/foia/citizen.html 61 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva_Conventions
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There is a hole in these agreements, not addressing current day scenarios where in some nation there is no official war, many nations are active, killing alleged trouble makers, but in the process, also killing many innocent bystanders. It is a grey area between the laws of war, civilian laws, and international law. o As with any international law, theres the problem of nations which have not signed the agreements, and nations which choose not to comply with them. Some of this is selective. Some nations cooperate some of the time, but not all of the time. o Several nations, other than the USA, are saying that what the USA is doing with drones, is in violation of the Geneva Conventions, International Law, and should be labeled as War Crimes. o Also see International Law; Targeted Killing; Unlawful Combatant; War Crime. Some of this defined here, but also see my Drone Terms document. The Hague Conventions focus on the conduct of the war, prohibitions against certain types of weapons, or used in certain ways. For example: o Article 25 of the 1907 Hague IV Convention prohibits aerial bombardment by whatever means of undefended towns, villages, or dwellings. o See Geneva Convention. IAC = International Armed Conflict. See Geneva Convention. IAW = In Accordance With ICRC = International Committee of the Red Cross. Sometimes they make rulings about the nature of some conflict.62 IG = Inspector General. Also see OIG IHL = International Humanitarian Law.63 Injured in Drone Attack = Any physical damage to the body caused by a drone strike. Injuries can be direct by blast waves and shrapnel, or can be in-direct due to building collapse, or stampede while rushing from the scene of the attack. 64 Innocent Bystander: When person(s) attack specific target(s) with intent to do
bodily harm or property damage, sometimes there are some other people there, who were not targeted, but the nature of the attack can hurt more people than those specifically targeted, due to the weapon(s) used and the skill(s) of the attackers. The target(s) can also be Innocent of any wrong doing. See: Collateral Damage; Latency.
Innocent Until Proven Guilty = a legal principle, where Pakistani lawyers say that everyone killed by US drone strikes are innocent until the USA proves otherwise.65 Internal Armed Conflict = a Civil War.
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http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/14/us-syria-crisis-icrc-idUSBRE86D09H20120714 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_humanitarian_law Also see Israel in list of nations with drones, in Drone Notes. 64 http://pakistanbodycount.org/definitions 65 http://worldnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/06/26/12403677-for-many-pakistanis-usa-meansdrones?chromedomain=worldblog
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o All fighters caught up in an internal armed conflict are obliged to respect international humanitarian law, also known as the law of armed conflict, according to the ICRC. This includes specific sections of the 1949 Geneva Conventions66 o Also see: Civil War; Geneva Convention(s); ICRC.
Explain International Law+ (2 Sep 8)
International Law = What nations of the world can agree to. States disregard
codes of conduct if they perceive them to be contrary to their national interests.67 If the rest of the world thinks some nation is in violation of international law, they cannot force the violator to cease and desist, except via PR pressure, sanctions, or by military action against the alleged villain. o Traditionally, International Law recognized the use of Deadly Force under two circumstances: associated with a war which will end in a reasonable time period, after which any prisoners of war will be released; and associated with police against civilian crimes, seeking to arrest and detain suspected criminals, to bring them to justice. But now we are in a reality, where the War on Terror is being conducted in such a way, that we do not see that it will ever end. o Also see: Geneva Convention(s). IO = Intelligence Oversight
ISAF = International Security Assistance Force. This is the name for the NATO nations military operation in Afghanistan. JSOC = Joint Special Operations Command
Kill List = list of people who are to be killed, if and when military or military intelligence tracks them down.68 o Many news media are misleadingly referring to this as Obama Kill List, when in fact the concept was started under Bush Presidency, where each target was assigned a card in a deck of cards, reflecting how high the value of the target. o Many news media are also misleadingly referring to this as a Secret Kill List. It is not a secret when large sums of money are offered for anyone who identifies where the targets are located, and the news media are sharing lists of some of the targets on the list. Killed in Drone Attack = Termination of life due to primary, secondary, or tertiary injuries by a drone strike. People who died afterwards in the hospitals, due to severe injuries caused by the attack, are also counted towards total killed. 69
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http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/14/us-syria-crisis-icrc-idUSBRE86D09H20120714
http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/06/27/are_the_strategic_costs_of_obama_s_drone_policy_greater _than_the_short_term_gains_0 68 Kill List https://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/world/obamas-leadership-in-war-on-al-qaeda.html?pagewanted=all http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Keep-Calm/2012/0601/Good-Reads-a-few-tips-about-how-to-stay-offObama-s-kill-list 69 http://pakistanbodycount.org/definitions
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Laws can include: Laws of War, or Armed Conflict; Laws of Everyday Life within a particular nation. Historically, the Laws of War applied only in nations where there was an actual War in progress, either between two nations, or a Civil War for control of the government of one nation. o But now, in the War on Terror, like earlier War on Drugs, the War is not between different nations, but between different ways of life, occurring anywhere one side of the war finds targets to attack, who are associated with another side. Armed Conflict is where the Participants are. Ordinary Laws are where None of the Participants in the War, are active. o See International Law.
Explain Latency+ (2 Nov 01)

Latency = movement shown on a drone pilots video screen has over the years been seconds behind what the drone sees a delay caused by the time it takes to bounce a signal off a satellite in space. This problem, called latency, has long bedeviled drone pilots, making it difficult to hit a moving target. Sometimes the target hears the drone and can get to safety faster than the drone operator can do accurate shooting.70 This may explain the high proportion of collateral damage. Lawful Combatants are defined in international law, as members of state armed forces or militia, or other groups spelled out in the regulations, who wear uniforms recognizable to other states. I will have to study the particulars to find out if the religious police of Islamic nations are covered, since their line of authority does not come from the state. o US government says combatants outside of these legal definitions, are unlawful combatants, without the protection of the Geneva Convention. It is unclear to me whether the US also believes the Hague Convention does not apply either. o We might also ask whether civilian contractors and intelligence employees (such as the CIA) should be considered unlawful combatants, since they are not members of the armed forces, and are not wearing any uniform, while they sit at the controls of remote weapon systems. Legal Black Hole In a war which may never end, where prisoners of war are not to be treated according to the Geneva Convention, but there are problems with treating them under civilian court system, the USA tries to prevent lawyers from seeing prisoners locked up and throw the key away. 71 Also see: Geneva Convention(s); Unlawful Combatant. MDPD = Miami Dade Police Dept NATO = North Atlantic Treaty Organization, composed of USA, Canada, and many nations of Europe. Originally it was for the military protection of Western Europe during the Cold War, its mission has evolved, and now includes many nations which were former members of the Warsaw Pact. NIAC = Non-international Armed Conflict
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https://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/08/magazine/the-dronezone.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&ref=magazine 71 http://www.lawfareblog.com/2012/07/7995/
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NGO = Non-Government Organization, typically a not-for-profit humanitarian charity organization. OIG = Office of Inspector General RPA = Remote Piloted Aircraft
RPAS = Remotely Piloted Air Systems Self Defense: It is generally recognized in ordinary civil law, that civilians have a right of self defense. If you reasonably believe that someone seeks to kill you, or do bodily harm, like rape, and you cannot get away from them, and the threat against you is imminent, you are justified in using deadly force to protect yourself. Nations also have a similar principle, but it does not work the same way.72 The threat does not have to be imminent.
Signature Strikes = CIA or military sees a particular pattern of activity, which they associate with enemy activity, and authorize a strike on that basis, without knowing the identity of the persons, or whatever the true circumstances.73 o These are also known as Personality Strikes.74 SOP = Standard Operating Procedures Sovereignty = Each nation is responsible for what happens inside its borders. Nations are supposed to refrain from doing anything violent inside the borders of other nations, unless they have the permission of the government there, or they are at war with that nation. o Drone attacks by Nation-A inside Nation-B need the permission of Nation-B, in addition to meeting other legal constraints, discussed in the section on International Law.
Explain Targeted Killing+ (3 Mar 16)

Targeted Killing75 is not defined under international law, but some implications are discussed in this UN report.76 Typically nations which carry out such
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https://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2012/09/targeted_killing.html I downloaded, calling my copy: CRS Kill US Citizen Legalities 2012 May. 73 http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/06/13/members-of-congress-call-on-obama-to-justify-drone-strikes/ https://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/14/opinion/how-drones-help-al-qaeda.html http://www.lawfareblog.com/2012/10/kevin-jon-heller-on-the-legality-of-signature-strikes/ http://opiniojuris.org/2012/10/30/new-article-on-the-legality-of-signature-strikes/
"One Hell of a Killing Machine": Signature Strikes and International Law

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2169089 74 http://livingunderdrones.org/ INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS AND CONFLICT RESOLUTION CLINIC (STANFORD LAW SCHOOL) AND GLOBAL JUSTICE CLINIC (NYU SCHOOL OF LAW), LIVING UNDER DRONES: DEATH, INJURY, AND TRAUMA TO CIVILIANS FROM US DRONE PRACTICES IN PAKISTAN (September, 2012) 75 Targeted Killing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Targeted_killing http://www.aclu.org/national-security/al-aulaqi-v-panetta http://www.aclu.org/national-security/obama-administration-files-midnight-brief-defending-secrecysurrounding-targeted https://www.aclu.org/secure/tell-top-lawyers-cia-and-pentagon-end-illegal-targetedkillings?ms=web_targeted_killings_ac
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assassinations, and other killings, deny they are doing so, keep it secret. See examples in my Drone Dates. Also see: Geneva Convention; Unlawful Combatant; War Crime, in my Drone Terms. o For a detailed analysis of the targeted killing process, how kill lists are created, managed, thru execution of the targets, and what accountability (if any) is included, see: McNeal, Gregory S., Kill-Lists and Accountability (March 5, 2013). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1819583 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1819583 or http://bit.ly/KillLists which I have downloaded, naming it: SSRN77 Targeted Killing Process 2013 March78 127 pages Treaty I have heard people say that things are against international law because they think it is immoral. In my opinion, if there is no international law or treaty banning some activity, then it may be unethical, immoral, but not illegal. Different courts in different nations are fighting over the issue of whether drone usage is in violation of international law, such as the Geneva Convention. Such an international law is only valid, when the violation of that law is by some nation which has actually signed the treaty. o This is different from domestic law, where the people in a nation are held accountable for stealing, killing, scamming, raping, etc. even though none of them actually signed any agreement to abide by such laws. UA = Unmanned Aircraft, which navigates without an on-board pilot. Also called Remote Piloted Aircraft and drones. UAS = Unmanned Aircraft System, also Unmanned Airship System.79 It is an official designation of the US FAA, and typically consists of: o unmanned aircraft (UA) o control system, such as Ground Control Station (GCS) o control link, a specialized datalink o other related support equipment. o Also see Oct 2008 in Calendar in Drone Notes. UAS Flight Crewmember - A pilot, visual observer, payload operator or other person assigned duties for a UAS for the purpose of flight UAV = Unmanned Aerial Vehicles80 UAVS (superseded by UAS) = Unmanned Aircraft Vehicle System. Unlawful Combatant is a person, defined by USA, as being outside the protections of the Geneva Convention, because they are engaged in military conflict, without being in a uniform which states recognize. This designation has been used by the USA to excuse torture, since if the person fell into one of the categories defined by international law, then torture would be banned.
http://www.mepc.org/journal/middle-east-policy-archives/drone-warfare-blowback-new-american-waywar?print 76 See in my official Drone document collection: UN Drone Legalities 2010 May. http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/14session/A.HRC.14.24.Add6.pdf 77 SSRN = Social Science Research Network 78 2013 Mar 14 downloaded from https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1819583 79 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unmanned_aerial_vehicle 80 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unmanned_aerial_vehicle
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o This can include: o Civilians throwing rocks at authority; o Innocent Bystanders, until they rush to the aid of people injured in a drone attack; o Military age persons (which is any age in some places) just hanging around doing nothing suspicious; o Off-duty police officers, out of uniform when they react to a perceived crime. o Also see: Civilian; Geneva Convention; Targeted Killing; War Crime.
UOR = Urgent Operational Requirement
UK = United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. USA = United States of America USAF = United States Air Force War Crimes are serious violations of international law, under the Geneva and Hague conventions.81 o Drone strikes, which do follow-up attacks on first responders, funerals, etc. are labeled by many as war crimes.82 o Also see: Geneva Convention; International Law.
US Drone FAQ (3 Feb 18)

Heres some Q+A by Charles Krauthammer in the Washington Post.83 The US is at war with alQaeda, thus it is legitimate to kill any suspected member of that organization.84 It makes no difference if you were a US citizen. You gave up citizenship protections by joining the enemy side, goes the argument. 85 Open questions include organizations like alQaeda, which have not formerly declared war on the US, but are allegedly allied with alQaeda goals. Consider the Taliban. Some are at war with Pakistan, while some are allied with Pakistan. The US attacks them all. Are we still at war with the Taliban after they have been driven out of Afghanistan? Eugene Robinson writes in the Washington Post, QUOTE:86 When the government wants to violate a citizens right to privacy with wiretaps and other forms of electronic surveillance, a judge from a special panel the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Court has to give approval. Surely there should be at least as much judicial review when the
81
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_crime https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_war_crimes 82 http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2012/06/21/un-expert-labels-cia-tactic-exposed-by-bureau-a-warcrime/ 83 http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/charles-krauthammer-in-defense-of-obamas-dronewar/2013/02/14/3a69d76c-76e5-11e2-aa12-e6cf1d31106b_story.html 84 http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dana-milbank-john-brennans-trust-me-is-not-enough-ondrone-warfare/2013/02/08/a7ea1a1c-71af-11e2-ac36-3d8d9dcaa2e2_story.html 85 http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/eugene-robinson-remote-controlassassinations/2013/02/07/4d13e024-715e-11e2-ac36-3d8d9dcaa2e2_story.html 86 http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/eugene-robinson-remote-controlassassinations/2013/02/07/4d13e024-715e-11e2-ac36-3d8d9dcaa2e2_story.html
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government wants to violate a citizens right not to be blown to smithereens. UNQUOTE I guess one difference is whether or not, the place where this is to be done, is to be considered a war zone, in a period in history where we fight in lots of wars, without a formal declaration of war, and where it is not recognized by the whole world that there is in fact justification to be fighting a war there..
ACLU Drone Lawsuits (2 Oct 10)

There are several documents on Scribd regarding ACLU FOIA to US government seeking clarification of the legal basis for killing people with drones, and protesting drone killings of certain allegedly innocent US citizens. I have renamed some document reference links to make it more obvious what they are really about, with footnotes linking to the documents in question. Note that some are duplicated on Scribd in which different people post same document, with slightly different naming, There are slight variations in the spelling of some peoples names. I think these are the same people, where the spelling difference is surname. I think there must be two people called Nasser in the Al-Awaki family, since one was killed by US drones one year, then another is filing a lawsuit a year or two later. We occasionally see in the news, that there has been a court ruling on an ACLU lawsuit about drones. Maybe the best place to get caught up on the status of which law suit, is from the horses mouth, the ACLU web site with their latest postings about drones and drone law suits.87 Some of the info which these lawsuits are seeking, can be found in the chapter: US Drone Targeting Rules, and in my Drone Notes document. However, the overall reality is that the US government is saying Take our word for it, with no details, that these killings were justified. Navy Anwar Al-Awaki 2011 Oct88 document is another resource which may help people trying to understand what is at stake here.
FOIA Lawsuit: Drone targeted killing (3 Mar 15)

A former member of Scribd uploaded, April 2010, 16 page ACLU FOIA Predator Drone Lawsuit89 filed Jan 2009, seeking the legal basis, in domestic, foreign, and international law, for US to be using drones to kill people;
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http://www.aclu.org/blog/tag/drones 2012 Oct 10 located at http://www.hsdl.org/?abstract&did=689060 but not downloaded. Anwar AlAwaki was the first US citizen targeted for drone assassination. This document explains why, and looks at the benefits of doing so. 91 k 89 http://www.scribd.com/doc/29301235/2010-1-13-PredatorDroneFOIARequest
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basis by which targets are selected to be killed, where ACLU gives some speculations as to what they may be; measures (if any) taken to minimize innocent bystander casualties; Other information.
March 2010, ACLU filed a Drone FOIA lawsuit demanding that the government disclose basic info about the use of drones to conduct targeted killings. The March 2010 lawsuit asked for disclosure of the legal basis, scope, and limits on the targeted killing program; info about training, supervision, oversight, or discipline of UAV operators and others involved in the decision to execute a targeted killing using a drone; and data about the number of civilians and non-civilians killed in drone strikes.90 In response, the CIA has refused to even confirm or deny whether it has a drone program. June 2010 ACLU filed a lawsuit against the CIA in June 2010,91 arguing that the CIAs response was not lawful because the CIA Director and other officials had already publicly acknowledged the existence of the CIAs dro ne program. After the court ruled in favor of the CIA,92 the ACLU appealed to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.93 Oral arguments were scheduled for September 20, 2012.
ACLU wins appeal against CIA (3 Mar 15)

March 15, 2013: A three-judge panel, at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, ruled in favor of ACLU.94 The court ruled the CIA must acknowledge the existence of any records related to military unmanned drone strikes targeting individuals, such as overseas terror suspects. The CIA had tried to block ACLU lawsuit citing national security. This appeals court rejected that argument, saying the lawsuit may go forwards. The judges said the government's stance was no longer credible, nor justified, as President Barack Obama and a senior adviser had publicly acknowledged drone attacks on al-Qaida suspects abroad.
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http://www.aclu.org/national-security/predator-drone-foia https://www.aclu.org/files/assets/11__amended_complaint_for_injunctive_relief_06_01_2010.pdf 92 https://www.aclu.org/files/assets/34_-_opinion_09_09_2011.pdf 93 https://www.aclu.org/files/assets/drone_foia_aclu_appeal_brief.pdf 94 https://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/16/us/court-says-cia-must-yield-some-data-ondrones.html?_r=0 This NY TIMES article includes a link to the 19 page ruling by the appeals court. http://www.aclu.org/national-security/dc-appeals-court-rejects-cias-secrecy-claims-aclus-targetedkilling-foia-lawsuit ACLU also includes a link to the ruling, and more info about the lawsuit. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324077704578362490700215584.html?mod=go oglenews_wsj http://www.cortezjournal.com/article/20130315/APW/1303150776/Appeals-court-reverses-CIAdrone-secrecy-ruling http://www.naharnet.com/stories/en/75830-u-s-court-rebukes-cia-over-secrecy-on-drone-war http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/15/world/asia/u-n-drone-objections/index.html
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A lower court federal judge had sided with the CIA and dismissed a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union seeking those records. The appeals court over-ruled the lower court, and sent the case back there to continue. This does not mean that the CIA data will ever be made public. The court battle will continue. The ACLU FOIA lawsuit seeks to learn when, where, and against whom drone strikes can be authorized, and how and whether the U.S. ensures compliance with international law restricting extrajudicial killings.
Lawsuit: Yemen Children Massacred by US drone (2 Sep 7)

Al-Majalah Civilian Deaths FOIA: April 17, 2012, ACLU and CCR submitted a FOIA request seeking info about a December 2009 U.S. missile strike on a community in the alMajalah region of the Abyan province of Yemen.95 The attack, early in the Obama administration, apparently targeted alleged militants but killed dozens of civilians, including at least 21 children. The U.S. government has yet to release basic information about the strike.
Lawsuits: 3 US citizens killed by drones (2 Dec 25)

Michael Pancier96 uploaded, Aug 2012, a 17 page ACLU FOIA Targeted Killing Lawsuit97 filed July 2012 by ACLU and CCR on behalf of the families of three US citizens killed by US drones: SAMIR Khan, and two members of the Al-Awaqi family: ANWAR and ABDULRAHMAN The July 2012 Al-Aulaqi v. Panetta lawsuit98 claims that these people were not doing anything unlawful, they were not involved with terrorism, and that it was improper for the US military to kill them far from any armed conflict zone. The suit charges that the U.S. governments killings, of U.S. citizens Anwar Al-Aulaqi, Samir Khan, and 16-yearold Abdulrahman Al-Aulaqi, in Yemen in 2011 violated the Constitutions fu ndamental guarantee against the deprivation of life without due process of law. Targeted Killing FOIA: February 2012, the ACLU filed a FOIA lawsuit seeking information about the targeted killings of three U.S. citizens in Yemen in September and October 2011: Anwar al-Awlaki; his 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki; and Samir Khan.
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http://www.aclu.org/national-security/al-majalah-targeted-killing-foia-request http://www.scribd.com/srcohiba 97 http://www.scribd.com/doc/102472118/ACLU-Targeted-Killing-Lawsuit 98 http://www.aclu.org/national-security/al-aulaqi-v-panetta http://www.aclu.org/national-security/al-aulaqi-v-panetta-complaint
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Do you know how the CIA located Anwar al-Awlaki, so he could be assassinated? According to a Danish newspaper, the CIA paid an al Qaeda spy $250,000 to help find a bride for him.99 How your tax dollars are invested. This Feb 2012 lawsuit100 requested disclosure of an alleged legal memorandum written by the DoJ Office of Legal Counsel which provided justifications for targeted killing of Anwar al-Aulaqi, as well as records describing the factual basis for the killings of all three Americans. In response, the US government has refused to confirm or deny whether it killed these three US citizens or even whether the CIA has a targeted killing program, despite numerous statements by U.S. officials to the media about the program. This Feb 2012 lawsuit follows an Oct 2011 FOIA lawsuit which the US government refused to cooperate with. The Oct 2011 lawsuit was for info about why the US killed these 3 Americans with drones.101 In 2010, ACLU and CCR filed a lawsuit challenging Anwar Al-Aulaqis placement on government kill lists, before his death. A federal district court dismissed the case, saying Al-Aulaqis father lacked standing to bring suit, and that requesting before -the-fact judicial review raised political questions that the court could not decide. Either this is a Double Standard or a Precedent, when you consider the number of alleged terrorists imprisoned or killed not for anything they have done, but what they were alleged to have been planning. The US Judicial System is imprisoning alleged terrorists who plan attacks, but it is refusing to address issues of US government agents planning to kill people? If courts cannot address topics because of military secrets, then perhaps the cases should be taken to FISA or the military tribunals, which are authorized to address matters of national secrets. Michael Cook102 uploaded, Aug 2010, an 11 page Alauqui vs. Obama Complaint103 filed Aug 2010 by ACLU lawyers on behalf of the family of NASSER Al-Aulaqi, a US citizen killed by a US drone. The lawsuit wants the court to declare this is inappropriate behavior for the US to engage in.
ACLU loses FOIA on US citizens killed by drones (3 Jan 07)

Dec 14, 2012, The U.S. government filed its first response to the ACLU lawsuit challenging the targeted killing of the three U.S. citizens 2011 in Yemen, Anwar
99
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/report-cia-arranged-bride-terrorist-plotkill/story?id=17437763#.UHxEkMXA88U http://www.nationalterroralert.com/2012/10/15/report-cia-arranged-bride-for-terrorist-in-plot-to-killhim/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NationalTerrorAlertResour ceCenter+%28National+Terror+Alert+Response+Center%29 100 http://www.aclu.org/national-security/anwar-al-awlaki-foia-request 101 http://www.aclu.org/national-security/anwar-al-awlaki-foia-request 102 http://www.scribd.com/NewMediaFoundation 103 http://www.scribd.com/doc/36645099/Alaulaqi-v-Obama-Complaint
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Al-Awlaki, his 16-year-old son Abdulrahman and Samir Khan. "The essence of the governments argument was that the US has the authority to kill
Americans not only in secret, but also without ever having to justify its actions under the Constitution in any courtroom .104
That includes any US court, any foreign court, any international court. The government's motion is available here.105 More information on the case is available here.106 This US government position has led to a storm of controversy and debate. The senior ethics lawyer, for the USAF, mentioned this case.107 The court ruled in favor of the governments position, 108 which has raised a storm of debate in the blogosphere.109
Legality of US Citizens killed by drones (2 Sep 11)

DoD General Counsel Jeh Johnson, in a Feb 2012 speech at Yale Law School, explained QUOTE110 Belligerents who also happen to be U.S. citizens do not enjoy immunity where non-citizen belligerents are valid military objectives. UNQUOTE
ACLU FOIA: Drones in USA (2 Oct 24)

ACLU issued FOIA, Tues Oct-23 2012, seeking records on the use of drones in US domestic airspace from five US government departments and agencies:111 Department of Homeland Security (DHS); o DHS is one of the largest USA departments (Department of Defense (DoD) is another), containing many agencies which use drones. o Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) has the largest police air force in the world, is part of DHS, and reportedly has at least 10 drones patrolling US borders, according to DHS Inspector General (IG) report 2012 May. Department of Justice (DoJ); o There are many agencies within DoJ, and some of them I have found to be operating drones, including:
104
http://www.aclu.org/national-security/us-asks-court-not-consider-targeted-killing-challenge www.aclu.org/files/assets/tk_govt_motion_to_dismiss.pdf 106 www.aclu.org/national-security/al-aulaqi-v-panetta 107 http://afgeneralcounsel.dodlive.mil/2012/12/18/targeted-killing-litigation-update/ 108 http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/01/summary-judgment-for-the-government-in-targeted-killing-foiarequest/ 109 http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/01/treason-murder-and-dicta-judge-mcmahon-on-drone-strikes/ 110 https://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2012/09/targeted_killing.html I downloaded, calling my copy: CRS Kill US Citizen Legalities 2012 May. 111 http://www.aclu.org/blog/technology-and-liberty/aclu-asking-federal-government-how-its-using-dronesinside-us http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/263613-aclu-requests-documents-on-domestic-drones
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o Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA); o Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI); o Many agency loaners from CBP, according to DHS IG report. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA); o In my earlier research, I concluded that the FAA does not itself operate any drones, rather, it establishes regulations and inspections for air safety of drone operation by other organizations. o FAA is within the Department of Transportation, which has regulations for hobbyist model aircraft, although a recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) report indicates that Congress may have created a legal limbo by removing model aircraft regulation from all government agencies jurisdiction. General Services Administration (GSA); o They had not previously been on my radar screen, regarding drone use, since I had thought of them as primarily managing office buildings, so I will be interested to see what the ACLU finds out. o The ACLU says FOIA to GSA, because they found out from a GAO report that GSA is on the list of US agencies and departments using drones. I have found several GAO reports on drones. That fact had not previously got into my brain. United States Air Force (USAF). o USAF is part of DoD, where other branches of the US armed forces have drones, including the US Navy, US Marine Corps, and US Army. I know the National Guard is considering getting drones, do not know if they have them yet. However, I believe most of the US military drones, being operated in the USA, are under the auspices of the CIA, which is not part of ACLU FOIA, the CBP, and it may be a military secret which branch of the armed forces is operating most of the US drones used, for military purposes, in other nations.
The ACLU requested information on how the drones are being funded, their technical capabilities, the types of data they are collecting and who has access to the drones and their data.112 Reviewing my earlier Drone Notes, where most of my info sources are from the Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF)113 FOIA and news stories, other US government departments and agencies flying drones include:
DARPA = Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, part of DoD; Idaho National Laboratory (and similar institutions), in DoE (Dept of Energy); NASA = National Aeronautics and Space Administration; NOAA = National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; US Forest Service (in Dept of Interior);

112
USDA = United States Dept of Agriculture;
In my previous research, I have found that FOIA from EFF have already found much of this info, but the most recent data to EFF is dated many months ago, and does not cover the same mix of agencies. 113 https://www.eff.org/
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USGS = United States Geological Survey (in USDA).
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EFF FOIA: Drones in USA (2 Oct 24)

The Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF)114 has issued FOIA to over 200 government organizations, requesting info on their use of drones.115 As they find and share info, I have been adding to my Drone Notes. Here is summary as of 2012 Oct 23: 89 agencies have not yet replied. 74 agencies claim they are not in fact doing anything with drones. o 8 of the 74 are on the list that FAA released of agencies which have requested permission from the FAA to use drones, so EFF is following up with them to try to reconcile the conflicting stories. 19 agencies have responded to EFF with documents detailing their use of drones. 7 agencies rejected the FOIA request on a variety of grounds 14 agencies require some other fix (redirect, rewording, payment etc.)
Drone Wars UK Briefing for 2011 (2 Sep 7)

I rank this document as one of the most useful, in the Scribd collection, educating us about military use of drones by NATO nations, in recent conflicts, post-9/11. I plan to read it again, after I get caught up skimming many other Drone documents I have recently got my hands on. This is a 36 page report by Chris Cole, published January 2012, and uploaded to Scribd by Popper 101116 on March 2012. Chris Cole is with Drone Wars Net,117 in Oxford Britain UK.118 They plan to attempt annual briefings on what has been found out since their prior report(s), so we should include year in title, in anticipation of later seeing future year editions. Some funding, for this research,119 came from Joseph Rowntree
Charitable Trust. Use Acronym Clarification chapter as an aid to studying this document.
This briefings topics include: Evolution of Drones History of Drone operations by NATO nations UK Drone history and operations US Drone history and operations Targeted Killing Legal issues Public Accountability and Debate
114 115
https://www.eff.org/ https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/10/eff-and-muckrock-have-filed-over-200-public-records-requestssurveillance-drones 116 http://www.scribd.com/popper101 117 www.dronewars.net info@dronewars.net 118 UK = United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
119
http://www.scribd.com/doc/84993286/Drone-Wars-Briefing-Final2
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There are things I like about this briefing. It is well organized, and has nice packaging. Each chapter section starts with background info about the overall topic, then focuses on what has happened in the last year, in this case 2011. There is clarity of whose effort created it. It references many other documents about drones, which are worth looking into. Glossary of key terminology is found near the front of the document. 120 Unfortunately, as with most all drone research efforts, it appears to be incomplete. Although the information, which is there, is both outstanding, and includes details I have not seen anywhere else. The info here is massive, worthy of re-reading several times, to absorb all which is there. Wikipedia knows about many more nations using drones, than are referenced here, plus I have found news articles about military uses of drones neither of these sources know about yet. See my Drone Notes for info on over 70 nations I have found so far, either using drones, or they being used by others there. This briefing claims the USA operates two military drone fleets, one by CIA, and other by DoD. This story is incomplete, as we can see from DHS IG Audit of CBP (mis) use of drones 2012 May, which is one of the official documents in my collection. CBP is said to have the largest police air force in the world. This Drone Wars UK Briefing thru 2011 is in my Drone Info collection on Scribd, which links to many educational, interesting, and stimulating sources of info on Scriibd about Drones.121 If I start any sub-collections, it might also belong in Drones Military, as opposed to Drones used for Police or peaceful civilian applications.
Reprieve Drone Lawsuits in Britain (2 Dec 28)

Reprieve has brought lawsuits in Britain, similar to those that ACLU brings in the USA. In one of them, it challenged British intelligence, used in support of US drone strikes, killing people whom Reprieve says are innocent, with no ties to any terrorist organization.122
UN 2013 Investigation (3 Mar 04)

Jan 24, 2013: Today the UN announced the official launch of an investigation into
targeted killings by the United States and other governments. The inquiry will include
120
I hate some government and UN documents which drown us in unexplained geeky terminology, then we are 50 pages into the thing before any of that is explained. 121 http://www.scribd.com/collections/3807680/Drone-Info at http://www.scribd.com/AlMac99 122 http://www.lawfareblog.com/2012/12/british-court-rejects-drone-lawsuit-will-decision-affect-supremecourt-decision-in-kiobel/
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the civilian impact of the use of drones and other forms of targeted killing, focusing on the applicable legal framework, a critical examination of the factual evidence concerning civilian casualties. It will include drone usage in:123 Afghanistan Pakistan / FATA Palestine / Gaza Sahel Africa / Mali Somalia Yemen The inquiry will be led by Ben Emmerson, (United Kingdom), the U.N. special rapporteur on counterterrorism and human rights. 124 The results of the investigation, to be run from Geneva, will be reported to the U.N. General Assembly in the fall.125
123 124
See Drone Nations for links to stories about drone usage in each of these territories. http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Terrorism/Pages/SRTerrorismIndex.aspx Lawfare says Ben Emmerson, when he is not working for the UN, is a British human rights law specialist. http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/01/drone-strikes-the-un-special-rapporteur-investigation-and-the-dutyto-investigate/ 125 I am posting this update in both Drone Dates (Time Line of what happened when, and how we found out) and Drone Scribd (multiple topics, starting with international law implications) notes. The actual content shares summary info, but detail will diverge. http://www.aclu.org/national-security/un-human-rights-expert-launches-targeted-killing-inquiry http://www.aljazeera.com/news/europe/2013/01/201312411432248495.html http://www.aclu.org/national-security/un-human-rights-expert-launches-targeted-killing-inquiry http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/01/drone-strikes-the-un-special-rapporteur-investigation-and-the-dutyto-investigate/ http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/01/todays-headlines-and-commentary-349/ http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/24/un-examine-uk-afghanistan-drone-strikes http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-21176279 http://www.globalresearch.ca/proliferation-of-armed-drones-for-global-security-will-the-un-drone-inquiryget-to-the-heart-of-the-matter/5320536 http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/15725-focus-democracy-the-biggest-victim-of-the-usdrone-program http://www.latimes.com/news/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-un-investigation-drones-targeted-killings20130124,0,816883.story http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2013/01/united-nations-drones/ More information on the ACLUs lawsuits on targeted killing is at: www.aclu.org/national-security/targeted-killings ACLUs statement to the U.N. Human Rights Council on targeted killing is at: www.unmultimedia.org/tv/webcast/2012/06/aclu-clustered-id-on-expression-and-executions-continued5th-meeting.html Emmerson's statement from Jan 24 at: www.aclu.org/files/assets/emmerson_statement_on_un_tk_inquiry_24.01.12.pdf Universal Human Rights Index: http://uhri.ohchr.org/en UN Human Rights, follow us on social media: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/unitednationshumanrights
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The UN is not alone in the concern about the US apparent claim of a legal right to kill anyone anywhere, with zero transparency, and the precedent this sets for other nations. 126
UN 2013 Investigation backlash (3 Jan 28)

Government programs include a lot of secrecy, which means what people in government can say about drones is limited. Theres a lot of inaccuracies in news media, which leads to misinformation in reporting, and debating the issues. The New York Post has such an ignorant misleading biased article, when they write, Jan 28 2013, QUOTE:127 Innocents wouldnt have to die if the terrorists were not so cynically using them as protective shelter. The grossly misnamed UN Human Rights Council Given that the probe focuses on the use of drones in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen as well as the West Bank and Gaza, its fair to say that the defendants here are the US, Britain and Israel. UNQUOTE Granted, individual enemies dress such that they are difficult to distinguish from the civilian population, but drone strikes on private residences are virtually guaranteed to kill women and children who share the household. I agree that the UN Human Rights Council has many nations involved, which have a bad record on human rights. In fact most all UN Councils are formed of nations in need of over-sight, it is the fox guarding the hen house. However, UN audits and investigations generally seem to be run by qualified individuals. I agree that there is a bit of a double standard, in that the UN is not investigating drone attacks by: Armenia Azerbaijan Georgia Russia Syria Turkey However, with the exception of Syria mass-murdering their own people, these nations do not have the degree of high volume blatant abuse of drones, in territories outside of some
Twitter: http://twitter.com/UNrightswire Google+: gplus.to/unitednationshumanrights YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/UNOHCHR Storify: http://storify.com/UNrightswire http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=12943&LangID=E 126 http://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1177436/urgent-need-international-rules-drones 127 http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/editorials/the_un_drones_on_goDTNv7KeeXlNoU1YFshfN
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war going on, which the UN acknowledges, to attack people who appear to be innocents, as USA practices. A major grievance in the UN, is that the USA declares someone, living in a civilian area, more or less at peace, except for the US attacks, as a legitimate target, and instead of arranging with local authorities for the arrest and extradition of that person, bombs their home, everyone around them, first responders, and funerals. Granted this is cheaper than boots on the ground, but the collateral damage appears to be much greater than US acknowledges. Many nations see no difference between the USA bombing some home, or school, or court house, because one enemy is inside, and the suicide bombers who go into some night club or house of worship, and kill everyone there. USA is the prime target of the investigation, because of US refusal to cooperate with past UN friendly inquiries. Many nations have asked the UN to intervene. The Pakistan Parliament unanimously demanded that the US stop the drone attacks in Pakistan. The Supreme Court of Pakistan declared that what the US is doing in Pakistan constitutes war crimes and grave violations of international humanitarian law.128 The US government gave them the finger, refusing to acknowledge their authority. So what is Pakistan to do next, but appeal to the UN, or declare that a state of war exists between USA and Pakistan, and provide a deadline for the US to get the heck out of Pakistan? The UN press release, and statements by the people involved, led me to listing the places where the UN is investigating drone usage (see above). Referring to my Drone Nations notes.129 Drone activities have been conducted by the following nations or regions, in Afghanistan: USA; Australia, Britain, Canada, Germany. Pakistan / FATA: USA; Pakistan. Palestine / Gaza: Iran; Israel; Hezbollah out of Lebanon. Sahel Africa / Mali: USA; France. Somalia:
Uganda with UN approval; USA in violation of UN. Yemen: USA allegedly with approval of Yemen government.
128 129
http://dawn.com/2012/06/21/ministry-tells-court-no-agreement-on-drone-attacks/ See that document for citations, how I know the following info.
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UN 2013 Investigation background (3 Jan 24)

June 2011, Pakistan, two permanent members of UN Security Council (China and Russia) and several other nations, made a joint statement at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, requesting The UN Special Rapporteur to investigate the use of drones in counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency operations, and help the international community reach a consensus on the legality of drones, and standards and safeguards which should apply to their use. Shortly afterwards, he informed the nations, using this technology, of their obligations under international law, to establish effective independent and impartial investigations into any drone attack in which it is plausibly alleged that civilian casualties were sustained. In the absence of this, it would be necessary for the UN to investigate the matter. These nations, particularly the USA, refused to cooperate with the international law request of the UN person in charge of investigating alleged human rights violations. The UN Special Rapporteur has received an enormous number of complaints about individual drone strikes, which his staff is looking into. They plan to focus on 25 case studies130 from Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan and the OPT131 and to examine the evidence in detail with a view to determining whether there is a plausible allegation of unlawful killing which should trigger international law obligations to investigate, obligations which arise both under international human rights law, and under international humanitarian law. There was also an investigation by the UN into targeted killings, by drones, and assassinations by covert agents of several nations. If you are an agent of the CIA or Mossad or KGB or whatever nation secret service, and you get arrested by the nation where you did some killing, that nation can give you the death penalty under the local laws against murder. Theres also a question of what penalties can be imposed on some nation, because of its secret service going around killing people. There may need to be updates to international law, international human rights law, international humanitarian law, international refugee law, Geneva and Hague conventions, to reflect the reality of drones in our world.
UN rapporteur on Brennan to run CIA drones (3 Feb 10)

Ben Emmerson, the United Nations special rapporteur for human rights and counterterrorism, says hes giving his qualified backing to John Brennan, President Obamas top counterterrorism adviser and nominee to become CIA director.132
130
I first read what the UN Special Rapporteur had to say, about this 2013 investigation, on the date of the announcement, Jan 24. At this point in time, I had read many case studies about drone usage and legalities, but I do not believe I have read that many. So I will be on the look out for links to this larger scope of information. 131 I do not yet know what OPT stands for in this context, will update my notes when I find out. 132 http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2013/02/un-drone-brennan/
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It sounds like some of Emmersons informants in the USA, may be trying to blame the CIA for more than what is their fault.
Pakistan Information gathering (3 Mar 15)

Ben Emmerson is examining drone attacks in 25 places in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, the Palestinian territories and Somalia. As part of the UN investigation into drone war crimes, Emmerson was in Pakistan the week ending March 15,133 talking about innocent civilians killed by US drones, how destructive that war on innocent activities is to Pakistan economy, and the psychological peace of mind of the people there. March 14 statement by Ben Emmerson, detailing his 3 day visit to Pakistan.134 March 15 overall summary conclusions statement by Ben Emmerson, following his 3 day visit to Pakistan.135 His visit was kept confidential, until after he had left Pakistan. We wouldnt have wanted the USA to assassinate him by drone while he was there. Given drone secrecy by the US, public statements at odds with drone strike realities, the USA can be accused of anything, and there is no way to prove innocent of the charges. Innocent People in the region often wear beards, turbans, dark clothing, and carry a gun. Militants in the region often wear beards, turbans, dark clothing, and carry a gun. The accusation is that the USA targets people based on a profile, which includes innocent people.136 It does not matter what change the innocent people might make in their appearance, when militants can copy it, and the US uses this as basis of targeting.
http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/02/the-meaning-of-the-u-n-special-rapporteurs-endorsement-ofbrennan-for-cia-director/
133
http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/15/world/asia/u-n-drone-objections/index.html http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-21803391 http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2013/03/15/us_drone_strikes_violate_pakistans_sov ereignty_says_un_investigator.html http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2013/03/un-drone-pakistan/

134
http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=13146&LangI D=E
135
http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=13148&LangI D=E
136
http://www.bayoubuzz.com/top-stories/item/361719-because-i-have-beard-turban-does-that-make-metaliban
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Since US targeting rules have been kept secret, there is no way of knowing whether the accusation has validity. We know that in recent history, police in various US cities have targeted people for harassment, due to their ethnicity, or neighborhood residence, without any evidence of wrong doing, so the accusation rings true. Ben Emmerson, the UN special rapporteur on human rights and counter terrorism, said the Pakistani government made clear to him that it does not consent to the drone strikes, a position that has been disputed by U.S. officials. According to a UN statement that Emmerson emailed to The Associated Press March 15, the Pakistani government told him it has confirmed at least 400 innocent civilian deaths by U.S. drones on its territory. Other sources have higher figures. Pakistan has been saying on a regular basis, that their nation does not sanction US drone strikes on their territory. Their President says it, their ambassadors say it, their military and intelligence leaders say it, their Parliament says it, their Supreme Court says it, and adds that what the US is doing constitutes war crimes. This UN investigation started because several members of the UN security council asked that the USA be investigated for war crimes with drones. The US says that Pakistan is only saying this to make their people happy, that in private, Pakistan supports the US effort. Pakistan denies this. The UN special rapporteur said that as a matter of international law, drone strikes were only lawful if they took place at the express request of the country concerned. The USA disagrees.137
UN 2013 Inquiry Phases (3 Jan 25)

1. By the end of May, they expect to complete the evidence-gathering phase. The UN team will work closely with lawyers, journalists, local and international NGOs operating in the field where these drone strikes and targeted killings have been going on. There will also be communications with the relevant states, and trips to some of the nations impacted, including Pakistan, Yemen, and the Sahel.138 2. From end of May to end of July, Ben Emmerson will seek views and responses of the relevant states on the case studies and evidence collected in the first phase. 3. From end of July to end of September, will be the evaluation phase, and drafting of final report, with conclusions and recommendations, tentatively to be delivered to the UN General Assembly in October 2013.
See my Drone Terms for citations. Jan 24 was the first I heard of the Sahel (Mali) being involved, so I will be searching for more info, to expand my relevant world view. It certainly makes sense that there would have been drone strikes there, not covered properly by the international media, since the region is in much turmoil.
137 138
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UN 2013 Drone Inquiry Team (3 Jan 26)

Ben Emmersons mandate is to establish the facts as reliably as possible. The inquiry will be directed from his office in Geneva, with help from a staff in London. He states in his Jan 24, 2013 announcement: 139 QUOTE The inquiry team which will be assisting me is140 Abdul-Ghani Al-Iryani, a political analyst and development consultant in Yemen, who currently leads the Democratic Awakening Movement, a trans-partisan political advocacy movement which promotes democracy and the rule of law in Yemen: Dr. Nat Cary, a leading forensic pathologist with specialist expertise in the interpretation of disruptive injuries caused by explosions: Imtiaz Gul, Executive Director of the Islamabad-based independent Centre for Research and Security Studies; Professor Sarah Knuckey of NYU, co-author of the report Living Under Drones; Lord Macdonald of River Glaven QC, former Director of Public Prosecutions for England and Wales; Sir Geoffrey Nice QC, former senior prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia who prosecuted Slobodan Milosevic; Captain Jason Wright,141 a serving judge-advocate with the US military who is assisting the inquiry in his personal capacity; Justice Shah Jehan Khan Yousafzai, a former Senior Puisne Judge of the Peshawar High Court in Pakistan, and Jasmine Zerinini, former Deputy Director for Afghanistan and South Asia in the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The legal counsel to the inquiry will be based in London. The inquiry team will be consulting with military forensic experts, targeting experts and NGO's and journalists from the UK, the US and Pakistan with a close knowledge of the regions and the issues. I am also working closely with Forensic Architecture, an organization which specializes in forensic modeling of military conflicts for the purposes of assessing their compatibility with international human rights and humanitarian law. UNQUOTE
139
www.aclu.org/files/assets/emmerson_statement_on_un_tk_inquiry_24.01.12.pdf http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Terrorism/Pages/SRTerrorismIndex.aspx 140 Many of the names of the associated organizations were familiar to me, before I got this Jan 24, 2013 statement, but where there are some I had not previously seen, I will be looking them up, seeking to expand my big picture understanding. 141 Lawfare http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/01/ksms-defense-counsel-to-work-for-un-specialrapporteur-investigating-drone-strikes/ points out that Captain Jason Wright is the assigned defense counsel for KSM in his military commission proceeding.
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Targeted Killing Legal Perspectives (3 Mar 16)

Here is a relevant definition, copied from my Drone Terms.142 Targeted Killing143 is not defined under international law, but some implications144 are discussed in this UN report.145 Multiple reports evaluating international law implications of drones are in Drone Scribd. Typically nations which carry out such assassinations, and other killings, deny they are doing so, keep it secret. See examples in Drone Dates time line, of what happened when, and how we found out. a. For a detailed analysis of the targeted killing process, how kill lists are created, managed, thru execution of the targets, and what accountability (if any) is included, see: McNeal, Gregory S., Kill-Lists and Accountability (March 5, 2013). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1819583 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1819583 or http://bit.ly/KillLists which I have downloaded, naming it: SSRN146 Targeted Killing Process 2013 March147 127 pages o Here is info about a memorandum to US Congress on the topic.148 I have downloaded several relevant CRS reports,149 listed in Drone Reports directory. o Since 9/11, more than 95 per cent of more than 400 non-battlefield targeted killings150 by the USA have been conducted by drones (the remaining five per cent were Joint Special Operations Command raids, AC-130 gunships, and offshore sea- or air-launched cruise missiles).151
142
Drone Terms are my definitions of over 1,000 concepts found in reports on Drones, and other National Security issues, which I have been studying. 143 Targeted Killing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Targeted_killing http://www.aclu.org/national-security/al-aulaqi-v-panetta http://www.aclu.org/national-security/obama-administration-files-midnight-brief-defending-secrecysurrounding-targeted https://www.aclu.org/secure/tell-top-lawyers-cia-and-pentagon-end-illegal-targetedkillings?ms=web_targeted_killings_ac http://www.mepc.org/journal/middle-east-policy-archives/drone-warfare-blowback-new-american-waywar?print http://www.lawfareblog.com/2012/12/george-will-on-drones-assassination-and-targeted-killing/ 144 http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/george-will-drones-have-a-place-in-modernwarfare/2012/12/07/7a91c88a-409f-11e2-bca3-aadc9b7e29c5_story.html?tid=wp_ipad via http://www.lawfareblog.com/2012/12/todays-headlines-and-commentary-325/ 145 See in official document collection: UN Drone Legalities 2010 May. http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/14session/A.HRC.14.24.Add6.pdf 146 SSRN = Social Science Research Network 147 2013 Mar 14 downloaded from https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1819583 148 https://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2012/09/targeted_killing.html 149 https://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2012/09/targeted_killing.html which I downloaded, calling my copy: CRS Kill US Citizen Legalities 2012 May. Also https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R42701.pdf which I called: CRS Drone Fourth Amend 2012 Sept. CRS = Congressional Research Service FAS = Federation of American Scientists 150 http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/10/30/the_long_third_war?page=full 151 http://opencanada.org/features/the-think-tank/essays/lethal-drones/
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o DoD General Counsel Jeh Johnson, in a Feb 2012 speech at Yale Law School, explained that targeting decisions are an Executive function not subject to Judicial review: 152 o U.S. State Department Legal Adviser, Harold Hongju Koh, in a March 2010 speech to American Society of International Law, explained that the USA is engaged in an armed conflict with alQaeda, the Taliban and associated forces. This gives the US justification to kill those people, either under the laws of armed conflict, in self defense, or both.153 o Attorney General Eric Holder in a March 2012 speech at Northwestern University School of Law, defended the legality of the lethal targeting program.154 He asserted that QUOTE:155 AUMF provides domestic authority and the existence of an armed conflict provides international legal authority to target enemy belligerents. Lethal operations, by the US, are legal in other countries, he maintained, if the host nation provided its consent or a determination had been made that the nation is unable or unwilling to deal effectively with a threat to the United States. UNQUOTE o Notre Dame law professor Mary Ellen O'Connell insists targeted killings are illegal under international law.156 "We wouldn't accept or want a world in which Russia or China or Iran is claiming authority to kill alleged enemies of the state based on secret evidence of the executive branch alone," O'Connell said. "And yet that's the authority we're asserting." I believe that is the world we are going to get, because the USA has created a precedent for other nations to copy. o In Drone Terms, also see related concepts: Assassination; AUMF; Civilian; Citizens of USA; Co-Belligerents; CRS; Distinction; DoD; Geneva Convention; International Law; LOAC; Proportionality; Self Defense; Unlawful Combatant; .
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https://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2012/09/targeted_killing.html I downloaded, calling my copy: CRS Kill US Citizen Legalities 2012 May. 153 https://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2012/09/targeted_killing.html which I downloaded, calling my copy: CRS Kill US Citizen Legalities 2012 May. 154 Full Transcript of Eric Holder speech: https://publicintelligence.net/attorney-general-eric-holderspeech-on-targeted-killing-of-u-s-citizens-full-transcript/ 155 https://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2012/09/targeted_killing.html I downloaded, calling my copy: CRS Kill US Citizen Legalities 2012 May. 156 http://www.lawfareblog.com/2012/10/todays-headlines-and-commentary-286/ http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-72796888/
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Torture under Bush Administration (3 Mar 05)

Ben Emmerson is asking US Congress to declassify the report on people tortured under the Bush Administration.157 He is also asking the UK government for a similar investigation report.
Legal Theories on Drone Usage (3 Jan 24)

According to Jan 24, 2012 statement by UN Special Rapporteur Ben Emmerson:158 QUOTE There are those who contend that outside situations of recognized international armed conflict, the applicable framework is international human rights law, under which it is unlawful to engage in any form of targeted killing. The standards set out in Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and particularly the provisions of Article 6 which protects the right to life, permit the use of lethal force only where it is strictly necessary as a matter of immediate self-defense. Under this analysis States wishing to take action against suspected terrorists located outside a recognized situation of international armed conflict must first try to effect an arrest, and may use lethal force only if the person they are seeking resists arrest and it proves strictly necessary to use firearms. At the other end of the spectrum the analysis which has been promoted by international lawyers in the United States, and by John Brennan, President Obamas nominee to head the CIA, to the effect that Western democracies are engaged in a global war against a stateless enemy, without geographical boundaries to the theatre of conflict, and without limit of time. This analysis is heavily disputed by most States, and by the majority of international lawyers outside the United States of America. UNQUOTE break In the opinion of Al Macintyre (author of these notes) the justification the USA may be using for drone strikes in FATA area of Pakistan, is to protect NATO troops in Afghanistan, not against people believed to be a threat to the NATO homelands, so if in fact NATO will soon withdraw from Afghanistan, it will be interesting to see if those drone strikes continue.
157
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/un-rights-advocate-seeks-release-of-findingson-cia-detention/2013/03/04/f71db894-851b-11e2-98a3-b3db6b9ac586_story.html http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/04/us-rights-un-terrorismidUSBRE9230JN20130304?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medi um=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Reuters%2FworldNews+%28Reuters+World+News%29 http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/03/todays-headlines-and-commentary-377/ 158 www.aclu.org/files/assets/emmerson_statement_on_un_tk_inquiry_24.01.12.pdf http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Terrorism/Pages/SRTerrorismIndex.aspx
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The enemies of Pakistan, inside of Pakistan, overlap with the enemies of the USA, inside of Pakistan. Thus some US drone strikes are welcomed by Pakistan, because they are striking against mutual enemies. Some are hated, because either they strike Pakistans allies, or the volume of innocent bystanders, killed by some US drone strikes, is unacceptable. Pakistan is particularly outraged at the USA using drones to attack people running for public office in Pakistan, such as Zabet Amanullah,159 and attacking Pakistan government meetings, such as Datta Khel Nomada Bus Station.160 I will be interested to see US reaction, when Pakistan drones strike at people who are enemies of Pakistan, but friends of the USA. If it is legal, under international law, for the US drones to attack anyone the US pleases inside Pakistan or any other nation, then it should also be legal for any other nation to strike anyone they please with drone attacks inside any nation. Aside from these international law issues of where we draw the line between individual assassinations, and a state of war existing between the nation operating the drones, and the nation where they are attacking, there is also the fact that Syria is using drones as part of its genocide campaign against the revolutionaries, who started out as a peaceful protest against the Syrian government torture of school children, then the Syrian government escalated a conflict which could have been resolved without any bloodshed. QUOTE resume A third way of analyzing the issue is to ask whether a terrorist organization is engaging in an internal (or non-international) armed conflict with a particular government such as the governments of Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia; and then to ask whether and in what circumstances it is lawful for a third State to become engaged as a party to an internal armed conflict in support of the government forces. It is clear that as a matter of international law such engagement may be lawful if it takes place at the express request of the government of the State concerned. It is much less clear whether it can be lawful for an outside State such as the US to use military force without the express consent of the State concerned. International lawyers disagree on whether tacit consent or acquiescence is sufficient; on whether the deployment of remote targeting technology in such circumstances amounts to a violation of the sovereignty of the State on whose territory it is used; and on whether it may nonetheless be lawful if the State concerned is either unwilling or unable to tackle the terrorist threat posed by an insurgent group operating on its territory. UNQUOTE
159 160
See Sept 2010 in Drone Dates time line. See details in Drone Terms, listed there to cite an example of alleged war crimes via US drones.
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The international community lacks consensus, but there is intense debate at the UN on how to resolve this issue. These legal theories may have different applicability in different theaters of conflict, in different nations, and in different places inside nations. It is important to seek consensus among the citizens of the nations deploying these weapons, most of which are democratic states. The legal issues also apply to manned attacks, and missile strikes, but it is the use of the drones which has sent this topic to the top of the international human rights agenda.
International Law on Drones (3 Jan 24)

I wrote up this section, before the UN 2013 human rights investigation, which may lead to a change in our understanding. Within many nations, people can do anything they please, unless there is a law against it, so as technology makes it possible to do things in a different way, people can get away with murder, until the legislators catch up with reality and say that also is illegal to do whatever with the new technology. For example, in the USA, pornography was illegal in books and magazines. Then TV was invented, and it was legal to have pornography on TV until new laws drafted, to add TV to books and magazines. Then people got video cameras, and it was legal to share pornography that way, until new laws drafted. Then people got cell phones with cameras, and it was legal to share pornography that way, until the legislators caught up. The same pattern is true for all sorts of human behaviors. New technology means new ways to do things that are illegal under the old technology, until the government catches up and makes that illegal also. So it is with international law, which has not yet caught up with the reality of what can be done with Drones, and how some nations are dealing with terrorists and freedom fighters, especially USA in wake of 9/11. Most laws make something illegal from the date the law is passed, moving forwards. There are a few exceptions such as SOX in USA. This is a law which says that companies need to manage their resources in a responsible and safe manner. It only applies to companies with certain characteristics, but at the instant they achieve those characteristics, the law is also retroactive on them for 2 years before they qualified. Not all nations operate by the principles of Western Law crafting. In China, if you do some scandal that embarrasses your people, you could get executed by causing the government to lose face.
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Irrespective of the laws, there are also civilized principles or traditional values within each nations heritage. Many advocacy groups say military drones are a new kind of weapon outside the rules of war and civilized behavior, where standards need to be established. One UN official wants the US to publish what drone strikes have been made where, with what targets, and why.161 The USA is resisting this. All nations, all thru history, have resisted giving out any info on covert operations, assassinations, spy craft, etc. In the 20th century, the USA has successfully exported many standards of liberty and justice around the world, so US politicians should not be surprised, when the people, who have been taught those values, are protesting US apparent violation of them.162 Also many people in the USA are upset with the apparent US policy of killing anyone anywhere in the world, with no accountability. 163 Jimmy Carter164 is one of the people denouncing this activity. Also, many nations have signed international law treaties, ratified them, incorporated them into their national laws. Just as democracy cannot work if the people do not participate, such as via voting, human rights do not work if the people are ignorant of what their rights are, and how to insist on getting them. I provide links to this topic in Drone Terms research document.
Legal Geography of War (2 Sep 11)

The Hoover Institution at Stanford University165 uploaded June 2011 to Scribd a 20 page document they called Targeted Killing and Drone Warfare: How we came to debate whether there is a Legal Geography of War.166 It had been written, by Kenneth Anderson, with the same title.167 Copyright of this publication is for educational and private, non-commercial use only. No part of it may be reprinted, reproduced, or transmitted in electronic, digital, mechanical, photostatic, recording, or other means without the written
161
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/20/un-drone-investigation-us-dodgingquestions_n_1612704.html? 162 https://www.ireland.com/breaking-news/un-report-condemns-us-drone-strikes/662296 https://plus.google.com/u/0/100550489777532033150/posts/VeoYq68L249 https://plus.google.com/u/0/109220763275563718852/posts/TCZmZET7dct 163 http://www.newser.com/story/147967/who-care-about-leaks-problem-is-drone-policy-itself.html 164 http://india.nydailynews.com/newsarticle/4fe8745eb1e35d8b74000001/jimmy-carter-savages-usforeign-policy-over-drone-strikes 165 http://www.scribd.com/HooverInstitution 166 http://www.scribd.com/doc/57295260/Targeted-Killing-and-Drone-Warfare-How-We-Came-to-DebateWhether-There-Is-a-%E2%80%98Legal-Geography-of-War%E2%80%99-by-K-Anderson 167 Preferred citation is Kenneth Anderson, Targeted Killing and Drone Warfare: How We came to Debate Whether there Is a Legal Geography of War (April 2011), Future Challenges in National Security and Law, edited by Peter Berkowitz, http://www.futurechallengesessays.com .
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permission of the copyright holder. For permission to reprint, reproduce, or transmit, contact Ms. tin tin Wisniewski (tintinyw@stanford.edu). There is some good stuff here. We have a dichotomy between policy advocates of torture, secret laws, and drone warfare, as opposed to critics who feel this is getting too much like war crimes. This document addresses challenges of the two mind sets, which need to be resolved, if there is ever to be a meeting of the minds. It explains applicability of which parts of the Geneva Convention to the kinds of conflicts we are involved in today. There is a clarity here, lacking in many other documents. From US perspective, drone attacks in Pakistan come under the rules of war. From perspective of Pakistan lawyers, they come under the rules of ordinary life where there is no war. Many news stories also seem to be oblivious to this distinction. There is stuff in here I do not like. It is nice that they spell out copyright rules, but this info is at the very end. A normal person might copy parts of the document, after reading some info at the front, long before they see this info at the very end. Legal terminology is used, without explanation. It sounds almost like a lawyer essay written for other lawyers. This, and other documents, tend to imply that drone killings are a brand new violation of international law. The USA and other nations, have been engaged in covert assassinations for at least half a century.168 The drone attacks are just a different technology doing the same kind of thing. The behavior is not new, what has changed is the visibility. They are copying what other people are saying, which is part of the Blame Game. Many changes in US military policies and tactics have occurred during the Obama administration yes, but are largely driven by Congress decisions how to address the Budget Deficit. The US military is moving away from manned warfare to drone warfare because of Congress, not the President. This Legal Geography of Warfare concept, is not universally accepted, but it appears like US authorities agree with it.
John O. Brennan, Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and

Counterterrorism, in a September 2011 speech at a Harvard conference on national security law, stated, QUOTE:169 The United States does not view our authority to use military force against al-Qaida as being restricted solely to hot battlefields like Afghanistan. Because we are engaged in an armed conflict with al-Qaida, the United
168
http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/07/19/assassination-nation/print http://www.democratandchronicle.com/article/20120813/OPINION02/120810012?nclick_check=1 169 https://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2012/09/targeted_killing.html I downloaded, calling my copy: CRS Kill US Citizen Legalities 2012 May.
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States takes the legal position that in accordance with international lawwe have the authority to take action against al-Qaida and its associated forces without doing a separate self-defense analysis each time.170 And as President Obama has stated on numerous occasions, we reserve the right to take unilateral action if or when other governments are unwilling or unable to take the necessary actions themselves. UNQUOTE This Legal Geography of Warfare is in my Drone Info collection on Scribd.171 If I start any sub-collections, it might also belong in Drones Legal and Drones Military.
UN Legalities of Targeted Killing (2 Sep 10)

Here is Christian Science Monitor172 story on US government reaction to a 29 page UN report173 on targeted killing, not just drones. Michael Cook174 had uploaded the May 2010 UN report on targeted killings to Scribd, Aug 2010.175 This is a massive piece of research, with many citations. I plan to read it again, if I ever get caught up skimming many other Drone documents, I have recently got my hands on. As with may other documents I have reviewed, it does not seem to recognize the concept of the Legal Geography of War, where I have a separate chapter on that, redefining the location of war as being the location of the persons involved in the war. The UN document says that, within an area of armed conflict, under international humanitarian and human rights law, it is legitimate to target, for killing, only those people who are directly participating in the hostilities, and every effort should be made to avoid collateral damage to innocent civilians in the area. As of when this report was published, in May 2010, not one single state, which has been conducting targeted killings, had disclosed The full legal basis for doing so, including its explanation of how they fit into the international law issues identified in this report. Their safeguards to ensure that killings are lawful and justified. Their accountability mechanisms to ensure wrongful killings are investigated, prosecuted and punished. Their basis for defining legitimate targets.
170 171
See Self Defense in Drone Terms. http://www.scribd.com/collections/3807680/Drone-Info at http://www.scribd.com/AlMac99 172 http://www.csmonitor.com/World/terrorism-security/2010/0603/US-defends-unmanned-drone-attacksafter-harsh-UN-report 173 http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/14session/A.HRC.14.24.Add6.pdf I have downloaded this 2010 May UN report, and uploaded 2012 Sep to my Drone Info collections on Google Docs Drive and Linked In Box Net. I did not upload to Scribd, due to my uncertainty about copy where permission. 174 http://www.scribd.com/NewMediaFoundation 175 http://www.scribd.com/doc/36645111/UN-special-rapporteur-Report-on-extrajudicial-Philip-Alston
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Who they targeted, why, and an accounting of innocent bystanders killed or injured in the attacks. Their basis for kill rather than capture.
Refusal by States, who conduct targeted killings, to provide transparency about their policies violates the international legal framework that limits the unlawful use of lethal force against individuals. Also see Sovereignty in the Acronym Clarification section. This is not limited to drone attacks, but includes many kinds of lethal force used by agents of various governments to assassinate people, usually residing in other nations. There are many things I like about this report. It identifies behaviors by many nations, which fall into this category. It defines terminology, which we have found in the behavior of nations, using examples from recent history. It presents explanations given by state actors, why they are doing these things, and whether their positions are supported by international law. It identifies what state actors are doing, and not doing, which contributes to the mess. It shows that all through history there has been a pattern of nations denying that they are doing these things, when it is self evident to the world that they are lying. It spells out how in some nations, there have been court rulings on how much of this is justified, what is prohibited, then state actors have violated the court, and those individuals, who whistle blowed on these violations, have been treated as enemies of the state. It meshes with international law, to spell out which is covered, and which is not. Where others have claimed that this or that law has priority over some other law, this report cites rulings by UN Security Council, NATO self defense, International Courts of Justice, to clarify such considerations. It identifies areas where laws appear to have been violated by nations. It spells out the challenges, in international law, of the revised practices and technologies. It addresses the issue of whether CIA assassins are unlawful combatants, and concludes that they are not. However, since they are participating in hostilities, they also may be targeted for killing, and they may be subject to prosecution in nations where they caused the killing, if those killings were not done with the approval of that nation. There is some stuff I do not like: The use of acronyms are sometimes hostile to the reader. I lack comprehensive reading and studies to far to fully appreciate many arguments here.
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This UN Drone Legalities document is in my Drone Info collection on Scribd.176 If I start any sub-collections, it might belong in Drones Legal.
UN action coming soon (2 Nov 29)

There have been voices from UN investigators, calling for a UN commission to look into the entire topic of military and intelligence killing outside of the laws of war, using the new technologies. There have been activists calling for a new convention on the use of drones, and new weapons technologies, to modernize the Hague and Geneva conventions.
Paul Robinson is a professor in the Graduate School of Public and International

Affairs at the University of Ottawa. He is the author and editor of numerous books on military history and military ethics, including Military Honour and the Conduct of War: From Ancient Greece to Iraq.177 He wrote an article Who Will Be Accountable for Military Technology? It was published Nov 15, 2012 in Slates Future Tense. 178 QUOTE The Global Campaign To Stop Killer Robots179 kicked off in New York on Oct. 21. Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Jody Williams urged the nations of the world to act against lethal autonomous robots, declaring them beyond the pale. Williams is not alone; on CNN earlier in October, Peter Bergen, the author of several best-selling books about Osama Bin Laden, also argued for a convention regulating lethal robots.180 The International Committee for Robot Arms Control, a group of academic experts on robot technologies and international security, is on board as well. The pressure on the robots is mounting. Underlying the debate about killer robots is concern that machines are not, and cannot, be legally accountable for their actions. As professor Oren Gross of the University of Miami School of Law told this years inaugural We Robot181 conference on robots and the law in April, domestic and international law are not well suited to dealing with robots that commit war crimes. UNQUOTE
176 177 178
http://www.scribd.com/collections/3807680/Drone-Info at http://www.scribd.com/AlMac99 http://www.slate.com/authors.paul_robinson.html
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2012/11/lethal_autonomous_robots_drones_tms_an d_other_military_technologies_raise.single.html 179 http://icrac.net/ 180 http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/01/opinion/bergen-world-of-drones/ 181 http://robots.law.miami.edu/
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Regarding Killer Robot Drones, on Nov 28, 2012, I added to my collection of Drone research focus areas, organized into documents by major categories, such as:
Dates time-line of what happened when, and when did we find out about it; Major Issues we need to figure out and resolve; What Nations have drones (about of them) and are doing what with them; Where did Al find the Reports upon which this research is based; Mini-reviews of reports and issues raised in Scribd collection of drone reports; A directory of unique Terms associated with drone warfare, and other national
defense and police alleged misconduct (over 1,000 and counting).
There were a total of eight of them, but on Nov 28, Al moved to nine, with the addition of Drone Robots, to focus on what we know, and what the issues are, associated with autonomous and semi-autonomous killer robot drones, which operate without the benefit of a human in the loop.
Civilian Casualties of Drone Attacks (2 Sep 9)

Troi2182 uploaded June 2011 to Scribd a 31 page document he called Drone Attacks and International Law.183 It had been written June 2011, with a somewhat longer title,184 by the Oxford Research Group.185 This is another massive piece of research, with a huge volume of citations and links. I plan to read it again, if I ever get caught up skimming many other Drone documents, I have recently got my hands on. Copyright on this: Some rights reserved. It is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License.186 I like the facts that conclusions are stated up front, before we get into the detail verbiage; they spell out responsibilities of attackers, regardless of which legal rules apply, whether they be military, intelligence, contractors, independent agents. This is the second in a pair of reports. I want to find their first discussion paper187 which identified all elements of international legal responsibility to identify, bury and record civilian casualties of armed conflict in the same way as military casualties are treated.
182 183
http://www.scribd.com/troi2 http://www.scribd.com/doc/58749675/Drone-Attacks-and-International-Law
184
DRONE ATTACKS, INTERNATIONAL LAW, AND THE RECORDING OF CIVILIAN CASUALTIES OF ARMED CONFLICT 185 www.oxfordresearchgroup.org.uk
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187
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ Recording of Casualties of Armed Conflict Project.
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The first Oxford Research Group report mapped existing legal frameworks, developing a comprehensive database of relevant conventions and treaties, providing an analysis of the law and the practical problems arising in the application of these legal instruments. They include: The Law of Armed Conflict, International Humanitarian Law, International Human Rights Law, and the Law of State Responsibility.188 Data found in the UN report189 on legality of targeted killing, which I cited earlier. The International Committee of the Red Cross Interpretive Guidance on Direct Participation in Hostilities.190. The International Committee of the Red Cross Customary Humanitarian Law Study of legal obligation for recording casualties.191 Articles of State Responsibility, and commentary to those articles by Professor James Crawford, who is one of the Oxford Research Group authors.
This research effort does not appear recognize as valid, the concept of Legal Geography of War, articulated so well by Kenneth Anderson.192 They are basically saying that certain geography of
Pakistan is part of the war, and part is not, irrespective of the people involved. But while they do not recognize that the location of the war is defined by the location of the people, and their actions, as perceived by the other side, they have found legal rules for the military and intelligence services (CIA operations for example) which apply to civilian casualties, of the drone usage, regardless of whether the rules of war apply or not. Then the areas which they say are part of the war are governed by the laws of armed conflict, and the other areas are governed by domestic law enforcement law and international Human Rights Law. But if we accept the Anderson theory, then anywhere the US, and other nations fighting the War on Terror, think there are enemies of the state, then that area is part of the war, be it a city block, a car on a highway, a restaurant, a school yard, a wedding, funeral, or whatever. In
188 189
Only a small portion of this has found its way into my other citations so far. http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/14session/A.HRC.14.24.Add6.pdf I have copied this 2010 May UN report to my Drone Info collections on Google Docs Drive and Linked In Box Net. I did not upload to Scribd, due to uncertainty about copy where permission.
190
ICRC, Interpretive Guidance on the Notion of Direct Participation in Hostilities under International Humanitarian Law (Nils Melzer ed., 2009), accessed 2 May 2010 at: http://www.icrc.org/eng/resources/documents/publication/p0990.htm after ICRC Guidance 191 J-M Henckaerts and L. Doswald-Beck, Customary International Humanitarian Law, (Cambridge University Press, 2005)
192
Kenneth Anderson, Targeted Killing and Drone Warfare: How We came to Debate Whether there Is a Legal Geography of War (April 2011), Future Challenges in National Security and Law, edited by Peter Berkowitz, http://www.futurechallengesessays.com.
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my understanding of the Anderson theory, there is no such thing as an area of drone attacks, in the War on Terror, which come under domestic or international Human Rights laws. This second effort conducted research, applying their proposed international legal obligation to record civilian casualties of drone attacks conducted by the United States Central Intelligence Agency in Pakistan and Yemen. I quote the Oxford Research Group conclusions: 1. A Non-International Armed Conflict exists in Pakistan, which is part and parcel of the Non-International Armed Conflict in Afghanistan. 2. Those drone attacks which occur in the Northwest Frontier Province (officially Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province), and Federally Administered Tribal Areas are governed by the law applicable to Non-International Armed Conflict. 3. There is an evolving armed conflict in Yemen, though it is not part of the CIA drone campaign. 4. Drone attacks which take place in Yemen and in the areas of Pakistan not part of the Non-International Armed Conflict in Afghanistan are governed generally by domestic law enforcement law and international Human Rights Law. The Intended targets of drone attacks are by and large classified as civilians save and except for those who are at the time of attack directly participating in a Non-International Armed Conflict. 7. The United States, Pakistan, Yemen, and organized non-state actors all fall within the international legal obligation associated with civilian casualties. 8. The legal obligations binding all of the participants in the drone attacks relevant to areas of armed conflict are: a. to search for all missing civilians as a result of hostilities, occupation or detention; b. to collect all casualties of armed conflict from the area of hostilities as soon as circumstances permit; c. if at all possible the remains, of those killed, to be returned to their relatives; d. the remains of the dead are not to be despoiled; e. any property, found with the bodies of the dead, is to be returned to the relatives of the deceased; f. the dead are to be buried with dignity and in accordance with their religious or cultural beliefs; g. the dead are to be buried individually and not in mass graves; h. the graves are to be maintained and protected; i. exhumation of dead bodies is only to be permitted in circumstances of public necessity which will include identifying cause of death;
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j. the location of the place of burial is to be recorded by the party to the conflict in control of that territory; k. there should be established in the case of civilian casualties an official graves registration service. 7. Those attacks that take place outside of the geographical area of armed conflict are extra-judicial killings contrary to international Human Rights Law and domestic criminal law unless the persons involved were killed while trying to evade lawful capture. 8. Those authorities responsible for the territory in which these extra judicial killing occur are responsible to investigate every incident of casualty and fulfill the same obligations as set out above in armed conflict. End of my quoting. It is obvious to me that none of the stuff listed in # six is even on the radar screen of the drone commanders. This Civilian Casualties of Drone Attacks is in my Drone Info collection on Scribd.193 If I start any sub-collections, it might also belong in Drones Legal and Drones Military.
Laws of Drone Warfare (2 Sep 9)

Dr. N. R. Dewi Nurmayani194 uploaded June 2012 to Scribd a 38 page document she called Drone Warfare and the Law of Armed Conflict.195 It had been written Dec 2010 by Ryan J. Vogel, with the same title. To download this document, we must become a Scribd Premium Reader (pay $).196 This is another massive piece of research, with a huge volume of citations and links. I plan to read it again, if I ever get caught up skimming many other Drone documents, I have recently got my hands on. There are many things I like in this document. It does not make the mistake, common to many other authors, of blaming everything on the current President. It clearly identifies the roles of Democratic and Republican controlled Congress, Administration, and US Supreme Court rulings, as collectively approving the current state of affaires. It clearly lays out good examples of drone strikes, and raises key legal questions which apply to drone warfare overall. It cites specific international laws, which some drone usage appears to be in violation of, although I believe those same laws have been violated many times in the historical past, long before drones in the picture.
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http://www.scribd.com/collections/3807680/Drone-Info at http://www.scribd.com/AlMac99 http://www.scribd.com/nrdewinurmayani 195 http://www.scribd.com/doc/98749658/Drone-Warfare-and-the-Law-of-Armed-Conflict 196 http://www.scribd.com/archive/plans?doc=98749658
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o Article 25 of the 1907 Hague IV Convention prohibits aerial bombardment by whatever means of undefended towns, villages, or dwellings. o So Pearl Harbor in WW II might have been a violation of this, in fact much of WW II violated this. What I am not so pleased with here: Many professional fields have a depth of education and training needed to fully appreciate details and applicability. We may need to have a law degree to understand much of what is here. I do not have a law degree. The document starts out by contrasting a couple quotes. US legal authorities claim the drone strikes comply with all applicable laws, including the laws of war. UN legal authorities claim the drone strikes are in violation of international humanitarian law, and international human rights law. As we have seen from the Kenneth Anderson Legal Geography of War, the two areas cited by UN legal authorities, may not be applicable to situations which fall under the laws of war, so we may need to re-read the UN report from that perspective, to see whether the UN report addresses it, and whether or not it agrees with my interpretations. Also many authorities have cited a legal black hole exists, where not all historical laws and treaties cover some contemporary technologies. This author explores this territory. The history of warfare is replete with examples of new technologies and strategies which were a surprise to prior drafters of laws of war legal regulations. While drones have existed in military arsenals for a century, it is only in the last decade, after 9/11, that their use has exploded. The article addresses this history perspective. The article lists several quite plausible hypothetical examples of drone attack scenarios, then raises some legal questions: 1. Does it make a legal difference if the nation, where the drone strike occurs, knows about the strike in advance, agrees to such attacks, does not agree to them? 2. Are some targets so critical, that it does not matter how much collateral damage occurs with innocent bystanders, and private property? 3. Does it matter if there are excess deaths of innocent bystanders, unexpected by the drone operators or commanders? 4. Does the USA have a humanitarian obligation to try to capture enemies, as opposed to assassinating them? 5. Does legality of strike vary if it is inside an area of defined armed conflict, like Afghanistan, in an area not yet at war like Iran, in neutral territory such as the high seas? 6. Does the location of the target impact the legality of the strike? Suppose the target is on a commercial airliner, train, or bus, located in Afghanistan, or inside USA. Does it make any difference in the legality of the drone strike?
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7. Does it matter if the drone operator is a member of the armed forces, works for the CIA, or a civilian contractor? How about legalities for people who hack drones and take them over? This research document attempts to answer all these questions, and more which come up in the context of explaining various laws, within the context of both current laws of war, and our evolving realities. I might add to the list of questions worthy of consideration. 1. Does it make a difference if the Drone strikes are part of a war sanctioned by the UN, such as in Iraq and Afghanistan, as opposed to a war not sanctioned by the UN such as Palestine and Syria? 2. Does it matter if the Drone strikes are by a nation against its own people, such as in Syria and Turkey (lethal weapons) or in USA (proposed non-lethal, which can kill and maim)? 3. Enemy soldiers may raise hands and white flag of surrender, where it becomes illegal to kill them. They may not get this protection once the bombs are falling or the bullets flying. When do they get it in drone warfare? See Latency in the Terminology. 4. Where do autonomous robot drones fit into this legal framework? They are probably not lawful combatants. Punishing them in any court system seems ludicrous. Their human chain of command, if it can be located, has what accountability? At the conclusion of the authors analysis, he offers ten guiding principles for conducting drone strikes within the letter and spirit of the law of war: 1. Any drone strike must be necessary for the accomplishment of an actual military objective. 2. A drone strike must be directed only at lawful targetsi.e., combatants, civilians who have forfeited their protections by directly participating in hostilities, and military objectives.197 3. Commanders and operators must not authorize a drone strike when they know or reasonably should know that the strike will cause excessive collateral effects to civilians or civilian property. 4. Commanders and operators must strike a proportional balance between the risk to civilians or civilian objects and the military advantage expected when using drones to conduct attacks. 5. Commanders and operators must exercise constant care and reasonable precaution to spare the civilian population from death and destruction. 6. Commanders and operators must not conduct drone strikes where there is a high likelihood that the strike will cause unnecessary suffering or superfluous injury. 7. A drone strike must be conducted within the framework of an actual armed conflict.198
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This seems to exclude people who are suspected of plotting terrorist attacks, but who have not yet launched said attacks.
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8. A drone strike should be conducted only by lawful combatants.199 9. Commanders and operators should receive prior consent (even if blanket approval) from the state in whose territory the strike will occur, unless that state is unwilling or unable to control the threatening activities within its own territory. 10. Although not required by law, commanders and operators may benefit in certain circumstances from pursuing a non-lethal course of action if a target might just as easily be captured and detained, within reason and subject to force protection concerns. This Laws of Drone Warfare document is in my Drone Info collection on Scribd.200 If I start any sub-collections, it might also belong in Drones Legal and Drones Military.
Pakistan Targeted by Drones (2 Sep 8)

There is a lot of literature on this topic, because the legal system of Pakistan has had an enormous volume of activity protesting the use of US drones in attacks on Pakistan civilians. It has gone all the way up to the Pakistan Supreme Court, which ruled that what the USA is doing constitutes War Crimes. This has had no effect on the US activity. I have a large chapter on this topic in my Drone Notes.
Pakistan Living Under Drones (2 Oct 27) I call the 182 page report: Law School Living Under Drones 2012 Sept,201
because I try to rename downloads to better reflect: Source; Subject; Vintage. I found info in this report, which logically belongs in my Drone: Issues; Notes; Terms documents, some of which was already there, before I started studying this. My Drone Nations document is now up to almost 100 nations where drones are active, but theres maybe only a dozen nations so far, where they are being used to attack the local people. Read some of the interviews. The drones make everyone in the area feel, every day, like NYC on 9/11 or London under the Blitz. A feeling of terror, because you dont know
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The Legal Geography of War is relevant here, whether the author of this essay recognizes it or not. See definition of lawful combatants. It is not clear whether CIA, or civilian contractors qualify. 200 http://www.scribd.com/collections/3807680/Drone-Info at http://www.scribd.com/AlMac99 201 2012 Sep 26 downloaded from http://livingunderdrones.org/ and http://www.law.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/organization/149662/doc/slspublic/Stanford_NYU_LIVING _UNDER_DRONES.pdf The report was jointly produced by Stanford Law Schools International Human Rights and Conflict Resolution Clinic, and NYU School of Laws Global Justice Clinic. Full name = Living Under Drones: Death, Injury, and Trauma from US Drone Practices in Pakistan. I think logically, my review of this should be included with my International Law section in Drone Scribd, however, this document is apparently not yet on Scribd, as of 2012 Oct 02. Perhaps my International Law studies from Drone Notes and Drone Scribd could be combined in a new doc?
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which building is going to come crashing down next, which of your friends and neighbors will be next to be killed.202 After the report came out, there are others who criticize some aspects of the content. According to Lawfare, Oct 9, 2012, QUOTE203 As a counterpoint to the much-noted critical study of drones in Pakistan from the clinics at NYU and Stanford, I recommend this piece by Joshua Foust of the American Security Project (ASP),204 which is sympathetic to the NYU-Stanford study but maintains that it has some serious bias issues. I also recommend this (seven-month old) article by Patrick B. Johnston and Anoop Sarbahi (of RAND and Stanford, respectively), which argues very tentatively that drone strikes in northwestern Pakistan reduce militant violence there. 205 UNQUOTE The ASP piece argues that interviewing 130 people out of 800,000 in FATA, is too small of a sample size. Perhaps Foust did not read the part on how difficult it is to do interviews in that territory. This Pakistan Living Under Drones206 (182 pages) report includes: Drone Warfare History International Law Considerations207 Massive Links to Additional Citations Military Drone Impact Numbers Methodology and Reliability Quality of US drone targeting intelligence208 Pakistan Tribal Areas Background and Recent History Pakistan Tribal Areas Legal System
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http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/09/every-person-is-afraid-of-the-drones-thestrikes-effect-on-life-in-pakistan/262814/ 203 http://www.lawfareblog.com/2012/10/empirical-analyses-of-drones-in-pakistan/ 204 http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/09/targeted-killing-pro-and-con-what-to-makeof-us-drone-strikes-in-pakistan/262862/ 205 http://patrickjohnston.info/materials/drones.pdf 206 http://livingunderdrones.org/ INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS AND CONFLICT RESOLUTION CLINIC (STANFORD LAW SCHOOL) AND GLOBAL JUSTICE CLINIC (NYU SCHOOL OF LAW), LIVING UNDER DRONES: DEATH, INJURY, AND TRAUMA TO CIVILIANS FROM US DRONE PRACTICES IN PAKISTAN (September, 2012) 207 No document appears to give a complete story, but this is one of the best I have seen so far. Many talk about UN treaties applying to all nations, but there 193 nations in the UN, and 7 nations not in the UN (listed in my Drone Nations). Do UN treaties apply to those nations, and does it matter? 208 The report uses many different means to show that there are serious problems with US drone targeting. For example, it cites particular people on kill lists. The US does a drone strike and declares that exact person dead, then a year later again does a drone strike declaring that exact same person killed, then a year later that person gives an interview. There are numerous investigations of who got killed in a drone strike, where it is incredulous that the US has labeled as militants: officials of Pakistan government; candidates running for political office; judges; lawyers, police officers; small business owners; doctors; firemen; students, small children.
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Although it heavily quotes other organizations which have investigated the situation, and which could conceivably have an agenda other that the truth, this investigation also conducted considerable independent research, including over 130 detailed interviews with victims and witnesses of drone activity, their family members, current and former Pakistani government officials, representatives from five major Pakistani political parties, subject matter experts, lawyers, medical professionals, development and humanitarian workers, members of civil society, academics, and journalists.209 69 of the interviews were with individuals who: Witnessed drone strikes or surveillance; Are surviving victims of strikes; or Are family members of victims of strikes. The interviews were from 30 minutes to 2 hours each, and many are provided in the report, translated into English. The report reiterates common demands that CIA and military drone use be shared with Congress, but I have seen from other sources that this info is in fact being shared with US Congress, whose spokespersons re-iterate the party line that this is an effective tool against our enemies, and deny claims that it hurts innocent civilians, children, or our allies.210 Thus, either Congress is being lied to,211 or for reasons of security, are stating a party line which is clearly contradictory to what independent investigations are finding on the ground in Pakistan. See section of Drone Scribd on Factual Corrections, specifically Congress knows all about Drones. There I expand my above remarks to spell out how I know that the US Congress is in fact doing oversight of drones, and how it is self-evident to me that this oversight is seriously lacking in good quality.
Pakistan Numbers Attacked by Drones (2 Oct 3)

It is obvious to everyone who has studied recent military drone history, that there is no correlation between many sources of data on how many innocent civilians attacked.
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http://livingunderdrones.org/ INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS AND CONFLICT RESOLUTION CLINIC (STANFORD LAW SCHOOL) AND GLOBAL JUSTICE CLINIC (NYU SCHOOL OF LAW), LIVING UNDER DRONES: DEATH, INJURY, AND TRAUMA TO CIVILIANS FROM US DRONE PRACTICES IN PAKISTAN (September, 2012) 210 Citations in US Legislative section of my Drone Notes. 211 IG investigations of ATF Scandals, detailed in my Drone Terms, show clearly that Congress was lied to by US leaders, who in turn were lied to by ATF local offices. The President and Attorney General told Congress what they were told, passing the lies up the ladder, without proper questioning, or managing what was being done by US police agencies which were supposedly under their supervision.
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Thus the Pakistan Living Under Drones212 (182 pages) report does a great public service by analyzing major sources of numbers, evaluating the veracity of their methodology and bias, and explaining why it is so challenging to nail down the truth. In the early days of US drone strikes, the Pakistani government was actively covering up the fact that they were occurring. The military situation on the ground of Pakistan tribal areas makes it very difficult, if not impossible, for independent researchers to do a thorough job of investigation. The Living Under Drones report clearly explains that military situation. When outside observers do get into the FATA, they are often escorted by Pakistani military, who have an interest in controlling what information gets out. Thus most journalists must rely upon either official sources, which can be contaminated by a party line, or propaganda, or people inside the territory, who have an interest in supplying info which is politically expedient to their survival, given the behavior of friends of CIA, friends of Taliban, and others, who rule by intimidation. The Taliban and other armed groups, hostile to Pakistan and/or the USA, 213 have an interest in inflating reports of damage done by drones to innocent civilians. This is normal in most any armed conflict. Because of how male and female family members live separately in Pakistan Tribal area households, and a cultural bar about men asking families about their women, most families have no idea how many women and children may have been in a household before it was destroyed in a drone strike. This contributes to under-reporting drone fatalities. Even when journalists communicate with people near the scene, theres no guarantee that those individuals have a good picture of what happened, since they too must often rely on what other people have told them. Thus, different journalists with different contacts get different versions of reality, make different decisions about who to trust, and frequently end up publishing conflicting accounts of each strike. US government sources are mired in secrecy, and a trust us without any proof, attitude, where their data appears to be deliberately undercounting accidental killing of innocent bystanders. This is normal in most any armed conflict. Official US government reports
http://livingunderdrones.org/ INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS AND CONFLICT RESOLUTION CLINIC (STANFORD LAW SCHOOL) AND GLOBAL JUSTICE CLINIC (NYU SCHOOL OF LAW), LIVING UNDER DRONES: DEATH, INJURY, AND TRAUMA TO CIVILIANS FROM US DRONE PRACTICES IN PAKISTAN (September, 2012) 213 I have seen in other reports, one Pakistan grievance is that there are good Taliban and bad Taliban, the good Taliban being allies of Pakistan, but the USA is attacking all Taliban. There are groups based in the area which are hostile to the USA, such as al Qaeda, but perhaps not hostile to Pakistan.
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are consistently claiming far fewer innocent civilians harmed by drone strikes, than all other sources, including: Independent investigators on the ground. News Media NGOs Pakistan government sources, official and unofficial. Think Tanks US anonymous government sources US claims that, unless proven otherwise, anyone killed by a US drone is a justifiable kill, and at the same time, the US actively attacks and tries to undermine groups which try to determine the truth, so as to prevent anyone from proving any of the kills are not justified. The Living Under Drones report says that the civilian/militant method of counting drone kills, is problematic from many perspectives: Anonymous Pakistani and US government sources are used to claim what happened in any given drone strike, then news media stories based on that, are aggregated to use as statistics claiming that the drone strikes are doing a good job. International Law justification for killing alleged militants, or suspected militants. Government claims of drone effectiveness in killing correct targets. Journalist failure to evaluate community impact on lives of innocent survivors. No distinction between legitimate high value targets, who are leaders of groups we are at war with, and low level personnel who pose no imminent threat to the USA whatsoever, so their assassination is unjustified.
Pakistan Best Estimated Numbers (2 Oct 14)

According to The Living Under Drones report, QUOTING and me SYNOPISIZING:214 The three most well-known and widely quoted sources of aggregated drone strike data are Each aggregator places different weight on different types of primary sources. Thus, the computed results are quite different. Living Under Drones tries to reconcile how come the results are so different, between the widely quoted sources of drone strike data. The Year of the Drone project by the New America Foundation (NAF) think tank; NAF labels drone victims as militant, unknown or civilians. NAF concludes that somewhere between 1,584 and 2,716 militants have been killed in Pakistan since 2004, and between 152 and 191 civilians (and 130-268 unknowns).
http://livingunderdrones.org/ INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS AND CONFLICT RESOLUTION CLINIC (STANFORD LAW SCHOOL) AND GLOBAL JUSTICE CLINIC (NYU SCHOOL OF LAW), LIVING UNDER DRONES: DEATH, INJURY, AND TRAUMA TO CIVILIANS FROM US DRONE PRACTICES IN PAKISTAN (September, 2012) Then I rearrange the data in my synopsis of what they are telling us, to emphasize the differences.
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My math, from this data, says this is approx 6-8% civilians and 6-9% unknowns Which could be 12 to 17% other than militants Contrary to claims made on its website and in its publications, NAFs strike data do not appear to be updated regularly to include the most up-date Information about the number and identities of victims killed in drone strikes. This is proven by Living Under Drones citing particular strikes, where initial official stories have long since been proven incorrect, but NAF still has the bogus info on their site. Living Under Drones also analyzed NAF citations and found that they did not support NAF conclusions. Living Under Drones also thinks NAF citations are weak, compared to the competition. In support of its data on the first 27 strikes of 2012, NAF linked to 107 articles, of which 11 are duplicates. My math = average 3-4 articles about each strike. The Long War Journal (LWJ), a blog and project of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies; LWJ labels drone victims as civilians or Taliban/Al Qaeda, or leaders and operatives from Taliban, Al Qaeda, and allied extremist groups. LWJ (which does not keep data for 2004 and 2005) reports that drones have killed 2,396 leaders and operatives from Taliban, Al Qaeda, and allied extremist groups (which Living Under Drones refers to as Taliban/Al Qaeda) in Pakistan since 2006, and 138 civilians. LWJ does not make its data available in a strike-by-strike format. Instead, it publishes blog posts about new strikes soon after they are initially reported, and maintains a series of regularly updated statistical graphs. Its investigations appear to consist primarily of conversations with unnamed US intelligence officials, and aggregating news media reports. LWJ heavy reliance on unofficial US sources, and failure to show strike-by-strike details, makes it impossible to see how much of their data is contaminated by official US government bias. And The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ), a Londonbased journalism non-profit. TBIJ uses total killed or injured and civilians, with no express category for non-civilians. TBIJ reports that drones have killed between 474 and 881 Pakistani civilians since 2004, out of 2,562 to 3,325 total deaths. My math from this data, says 15-35% civilian deaths. TBIJ maintains a much more dynamic database than the other two sources, updated frequently to reflect new info as it comes to light. TBIJs use of corroborating sources to supplement data drawn from press accounts sets TBIJ apart from both LWJ and NAF
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While TBIJs data are also highly transparent and its investigations more thorough than others, its aggregation of information from news articles faces the same problems as described above, and its full body of strike data is not, and indeed cannot be, wholly accurate (nor does TBIJ purport that it is). In support of its data on the first 27 strikes of 2012, TBIJ linked to 344 articles, and provides information on a handful of additional possible strikes that have not yet been verified. It quotes heavily from conflicting reports, to show challenges at getting at the truth. My math = average of 12-13 articles per strike. UNQUOTE Some people are in denial that this kind of analysis can in fact work. 215
Military Drone Impact (2 Oct 4)

The Pakistan Tribal Areas are no longer peaceful civilian life, for multiple reasons: The people are being terrorized by US drones. They do massive property damage, killing and maiming many people. After a drone strike, the locals know not to rescue anyone who is lying there injured, because the drones often return to attack the police fire ambulance and other humanitarian rescue workers. They wait half an hour or more, just in case that is going to happen, before helping any survivors. There are allegedly locals paid by the CIA to identify homes of militants, in which it is like US McCarthyism accuse someone, and get paid for doing so, with no accountability for false accusations. Children no longer go to school, because their school may be the next one to be destroyed by a drone. Many community events no longer have attendees, because there have been drone strikes against bus stations, court hearings, funerals, all sorts of community events. The people are being terrorized by the Taliban. There are allegedly locals rewarded by the Taliban for identifying enemies of the Taliban, in which accountability for false accusations is as lacking as with CIA informants. Access in or out of the territory is controlled by the Pakistani military, in much the same way that movement around Palestine is controlled by the Israeli military.
Police Drone Usage (2 Sep 7)

With the end of US involvement in the wars in Iraq, and the draw down of forces in Afghanistan, thousands of drones are coming home, and looking for new jobs. The US DoJ has grants to help local police depts take over the operation of drones, for what purposes? Thats the question. Many people are worried about the apparent
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https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/14/public-editor/questions-on-drones-unanswered-still.html?_r=0 http://americansecurityproject.org/blog/2012/the-us-and-its-uavs-on-data-and-drone-studies/
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militarization of the police, loss of privacy, and related topics, leading to efforts to get at the facts. Some relevant documents have made their way onto Scribd.
Police Drone Concerns in Palo Alto, CA, (2 Sep 7)

Letter to city council, with relevant links, and issues.216 8 pages written by Wayne Martin, of Palo Alto CA. It was uploaded to Scribd, March 2012 by W Martin 46,217 who is probably the same person. As of when I encountered him, he had uploaded approx 18 documents about his local, state, and federal government operations. There is no obvious date on this letter. If we knew it, then we might be able to place some of the errors of fact in context, since use of drones over USA, and their regulations, have recently evolved significantly, and not been well communicated to the people. This package describes, in very general terms, some concerns that people have about how police might use drones in the future, and shares a wide range of potential uses for this growing industry. It includes see some quotations from people who may be somewhat misinformed, or their info not up-to-date. The cited AP article claims that the FAA only allows drones over USA by government agencies. I believe this statement is factually incorrect and misleading. Since I have frequently seen similar mis-statements, I created a chapter in this document, clarifying this very point, and citing official sources of my corrections. See Who may fly UA over USA. The cited AP article quotes some people expressing safety concerns. Since I have seen similar speculations in multiple documents, I created a chapter in this document, with what has so far been made public about safety. See Safety Concerns. I think there is need for more specificity on privacy concerns, than those cited in this letter. See Privacy, Police, Political, Military, Concerns. However, we also need to review the links given: DRONES - PRIVACY PARADOX: PRIVACY AND ITS CONFLICTING VALUES (120 Minute Video): http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/multimedia/drones-privacyparadox-privacyand-its-conflicting-values-video DronesPrivacy Catalyst: http://www.stanfordlawreview.org/online/drone-privacy-catalyst This Palo Alto document is in my Drone Info collection on Scribd, which links to many educational, interesting, and stimulating articles on Drones there. 218 If I start any sub216
http://www.scribd.com/doc/83577189/Letter-Sent-To-Palo-Alto-City-Council-About-Use-of-DronesAnd-Police-Function-Regionalization 217 http://www.scribd.com/wmartin46 218 http://www.scribd.com/collections/3807680/Drone-Info at http://www.scribd.com/AlMac99
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collections, it might also belong in Drones USA, as opposed to Drone Military operations in other nations.
Police Drone Miami-Dade FL info (2 Sep 7)

This is an e-mail sent March 2012 by Miami-Dade to EFF, in response to an FOIA.219 It was uploaded to Scribd July 2012 by Brian Charles 6,220 who has uploaded multiple documents, including more on Drones. Use Acronym Clarification chapter as an aid to studying this document. I have some problems with this document, as shared by EFF and on Scribd. When we copy an e-mail, we should redact the e-mail addresses involved, to protect their privacy from spam. This has not been done here. People are reposting the e-mail all over creation on the Internet. The e-mail includes 3 attachments, which I was unable to access, using the document uploaded to Scribd, but I was able to find them on EFF web site, and linked to them in context in footnotes of my review.221 This 3 page e-mail from Miami-Dade answers many specific EFF questions. At the time of this e-mail, Miami Dade Police Dept has two drones. One was purchased for approx $100k thru the US DOJ (Dept of Justice). The other is leased for one dollar from Honeywell Corporation. No warrant nor court order is needed, to operate these drones. Policies and procedures used, in the operation of these drones, are contained in a document still in draft form: MDPD222 Special Patrol Bureau AU223 SOP.224 This is one of the 3 documents attached to the letter. 225 MDPD also has an FAA COA.226 It is one of the 3 documents attached to the letter.227 MDPD says it limits their drones to fly at 300 feet, although the drones have capabilities, which are perhaps best answered by asking the manufacturer. The intended use for the drones are as are laid out in the above two documents.
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http://www.scribd.com/doc/101485474/Miami-Dade-PD-Email-Regarding-Drone-Program https://www.eff.org/node/70421 EFF = Electronic Freedom Foundation https://www.eff.org/ FOIA = Freedom of Information Act for more info on FOIA see A Citizen's Guide on Using the Freedom of Information Act and the Privacy Act of 1974 to Request Government Records, House Committee on Government Reform, September 20, 2005, House Report 109-226 (PDF) and also I have more in my Drone Notes document. 220 http://www.scribd.com/brian_charles_6 221 Here is info, via EFF, about one of MDPDs drones: https://www.eff.org/node/71594 222 MDPD = Miami Dade Police Dept 223 AU = Aviation Unit 224 SOP = Standard Operating Procedures 225 Here is MDPD AU SOP for drones, on EFF web site: https://www.eff.org/node/70423 It is 12 pages. 226 An FAA COA is Certificate of Authorization spelling out approval and regulations for a particular organizations use of drones. 227 Here is COA issued to MDPD by FAA on EFF web site: https://www.eff.org/node/70422 It is 1 page.
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At present the drones are not being used to record pictures of incidents, so no plans are needed yet, to manage such recordings. The drone can capture pictures of what it sees, but currently AU clears this info between one usage and the next. It is possible that the manufacturer has got drones doing recordings, of which the end user is unaware, so perhaps EFF can go ask them about that possibility, MDPD thinks their drones are incapable of carrying weapons, but directs EFF to the manufacturer to be sure.
EFF has studied material they got from FAA, Miami-Dade, and other entities via drone FOIA, and shared what they figured out in articles on their web-site.228 EFF also has a collection of some of the documents involved.229 The documents include info from other police departments, many manufacturers, the FAA. This Miami Dade document is in my Drone Info collection on Scribd, which links to many educational, interesting, and stimulating sources of info on Scriibd about Drones. 230 If I start any sub-collections, it might also belong in Drones Police USA, as opposed to Drone Military operations in other nations.
Predator Drone Hacking How To (2 Sep 6)

This is a 3 page instruction sheet on how to hack Predator Drones. 231 It was uploaded May 2012 to Scribd by a person who is no longer a member there. The title description claims 2009 vintage. I have some problems with this type of info being available to the general public, which I will address in a section titled Freedom of Speech in War Time since I anticipate finding similar problems in other documents I review. The document cites Insurgents Hack U.S. Drones, Wall Street Journal,232 identifying some of the stepping stones to the needed data. The author(s) follow this trail to figure out what can be seen, decipher it to help other hackers. This Predator Hacking document is in my Drone Info collection on Scribd, which links to many educational, interesting, and stimulating sources of info on Scriibd about Drones.233 If I start any sub-collections, it might also belong in Drones Military, as opposed to Drones used for Police or peaceful civilian applications.
228 229
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/08/these-drones-are-made-watchin https://www.eff.org/foia/faa-drone-authorizations 230 http://www.scribd.com/collections/3807680/Drone-Info at http://www.scribd.com/AlMac99 231 http://www.scribd.com/doc/93422788/Predator-Drone-Readout-2009 Predator Drone is a type of drone used by the US military.
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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126102247889095011.html
http://www.scribd.com/collections/3807680/Drone-Info at http://www.scribd.com/AlMac99
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USAF Spy Info Oversight (2 Sep 7)

This is AFI 14-104 whose April 2012 edition supersedes an earlier one in 2007 April. It is 30 pages. Several different people have apparently uploaded duplicates of the same document to Scribd, under a variety of different names.234 I put at least one of them into my Drone Info collection on Scribd.235 Use Acronym Clarification chapter as an aid to studying this document, although there may be too many acronyms here for anyone to do a good job of digesting it. 236 I have several problems with this document. It is not immediately obvious whether it is Ok for the general public to be sharing this document. (copyright) (sensitivity) There is a very heavy density of acronyms, defined when first used, but soon we find ourselves asking what was that again? so as to grok proper context. There is some information in here which I am glad to see. According to a TV program about the Unibomber, he got his start in craziness, thanks to him being a subject of CIA experimentation in psychological warfare. According to this document, that kind of behavior is no longer tolerated. 237 Although at least one duplicate of this on Scribd labels it as a Drone Document, it not about the act of drone spying, or details about any methods of spying, but rather what is to be done with info derived from all forms of spying. It includes rules for Intelligence Oversight, how our armed forces and intelligence community is to conduct its business, without infringing on the rights of the citizenry, of the USA.
Collection Categories (2 Oct 11)

The initial main collection has everything I have found on Scribd about drones, some uploaded by me. Here are specialized collections, which I have considered adding, and which documents would belong there, if I do form them: Some belong in more than one category.
Drones Legal (2 Oct 11)

It would include all the docs in this Drones Scribd Synopses and reviews collection, under chapter headings collection on International Law. Also: ACLU FOIA. CRS238 Kill US Citizen Legalities.239 (23 pages) Legal Geography of War.240 (20 pages)
234
http://www.scribd.com/doc/100685247/Drone-Spying-Doc http://www.scribd.com/doc/95180834/Afi14-104-Drone-Use-in-Usa 235 http://www.scribd.com/collections/3807680/Drone-Info at http://www.scribd.com/AlMac99 236 They are deciphered, starting on page 21 of the documents Appendix. 237 Section 11.13 238 CRS = Congressional Research Service. 239 https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/target.pdf
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Oxford Research Group241 on Drone Attacks and International Law.242 Pakistan Living Under Drones243 (182 pages) UN report244 on legality of targeted killing. (29 pages)
Drones Military (2 Oct 11)

It would include all the docs in this Drones Scribd Synopses and reviews collection, under chapter headings collection on Pakistan. Also: ASP245 77 Strategic Context of Lethal Drones246 (12 pages) CRS247 Kill US Citizen Legalities.248 (23 pages) Drone Warfare and the Law of Armed Conflict.249 Drone Wars UK Briefing250 from Drone Wars Net.251 (36 pages) Legal Geography of War.252 (20 pages) Predator Hacking
Drones USA (2 Oct 11)

It would include all the docs in this Drones Scribd Synopses and reviews collection, under chapter headings collection on Police use of drones.
Factual Corrections (2 Sep 5)

Some of the links contain information I believe to be incorrect, obsolete, or misleading. I will identify such cases as I encounter them, and try to cite appropriate corrections,
240
Legal Analysis by Kenneth Anderson, Targeted Killing and Drone Warfare: How We came to Debate Whether there Is a Legal Geography of War (April 2011), Future Challenges in National Security and Law, edited by Peter Berkowitz, http://www.futurechallengesessays.com
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www.oxfordresearchgroup.org.uk
http://www.scribd.com/doc/58749675/Drone-Attacks-and-International-Law 243 243 http://livingunderdrones.org/ INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS AND CONFLICT RESOLUTION CLINIC (STANFORD LAW SCHOOL) AND GLOBAL JUSTICE CLINIC (NYU SCHOOL OF LAW), LIVING UNDER DRONES: DEATH, INJURY, AND TRAUMA TO CIVILIANS FROM US DRONE PRACTICES IN PAKISTAN (September, 2012) 244 http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/14session/A.HRC.14.24.Add6.pdf I have copy of this 2010 May UN report in my Drone Info collections on Google Docs Drive and Linked In Box Net. Someone else uploaded it to Scribd: http://www.scribd.com/doc/36645111/UN-special-rapporteur-Report-on-extrajudicial-Philip-Alston 245 ASP = American Security Project http://americansecurityproject.org/ 246 http://www.scribd.com/doc/102744195/The-Strategic-Context-of-LethalDrones?secret_password=2fk4qznpqupr7fraj21g 247 CRS = Congressional Research Service. 248 https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/target.pdf 249 http://www.scribd.com/doc/98749658/Drone-Warfare-and-the-Law-of-Armed-Conflict 250 I devote a chapter in Drone Scribd to this Briefing. 251 www.dronewars.net info@dronewars.net 252 Legal Analysis by Kenneth Anderson, Targeted Killing and Drone Warfare: How We came to Debate Whether there Is a Legal Geography of War (April 2011), Future Challenges in National Security and Law, edited by Peter Berkowitz, http://www.futurechallengesessays.com
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placing the info in separate chapters by nature of conflicting story, since multiple documents can have variations on the same questionable content. Some of the links contain a Point of View (POV), or potential bias, which is not universally accepted. In fact, for many Drone aspects, there are multiple different POV out there. I shall attempt to clarify where I see this, and identify some sources for alternative POV. I believe it is possible to both be factually correct in sharing information, and also reveal what our personal POV is on controversial topics.
Who may fly UA over USA (2 Sep 5)

Several documents make claims regarding what types of organizations may fly drones over the USA, and for what purposes. Many of these claims are outdated, or incorrect. Here is a summary of the situation as I understand it.253 The rules and regulations are evolving rapidly, under a mandate from the US Congress. Apparently many, elected to Washington DC, did not read the legislation which they passed, because as soon as the regulations started being enforced, many members of Congress bombarded government agencies with demands for clarification of those same regulations. Model Aircraft are very similar to Drones, but the rules are very different. Both are UA: (Unmanned Aircraft). There are also Kites, Balloons, and other stuff which can fly around. Basically anything which can fly in our skies, there are applicable regulations, but not all enforced, such as against birds, insects, and UFOs.
Model Aircraft may be flown without an operator, and without any certificates,
provided DOT (Dept of Transportation) rules are followed, such as not flying them within a certain distance of an airport, and using them for purely non-commercial purposes, such as entertainment, experimentation, and hobby.
Drones flown outdoors require a human operator, who has a pilots license, unless
there is a military exemption.254 The organization, which owns the drone, must have a certificate from the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) approving whatever they are using the drone for, and the drone itself must also have a Manufacturer certificate of airworthiness.
Drones may be flown indoors without any such rules, because indoors is not part
of US NAS (National Air Space). The FAA does not regulate indoors, but sometimes local and state governments have relevant regulations, such as who may photograph where, for what purposes.
253 254
Other documents will go into more detail. The military has some drones which do not need a pilot. They can operate based on internal programming. You can think of them as similar to NASA Curiosity on Mars, which operates based on internal programming, but occasionally NASA sends an update to Curiosity, like people with personal computers get updates to our anti-virus protection software. Similarly, the military has some drones flying around, controlled by programming which has been uploaded to them, and can occasionally get patched.
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Drones Authorized by FAA to fly over USA (2 Sep 5)

Many government agencies have been authorized by the FAA to fly drones over USA cities, and also an enormous volume of colleges and universities have also been granted such permission. See links to directory of permissions which EFF got from FAA via FOIA, in which there was an April 2012 release of information, then more July 2012. Here are public entities which applied to the FAA for drone approvals, over USA, which EFF found out about, thanks to FOIA.255 Here is a US map of locations of the places which asked FAA for permission to fly drones over the USA.256 Color Coding:257 Red Active; Blue Expired; Yellow Denied. April 2012 reports were amended with additional info from FAA to EFF in July 2012,258 so we will need to update our notes accordingly
Drone Rules Confusion (2 Sep 6)

The undated letter to Palo Alto city council says that only government agencies are authorized to fly over the USA. That was untrue 2012 forwards in the first regulations rewritten by FAA as per Congress, as we can see many Colleges and Universities included. Prior to those regulations, many people were using model aircraft with cameras for film making and real estate photography. They were put out of that business by draconian regulators, at the same time that hobbyists were permitted to continue using model aircraft for non-commercial purposes. It may be that some people have got confused by news reports about something permitted, something banned, to derive a misleading big picture conclusion.
Other than Manned Aviation, and Drones, over USA (2 Sep 6)

In addition to FAA regulations covering drones, there are also DOT (Department of Transportation) regulations covering the model aircraft hobby. Here is partial clarification from DOT (Department of Transportation), regarding model aircraft hobby,
255
See my Drone Terms document, uploaded to Scribd, if any of those acronyms are unfamiliar to you. https://www.eff.org/document/faa-list-certificates-authorizations-coas
256
https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msa=0&msid=214769660919529725423.0004bde31d74fe6eb1ece&hl= en&ie=UTF8&t=m&ll=45.336702,-110.039062&spn=58.987964,112.5&z=3&source=embed 257 This info is as of April 2012. I am sure some places status will have since changed with the FAA, and there will be new places which have applied for this status since this info to EFF via FOIA. 258 July 2012 additional info from FAA to EFF: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/07/faa-releases-thousands-pages-drone-records http://www.gsnmagazine.com/node/26756?c=federal_agencies_legislative
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dated in 1981.259 Multiple other sources indicate the regulations have evolved since then, and I am on the look out for the latest story. There are also regulations for flying Kites, such as those people who get into a rig towed overhead by a motor boat, then they cut loose and ride the air currents, like a glider. According to a post in RC-CAM forum:260 QUOTE Civil Aviation legislation applicable to kite flying is contained in the Air Navigation Order 2000 (Statutory Instrument No 2000/1562) and the Rules of the Air Regulations 1996 (Statutory Instrument No 1996/1393). For the purposes of these documents kites are classified as aircraft. UNQUOTE The post goes into great detail, for anyone interested in finding out all the details. A related dimension is the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) regulates use of RF (radio frequency) used to control these craft, except those which are piloted by internal programming. Genetically Modified Crops are generally licensed to only be planted in one farmer field, then Mother Nature wind picks up the seeds and flies them into neighbor farmer field. If they are found where Mother Nature dropped them, the farmer who unknowingly received them, can be sued for stealing.
Safety Concerns (2 Sep 5)

Manned aircraft avoid mutual collision by means of radar systems, and the pilots having a panoramic eyeball view of the skies around them, in cockpits designed to facilitate this, and radio communications with ground control, their home base HQ, and other aircraft can help avoid trouble. Drones avoid mutual collision by means of GPS based systems, and a remote pilot having a very limited view of what could be seen from the drone. The accident rate of unmanned aircraft is higher than with manned aircraft. FAA analyses how come, based heavily on military data:.A Summary of Unmanned Aircraft Accident/Incident Data: Human Factor Implications (PDF)261 Given the speed of the aircraft, using these two very different systems, the risk of collision seems pretty high. If there is only one agency in one city operating drones, and there are no private manned aircraft there, then it might be Ok to relax line of sight safety rules.
259
http://rgl.faa.gov/Regulatory_and_Guidance_Library/rgAdvisoryCircular.nsf/0/1acfc3f689769a56862569e 70077c9cc/$FILE/ATTBJMAC/ac91-57.pdf 260 http://www.rc-cam.com/forum/index.php?/topic/1697-new-faa-regulations-for-uavsrc/ 261 http://www.faa.gov/library/reports/medical/oamtechreports/2000s/media/0424.pdf
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In the early days of automobiles, there were only two autos in all of Ohio, and they had a collision. We can expect this if a city has two or more drones operating, interested in the same stuff, and no line of sight safety requirement. In fact FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) requests are turning up evidence of hundreds of near collisions, and seriously messed up government record-keeping. The FAA for years kept such poor records on private and commercial aircraft that the Associated Press discovered 119,000 with missing paperwork in 2010 one-third of the total registered.262 I have additional relevant citations in my Drone Notes research not yet uploaded to Scribd, but available on Google Drive Docs263 and Linked In Box Net.264
It cannot happen, until it does (2 Sep 5)

There seems to be a lack of imagination by some political leaders. There were reports of malware getting into US drone operations. We were told there was no risk of any enemy taking over the drone, or accessing their data. Then terrorist training camps were over-run by US military, and video was found, where obviously the enemy had been watching the feeds of info from drones, so they could see all the same info their operators could see. We were told there was no risk of any enemy taking over the drones. Then a drone crashed in Iran, and after a flurry of US gov denials of what happened, and statements by Iran technicians, it became evident that a drone had been hacked, told to return to its home base, its GPS and altitude sensors messed with to make it think that a particular Iran air base was its home base, which was actually in Afghanistan. So now Iran had that drone, reverse engineered it, and are manufacturing and deploying their own drones, based on the US design. Apparently this Iran incident did not filter from US military to US civilian leadership, because DHS (Dept of Homeland Security), and other government agencies, were shocked and horrified some time later, when some University students demonstrated that drones can be hacked with instrumentation costing less than $1,000.00, then sent to crash and burn.
Disaster Risks (2 Sep 6)

This lack of imagination is typical, and has led to serious disasters in recent memory. Some conspiracy theorists speculate that these human failings are due to some evil intentions. When it cannot be proven conclusively why mistakes and errors occurred, I
262
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/08/faa-documents-raise-questions-about-safety-of-drones-in-us-airspace/ 263 Google Drive Document Collection = Drone Info: https://docs.google.com/folder/d/0B9euafJH4b-ZLWR0bmZLS3d5OVk/edit 264 You have to be a member of Linked In, and connected to me there, to access those Box Net Folders. http://www.linkedin.com/in/almacintyre
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prefer to attribute them to lack of imagination, and lack of competent risk management. Most disasters are a combination of natural phenomena and human failings. 265 Remember the Shuttle disasters, BP Gulf Oil spill, Fukushima, Indiana Fairgrounds? There were technicians, engineers, scientists, with the know how to avoid these disasters, but they were over-ruled by non-technical managers, and flawed management systems. We can expect similar risks with drones. Right after 9/11, US political leaders said no one could have imagined that hijackers would fly commercial planes into important buildings. The 9/11 commission found over a dozen previous incidents of this happening, which US National Security could have learned from, to prevent 9/11. Hurricane Katrina did spectacular damage to New Orleans and surrounding areas. What happened was exactly what had been predicted by the Hurricane Pam simulation one year earlier, which told authorities what was needed to protect the people. Plans were under way to provide that protection, but the government had assumed that there was infinite time to do so. That was a very costly false assumption. Right after Fukushima nuclear disaster, power plant management, and representatives of the Japanese government, said this event was beyond their imagination. But subsequent investigations show they were told exactly what was going to happen, if they did not make corrections, and they chose to disregard those warnings. There were personnel at the BP Oil Rig, who could have prevented the Oil Spill disaster, had they been armed with the right information. They were sent to the Rig without proper training or access to documentation. They arrived, and immediately asked for the relevant User Guides. They could not get any, although corporate rules said they should have them. It was a break down in management. Late in 2011, there was a storm at the Indiana Fairgrounds, where many people killed and injured due to poor planning. For hours in advance, the National Weather Service provided better and better estimates of the coming storm. When it came, the forecast was bang on accurate regarding time and severity. The people in charge did not have a single person there who both understood Weather Forecasts, and had access to the Weather Forecasts, not the State Police, not the fairground officials, not the people running the Music event. Afterwards they said this was a freak storm which no one could have predicted. False. This was a statement of ignorance.
265
As a hobby, I have studied what went wrong in many disasters, what went wrong in rescue operations, what went wrong other ways, etc. to evaluate the merits of proposed schemes to mitigate next time that happens. I have uploaded my notes several places, including some documents on Scribd, and also: Google Drive Doc Disaster Avoidance collection. I have not found all desired answers, just some of them. Also see in my Drone Notes document, sections on how to contact the author, and on shared availability of my overall collection of research documents.
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Drones are relatively new technology. Any time we have new technology, it can take a while until it has a good record of safety. Look at the early days of rockets into space. Most of them blew up, before the technology was perfected. Not only is this new technology, it is also being rapidly improved upon, in an international arms race. Thus each new improvement is at risk of crashing. Drones are managed by computer communications. Why do we keep having to get patches to computer security and operating systems, browser features, etc. on a regular basis? Why cant the products be good quality when sold to us? We do not have to get fixes to our automobile hardware, or residences, or work place buildings, with this kind of frequency. So we can anticipate that the world of drones will similarly need to constantly get patches, to protect against circumstances outside the imagination of either their designers, or the managers of the designers. The US Treasury spends a small fortune to protect our currency, but yet people still manage to generate counterfeits which they are able to pass at various retail shops. This leads many people to wonder if identity documents issued by state government can ever be secure. Similarly, the US military, CIA, NSA, etc. spend an astronomical fortune on computer security, yet national secrets are constantly being breached and leaked. This leads many people to wonder how reliable the security will be for drones operated by local police departments, and the information they gather.
Congressional Oversight (2 Oct 11)

In my opinion, anyone who says that the US Congress needs to do oversight of Drones is ignorant of the fact that the US Congress already does oversight of Drones, as part of its constitutional mandate to do oversight of everything done by all departments and agencies of the US government. I believe they need to do a better job of this oversight, but that is a different point of view (POV) than people who are demanding that they start that oversight, as if they were not doing it at all. Within the context of the tools available to Congress, which they use in other forms of oversight, the obvious tools available to them, to improve the quality of the oversight, includes: Inspector General, CRS, and or GAO, investigations of allegations that what is going on, with drones, diverges from official stories. Subpoena and Invitation, to bring into same Hearing, Panels of persons who have been expressing the divergent points of view (POV). Group of legislators travel in person to places where drones have struck, speak one on one with people in foreign nations who have expressed points of view (POV) about US drone usage, which diverges from what the CIA, the military, and the White House, have been saying. Many reports, reviewed here, and which I have read elsewhere, reiterate a common refrain demanding that CIA and military drone use be shared with Congress, for competent oversight, but I have seen from other sources that this info is in fact being shared with US Congress, whose spokespersons repeat the party line that this is an
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effective tool against our enemies, and deny claims that it hurts innocent civilians, children, or our allies.266 Thus, either Congress is being lied to,267 or for reasons of security, are stating a party line, or point of view (POV), which is clearly contradictory to what independent investigations are finding on the ground in Pakistan. In my Drone Terms definitions, I state a personal point of view (POV), QUOTE: The President and his Cabinet, and heads of other government departments and agencies, share a responsibility with Congress, to have management systems so people in charge know what is being done by people under their command. In my opinion, it is improper to blame the President, Congress, or heads of government departments or agencies, for the corrupt and flawed operations done on their watch, of which they may have known nothing, but it is proper to blame them for not having management systems which could have nipped these problems in the bud. UNQUOTE I recognize that I am in a minority here, where most people in the general public see nothing wrong with blaming politicians for what happens on their watch, and are not at all interested in how come they are oblivious to corruption, waste, fraud, abuse, and apparently unwilling, or incapable, of fixing it. I am interested in helping figure out how to go beyond empty politician promises to fix these things, to actually get the job done.
Congress knows all about Drones (3 Feb 17)

See my Drone Reports directory of documents about Drones which I have located so far. CRS = Congressional Research Service: I have found several reports to Congress about various aspects of Drone usage; consequences, intended or unintended, from laws passed by Congress regarding drones, and under consideration at the time of the reports; US Supreme Court rulings relevant to drone usage, and speculation how they may rule in the future. Congress Hearings = I found transcripts of several hearings held by Congressional sub-committees, into various aspects of Drone usage. GAO = Government Accountability Office. They exist primarily to educate Congress. I have located multiple GAO reports to Congress on Drone usage by the military, and domestic US applications. Offices of Inspector General are found in many departments of government. I have located audits by several IG into Drone usage by various government agencies. Congress would have got copies of those reports. My Drone Notes have a section on whats been going on with Congress and Drones.
266 267
Citations in US Legislative section of my Drone Notes. IG investigations of ATF Scandals, detailed in my Drone Terms, show clearly that Congress was lied to by US leaders, who in turn were lied to by ATF local offices. The President and Attorney General told Congress what they were told, passing the lies up the ladder, without proper questioning, or managing what was being done by US police agencies which were supposedly under their supervision.
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There I summarize laws passed by Congress on drone usage, and drone laws proposed. Quoting from the LA Times, June 25, 2012:268 QUOTE Once a month, a group of staff members, from the House and Senate intelligence committees, drives across the Potomac River to CIA headquarters in Virginia, assembles in a secure room and begins the grim task of watching videos of the latest drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen. In addition to watching video, the legislative aides review intelligence that was used to justify each drone strike. The Committee staff holds monthly in-depth oversight meetings to review strike records and question every aspect of the program including legality, effectiveness, precision, foreign policy implications and the care taken to minimize noncombatant casualties. UNQUOTE This means Congress is allegedly fulfilling its oversight role,269 assuming: the staffers are seeing everything known to CIA, and drone strikes by the military; CIA and military data is of high quality; the staffers have relevant competence; the staffers are reporting honestly to their congressional bosses; politicians, in Congress, are not those senior citizens whose brains cannot remember critical info needed to do their jobs properly, and who choose to pay attention at the CIA briefings. So how do we reconcile these people saying they have not seen any improper drone strikes, with reports to the UN, regarding thousands of innocents being killed? The most logical explanation is either that: The CIA and military data is seriously flawed; or that Reports from investigators on the ground in target areas, are seriously flawed; or This news story is bogus. Quoting from The Atlantic, July 03, 2012270: QUOTE During an Aspen Ideas Institute panel on the American military's role in the world, Jane Harman, who served in Congress until 2011, asserted that civilian deaths from American drone strikes are "very rare," adding that her characterization was based on her access to classified information. UNQUOTE
268
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/middleeast/la-na-drone-oversight20120625,0,6672018.story 269 http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/02/observations-about-targeting-and-congressional-intelligenceoversight/ http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=20308E70-7963-4CA0-9A84-4ABC48E2DC31 270 http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/07/whats-wrong-with-jane-harmans-portrayal-ofamericas-drone-war/259351/
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From my other notes, including those in Drone Dates timeline, Drone Notes details of innocents killed by drones, and also several reports reviewed in Drone Scribd, we can see that Jane Harman was still in Congress in times when hundreds of innocent men women children were allegedly being killed by US drones. How for example, can we reconcile her position with Datta Khel Nomada Bus Station attacked by a US drone March 17, 2011, killing and maiming many government officials, and innocent civilians, attending a Pakistan government approved community meeting.271 Pakistani military says that a government-sanctioned Jirga272 was being held at the bus station, when it was attacked.273 The Jirga had been called to resolve a dispute with a local chromite mine, which is a major regional employer. In attendance were:
4. All relevant stakeholders in the running of the chromite mine, and the persons involved in the dispute; 5. Many members of the local government, including 35 Maliki, 274 other tribal
elders, and Khassadars.275 6. 4 representatives of the Taliban were also attending, since the Taliban had agreed to abide by the community decision on how to resolve the dispute.276 Perhaps they were the reason for the USA to assault this peace talk conference. 7. Other key community leaders were also in attendance. 8. Surviving witnesses estimate that there were over 50 tribal elders there, including the Maliki, killed in this drone strike.
We can see from this that people, elected to Congress, do have access to classified information about US drone use, but there is a disconnect between what people on the ground are witnessing about the drone usage, and the information being communicated up to top management of US government. There are multiple places where there may be a disconnect between reality, and the information communicated.
271 272
More info about this drone strike in Drone Terms. See Jirga in Drone Terms. This is a type of court hearing, ruled over by a panel of village elders, sometimes with local armed police in attendance, to act like bailiffs. 273 http://livingunderdrones.org/ INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS AND CONFLICT RESOLUTION CLINIC (STANFORD LAW SCHOOL) AND GLOBAL JUSTICE CLINIC (NYU SCHOOL OF LAW), LIVING UNDER DRONES: DEATH, INJURY, AND TRAUMA TO CIVILIANS FROM US DRONE PRACTICES IN PAKISTAN (September, 2012) See Masood & Shah, (quoting Pakistani military chief, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani,
as saying immediately after the strike: It is highly regrettable that a jirga of peaceful citizens, including elders of the area, was carelessly and callously targeted with complete disregard to human life.). http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/18/world/asia/18pakistan.html
274
See Malik (plural = Maliki) in Drone Terms. They are like judges or lawyers, appointed by the government to represent the interests of the people in the tribal judicial system. 275 See Khassadar in Drone Terms. They are hired by the government to act as auxiliary police, under the supervision of Maliki. 276 In other places in my research notes, I have found that Pakistan has identified Good Taliban and Bad Taliban, where the Bad Taliban are fighting Pakistan, and the Good Taliban are working in cooperation with the government. One of Pakistans grievances with the US military, is that the US does not honor Pakistan distinguishing the Taliban on this basis, attacking both friend and foe, indiscriminately.
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The CIA and US military, allegedly learns who is a potential enemy to target, based on informants who are paid for targeting info, and who care more about being paid, than the truth. So one possible explanation why US drones killed a candidate for Pakistani Parliamentary election, is that US informants were paid by people in political opposition to that candidate, to engineer this drone action. I am referring to Sept 2010, according to Living Under Drones (in Pakistan),277 US
special forces bombed the convoy of Zabet Amanullah, a candidate in parliamentary elections, killing him along with nine fellow election workers; US forces reportedly mistakenly believed Amanullah to be a member of the Taliban.278 This illustrates the quality of US intelligence used to determine who should be attacked. After many such attacks, where other people consider it self-evident that the US screwed up, US spokespersons continue to assert that the drone strike was justified. The US is still claiming that the 40 people killed and many injured in the attack on the jirga at the bus station, was totally justified.
Then there are reports, from US personnel doing their job, to higher ups in government, where the info is not details on what they are doing, but propaganda designed to elicit support and funding. I saw in the Inspector General (IG) investigations of US Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives (ATF) organizing massive movement of weapons illegally to Mexican Cartels, in which Fast & Furious was only the latest in several such projects, that only some personnel in local offices of ATF and US Attorneys, were aware of the details, until the projects ended, and the material went to Dept of Justice (DoJ) attorneys who were to take the cases to indictment and trial. The ATF projects ran for several years, then the DoJ attorneys took several years to decide what to do, and while they were deciding, the criminals continued to deliver the weapons to Mexico. Perhaps local CIA and military drone operations leaders are communicating up their chain of command with misinformation paralleling how ATF miscommunicated, as shown by the IG investigations. If thats the case, then higher ups in government are being honest when they make statements like Jane Harmans, which are at odds with what people on the ground know.
277
http://livingunderdrones.org/ INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS AND CONFLICT RESOLUTION CLINIC (STANFORD LAW SCHOOL) AND GLOBAL JUSTICE CLINIC (NYU SCHOOL OF LAW), LIVING UNDER DRONES: DEATH, INJURY, AND TRAUMA TO CIVILIANS FROM US DRONE PRACTICES IN PAKISTAN (September, 2012) 278 Kate Clark, AFGHANISTAN ANALYSTS NETWORK, THE TAKHAR ATTACK: TARGETED KILLINGS AND THE PARALLEL WORLDS OF US INTELLIGENCE AND AFGHANISTAN (2011), available at http://aanafghanistan.com/uploads/20110511KClark_Takhar-attack_final.pdf US authorities contended that Muhammad Amin and Zabet Amanullah were the same person. According to Clark, this assertion was demonstrated to be false when Amin was interviewed in Pakistan after the September 2, 2010 strike.
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Senate Intelligence Committee Drone Oversight (3 Feb 14)
In the wake of Memo Gate,279 Feb 13 2013, Senator Feinstein issued a statement about Intelligence Committee oversight of counterterrorism targeted killings. QUOTE:280 The committee receives notifications with key details of each strike shortly after it occurs, and the committee holds regular briefings and hearings on these operationsreviewing the strikes, examining their effectiveness as a counterterrorism tool, verifying the care taken to avoid deaths to noncombatants and understanding the intelligence collection and analysis which underpin these operations. In addition, the committee staff has held 35 monthly, in-depth oversight meetings with government officials to review strike records (including video footage) and question every aspect of the program. Since 2010 the committee has asked for copies of all the legal opinions written by the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) at the Department of Justice (DoJ) on targeted killing. I have sent three letters, each joined by Vice Chairman Kit Bond or Vice Chairman Saxby Chambliss, requesting these opinions. In 2012, the committee included a legislative provision in its annual authorization bill to require the executive branch to provide OLC opinions. Unfortunately that provision was removed prior to final passage of the bill. Until last week, the committee had been provided access to only two of the nine OLC opinions which we believe to exist on targeted killings. Last week, senators on the committee were finally allowed to review two OLC opinions on the legal authority to strike U.S. citizens. We have reiterated our request for all nine OLC opinionsand any other relevant documentsin order to fully evaluate the executive branchs legal reasoning, and to broaden access to the opinions to appropriate members of the committee staff. UNQUOTE
Privacy, Police, Military, Political, Concerns (2 Oct 09)

Some of the documents are quite vague on what these concerns might include, so here I spell out some starting points for discussion. I have much more in my Drone Notes
279 280
Much more info, later in these notes. http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/02/feinstein-statement-on-intelligence-committee-oversight-oftargeted-killings/ http://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2013/2/feinstein-statement-on-intelligence-committeeoversight-of-targeted-killings http://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=5b8dbe0c-07b6-4714-b663b01c7c9b99b8
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research not yet uploaded to Scribd, but available on Google Drive Docs 281 and Linked In Box Net.282 Due to my Drone Notes getting to excessive size, I have split off some topics into separate documents, where for this area, Drone Issues has relevant details. My overall collection of issues continues to grow.
Legal Issues (2 Oct 08)

Does the use of drones, or how they are being used, violate any laws? o International Laws,283 treaties. o Human Rights under UN, and regional organizations284 o Under International Law, and Human Rights treaties, how is the US supposed to meet legal obligations, to operate transparently and to ensure accountability for alleged rights abuses, and has the USA in fact done so? o National Laws in USA, or whatever nation is using the drones. 285 o National Laws in whatever nation, where the drones are being used. o National Laws in other nations, which criminalize violations of human rights.286 o In the USA, there are secret laws, associated with FISA, Patriot Act, and Classified military and intelligence operations, such that the general public cannot know all which is done in our name. Does the same kind of thing exist with UN and other international treaties, and if so, how do we know what nations are compliant with such regulations? There are claims that some drones, targeting small numbers of alleged enemies, have hit places where large numbers of innocents congregate, such as funerals, houses of worship, schools, transportation nexus, courts of law, lodging with significant extended family, etc. and apparently deliberately targeting first responders such as police, fire, ambulance, who respond to the victims of a drone strike. How do we reconcile such events with US leaders saying we try to avoid massive harm to an innocent general public, which happens to be at the same location? When someone is an innocent victim of drone use, to what court, or international body, can their family go to seek redress of grievances?287
281
Google Drive Document Collection = Drone Info: https://docs.google.com/folder/d/0B9euafJH4b-ZLWR0bmZLS3d5OVk/edit 282 You have to be a member of Linked In, and connected to me there, to access those Box Net Folders. http://www.linkedin.com/in/almacintyre 283 In Drone Terms, see International Law, International Law Courts, and places they reference with see lists at the end, where I attempt to inventory where alleged violations of Inter national Law can be resolved. 284 In Drone Terms, see Human Rights, Human Rights Law, Human Rights Regional, and the places they reference with see lists at the end, which have more info on institutions responsible for overseeing protections of human rights. 285 In Drone Terms, see National Laws, and the places it references with see list at the end, exploring this concept. 286 In Drone Notes, in section on International implications, I have a chapter on Pakistan, where grievances have gone all the way up to the Pakistan Supreme Court, which ruled that what the US is doing with drones, constitutes war crimes. This ruling does not seem to have had any effect on US policies.
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Military Issues (2 Sep 08)
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Militant identification vs. innocent civilian. The USA claims 90% of

the people killed by drones are enemies of our state. Pakistan authorities claim 99% of the kills are of innocent civilians, who are not enemies of USA or Pakistan. Part of that issue is Point of View (POV) how an enemy vs. innocent is defined.288 o Prior to the war on terror, an enemy was defined by the uniform of the nation whose troops they were part of.289 Now either the uniform is not recognized by the adversary, or the enemy does not wear uniforms, so enemy identification is by type of activity.290 For example, maybe someone going into a drug store to buy a drug which has been declared to be illegal, or having a government meeting, where no government is recognized by the attackers, or waiting for a bus or taxi to pick them up, and considered to be loitering. The point is that within some culture, some types of public gatherings are normal legitimate, but not recognized by the attacking nation. o The USA has a combination of secrecy, and sliding policies, where a person killed by a drone is automatically a militant, unless there is some later proof that they were innocent. This sounds like the Puritan witch trials try to drown a suspect, if they die then they were innocent, if they dont die in the drowning, then they must be killed by other means, such as burn at the stake, either way all suspects die. Pakistan asserts that a person is innocent until proven guilty. USA refuses to provide the proof, asserting secrecy in the undeclared war. Collateral damage vs. deliberate damage. The USA asserts the 10% killed who were innocent bystanders, that was just an accident, but since secrecy surrounds why a funeral or wedding was targeted, we really dont know. #s killed or maimed, how many children, innocents, legitimacy of targeting children. Legitimacy of targeting public events, such as: first responders responding to a disaster caused by our military; funerals; weddings; schools. How often does this happen? Is it an aberration, or part of government policy? Assassinations around the world, which the US has been engaged in for a century, at least.291 Other nations have been doing this for much longer. 292
287
In Drone Scribd I review several reports on what has happened when people have sought redress of grievances associated with innocent victims of US drone strikes. In Drone Terms see Datta Khel Nomada Bus Station, where a Pakistan government approved Jirga was being held to settle a legal dispute about a local chromite mine. In attendance were 50 tribal elders, 35 lawyers, local police, representatives of all sides in the dispute, other community leaders. Then they were wiped out by a US drone strike, which the US claims was justified, but wont give out details why. The results included a regime change on the community. 288 http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2129860 289 http://www.lawfareblog.com/2012/07/the-fundamental-transformation-in-the-law-morality-and-politicsof-war-individuating-the-responsibility-of-enemies/ 290 http://www.lawfareblog.com/2012/08/targeted-warfare-individuating-enemy-responsibility/ 291 http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/07/19/assassination-nation/print
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War not declared, but military hostilities, CIA assassinations, directed
against people in a nation with which we are allegedly at peace. 293 Targeting your own citizens (Does it happen? Is it legitimate?) vs. some other nations citizens. Blowback: Types & Risks. It is evident that when there is a public perception that the USA is killing innocents, this is a recruiting tool to swell the ranks of our enemies. When the apparent killing of innocents is on a large scale, like in Pakistan, it can poison US diplomatic relations.294 o Retired General Stanley McChrystal, former commander of the US-led coalition forces in Afghanistan, says: 295 QUOTE For every innocent person you kill, you create ten new enemies. UNQUOTE o Wajid Shamsul Hasan is one of Pakistans top ambassadors, currently High Commissioner to London, Britain. He says:296 CIA drone strikes in Pakistans tribal areas are weakening democracy, and risk pushing people towards extremist groups. Anti-US sentiment is reaching dangerously high levels in Pakistan because of the drones: What if my neighbor got killed in a drone attack, who had nothing to do with the Taliban or al Qaeda? You can imagine how angry I must be. Because it could be me next time. So thats the sort of reaction we have.
Policy Issues (2 Aug 29)

Gun walking who responsible & who framed? Can it ever be stopped, or
will it continue, in programs with different names? Morality Some people believe, that if used properly, assassinations via drones are a superior approach from a moral and ethical perspective, than other means of doing assassinations.297 Other people feel that there is a clash with our values, in
http://www.democratandchronicle.com/article/20120813/OPINION02/120810012?nclick_check=1 292 http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/08/13/targeted_killings 293 http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/15/opinion/oconnell-targeted-killing/index.html?hpt=hp_bn7 http://www.lawfareblog.com/2012/08/mary-ellen-oconnell-has-a-new-article-on-drones-and-targetedkilling/ 294 http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/07/yes-sometimes-drones-are-actuallyeffective/260260/ 295 http://blogs.tribune.com.pk/story/12357/drone-strikes-there-is-no-moralising-the-indefensible/ 296 http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2012/08/03/us-drone-strikes-undermine-pakistani-democracysays-top-diplomat/ 297 Morality http://www.lawfareblog.com/2012/07/scott-shane-on-the-moral-case-for-drones/ https://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/15/sunday-review/the-moral-case-for-drones.html?_r=1&hp http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_emerging_drone_culture_20120803/?ln http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/theres_no_downside_to_drones_moral_philosopher_says_20 120803/
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how the drones are being used.298 Then there is the whole topic of the morality of our nation being a killer in the world.299 Political oversight existence & competence Breach protection political will, competence to implement Have drones been designed like SCADA ignoring cyber security risks until it is too late, our civilization is utterly dependent upon vulnerable technology? Technology advances at Internet speed, cyber and other security upgrades cannot keep pace. What is doable in malware, hacking, hijacking vs. drones, communications with tiny radios in tiny drones? Should drones have Who I am identification like manned aircraft, which airport radar can see? Drone detection systems are urgently needed, since we can expect drug cartels to be using them imminent, if not already. 300 EPA use of drones, to spy on farmers to figure out which are violating some pollution regulations. I believe this is a conspiracy theory, 301 but a lot of people believe it. Military training in USA they probably will use US citizens, without their knowledge or consent, to spy on, as part of the training, during which time they may observe something they think is illegal, and inform the police. 302 For that evidence to be used, probably needs a judges consent, and for the defense to have access to the military data base, in fact many defense teams will want access to help establish alibis. This is opening a can of worms, because under the constitutional right to face accuser, those military data bases need to be turned over to the defense, or not used by the prosecution, since FISA and Patriot Act do not apply to ordinary crime. Drone realistic risks of being hijacked for criminal enterprise, or terrorist attack. Hacked drones are potential hard weapons against any soft target. Do we need a Bill of Rights, applying to civilians anywhere drones are used where we might be?303 The right not to be shot at, with lethal or non-lethal weapons from drones. A judge must approve us being spied upon. When drone spy evidence used in court, our defense team must have expert access to make sure the info has not been faked to make us look bad. Court system to issue annual statistics showing the kinds of places where drones have been allowed to spy upon, such as peoples bedrooms, their places of work, classrooms, etc. so
298
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/07/yes-sometimes-drones-are-actuallyeffective/260260/ 299 http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/08/29/is-it-the-drones-or-the-killings-we-oppose/ 300 http://www.app.com/article/20120805/NJOPINION03/308050027/ROBINSON-Drone-debatecrucial?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|Opinion|p 301 See EPA in Drone Terms. 302 http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/05/air-force-drones-domestic-spy/ 303 http://richmond.legalexaminer.com/miscellaneous/big-brother-may-be-watching-from-a-droneandpossibly-shooting.aspx?googleid=302128
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that there can be a public discussion whether there needs to be any further adjustments to the Bill of Rights against drone usage. Some people dont want regulations for military drones used over the USA, they want a total ban on them being used for civilian purposes. 304 We should not be exporting surveillance society technology to non-democratic nations which have significant human rights abuses.305 Within democratic western nations, the voters have an opportunity to reign in abuses of technology, which violate our constitutional way of life. We should not export to nations whose people do not have those kinds of rights. This export ban should include not off-shoring construction of the devices to such nations, because off-shoring implies sharing everything there is to know about the technology being constructed.
Police Issues (2 Sep 3)

A surveillance society cameras all over the place, monitoring our Internet use, what books we borrow from library, purchase retail. Erosion of right to privacy (Did we ever have that, or was it an illusion?)306 Are all deaths by non-lethal weapons (which should be labeled less-lethal) due to medical conditions which the police could not have reasonably known about? What % of public have such conditions, such that non-lethal used on them may likely kill them? Police transparency in their use of drones, and other technology, against an innocent public, and what they do with that data, to avoid false accusations, and protect people from this data breached from police storage. Thanks to public concerns, there is now a police code of conduct for drone use, 307 which of course is voluntary, where not all police would follow it.
304 305
http://www.peachpundit.com/2012/07/07/debate-topic-limit-use-of-domestic-drones/ http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=31535 306 Surveillance Society http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/story/2012-06-19/drone-backlash/55682654/1 http://reason.com/blog/2012/06/07/andrew-napolitano-on-the-lack-of-outrage http://www.jsonline.com/news/opinion/government-needs-rules-transparency-in-drone-use-lq5rv1l159943925.html https://www.cdt.org/blogs/jake-laperruque/0307jones-drones-and-gps-tracked-automobiles http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/06/13/12205763-poll-americans-ok-with-some-domesticdrones-but-not-to-catch-speeders http://www.cato.org/multimedia/daily-podcast/will-local-cops-use-drones 307 Police drone code of conduct http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/aug/16/police-chiefs-adopt-drone-code-conduct/ http://reason.com/blog/2012/08/17/with-drone-guidelines-top-cops-agreeno?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reason%2FHitandRun+%28R eason+Online+-+Hit+%26+Run+Blog%29 http://www.aclu.org/blog/technology-and-liberty/police-chiefs-issue-recommendations-drones-look-howthey-measure http://www.lawfareblog.com/2012/08/iacp-approves-uav-guidelines/ http://www.theiacp.org/portals/0/pdfs/IACP_UAGuidelines.pdf
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Police use of weaponized drones. (Is this a fantasy, or fact? How serious
the weapons, and basis for deciding who to shoot at?)308
Many of these issues will end up being defined in my Drone Terms, and addressed in individual chapters of my Drone Notes. Some people fears I believe are bogus, and some I believe are legitimate concerns. We need to address both kinds.
US Drone Targeting rules (2 Sep 11)

In an interview with CNN, President Obama spelled out the rules by which the US government selects people to be killed by drones, including US Citizens. According to The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, Sept 6, 2012, President Obama spelled out five rules which must be followed in covert US drone attacks, QUOTE309 1 It has to be a target authorized by our laws. 2 It has to be a threat that is serious and not speculative. 3 It has to be a situation in which we cant capture the individual before they move forward on some sort of operational plot against the United States. 4 Weve got to make sure that in what ever operations we conduct, we are very careful about avoiding civilian casualties. 5 That while there is a legal justification for us to try and stop [American citizens] from carrying out plots they are subject to the protections of the constitution and due process. UNQUOTE As we can see from news reports,310 and legal challenges, it would appear like either: These rules have not been followed consistently. The rules are changed over time, not always been this way. The state of art, of drone targeting, is not as good as other weapon systems. Many drone strikes are based on bad intelligence. The President is speaking in half truths here, not about ALL of the drones.
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http://open.salon.com/blog/scanner/2012/06/18/armed_drones_over_america http://www.nextgov.com/defense/2012/08/domestic-drone-backers-worry-about-privacy-andsecurity/57809/?oref=ng-HPtopstory 309 http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2012/09/06/obamas-five-rules-for-covert-drone-strikes/ 310 http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/09/obama-drone/ http://www.lawfareblog.com/2012/09/todays-headlines-and-commentary-264/ http://www.politico.com/politico44/2012/09/obama-struggles-with-drone-program-134702.html
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Counting Innocents attacked by Drones (3 Feb 26)

It is evident to anyone, who has looked at any volume of drone reports, that there are: Widely different estimates of how many people have been killed by drones, how many of them legitimate targets, and how many obviously innocent; Great difficulty in getting at accurate totals on this topic; Many players who attack conclusions of other players, without good analysis of how come one set of figures could be flawed. This leads to debate between different pundits which information sources are most reliable.311
Freedom of Speech in War Time (2 Sep 9)

In my opinion, when there are serious problems with the security of the nation, or the security of critical infrastructure, our responsibility is to bring this to the attention of relevant authorities, with sufficient info so they can fix it. It is Ok to tell the public that some vulnerability exists, but inappropriate to respond to trolls who demand proof of our assertions, in a way which can get the info shared with criminals and enemies who might exploit the info. During WW II there was a slogan Loose Lips Sink Ships. This meant, for example that your family member Johnny tells you his troop ship is leaving a certain port at a certain time, and headed to the front lines. You tell all your friends. An enemy agent is listening to the gossip, radios the info to a submarine, which sinks Johnnys troop ship. Although many people are apparently in denial of this, our nation is at war right now. We have a right to criticize our leaders decision to go to war, and how they conduct that war. We have a responsibility to do so in such a way, that we do not give aid and comfort to the enemy, to help them do the modern day equivalent of sinking Johnnys troop ship. I have heard some people say, or write, that because the hackers already know this info, there is no harm in making it public. There are several problems with such assertions. In addition to hardened criminals, there is a vast army of me too jerks, so revealing such details can convert the volume of people in the know, who might misuse the data, from a few thousand, to millions of trouble makers. Our terrorist enemies often do not have as good access to expertise as people in the first world, who are now providing this info so our enemies can use it. One gang finds out something, people violating freedom of speech in wartime then share this through the Internet, and now all the gangs have that how to.
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http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinion-la/la-ol-drones-cavallaro-blowback20130212,0,6627133.story
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UK strips citizenship then kills (3 Feb 28)

Britain does not kill its citizens abroad, like the US does.312 Britain is very careful not to deny its people due process rights, torture them, etc. If this needs to be done to someone, Britain first un-Britishes them, so then they are stateless, and rightless. 1. Remove their citizenship. 2. Kill them, when they are no longer a British subject, or arranges for the Americans to kill them.
US Kill Americans memo leak (3 Feb 07)

Theres a DoJ313 memo, which was given to selected members of Congress, June 2012, on condition that Congress keep it confidential, and not speak about it publicly.314 Then it was leaked through NBC news, early in Feb 2013, on the eve of US Senate hearings to see if White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan, a key architect of the drone campaign, under President Obama,315 would get to be CIA director.316 This triggered a fire storm of commentary in news media, social media, legal media, and requests from various members of Congress to various administration officials, seeking further clarification. There is evidence that many members of Congress already knew about the contents of the memo, but maybe what they knew was classified, so having this now in the public view, may change what they can say publicly. Apparently this memo has gone thru many drafts. The administration is scrambling to try to figure out which one got leaked.317 Maybe they need to read Patriot Games by Tom Clancy and incorporate his Canary Trap into real US documents. While there has been enormous criticism by many analysts, of US drone policies, and targeted killing, in general, in this section of chapters, my focus is on the leaked memo, and the reaction it has triggered.
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http://reason.com/blog/2013/02/28/uk-doesnt-assassinate-its-citizens-itst?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reason%2FHitandRun+%28R eason+Online+-+Hit+%26+Run+Blog%29 313 DoJ = US Department of Justice 314 This according to FAS (Federation of American Scientists) https://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2013/02/keeping_secrets.html where FAS says NBC says this document had been provided to members of the Senate Intelligence and Judiciary committees June 2012, by administration officials on the condition that it be kept confidential and not discussed publicly. FAS argued that by Congress saying nothing about this material, is same as them endorsing it. 315 See in Drone Dates, a time line of what happened when, and when we found out how. Drones have been used at least since WW II, but have evolved rapidly in recent years. They were used in the first Gulf War to shoot down Saddam Air Force. Many writers act like President Obamas administration invented drones. 316 http://openchannel.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/04/16843014-exclusive-justice-department-memoreveals-legal-case-for-drone-strikes-on-americans?lite 317 http://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2013/02/official-memo-justifying-drone-strikes-leaks156106.html
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Down below I have chapters where various people react to the memo, disapproving of some content, approving of other, struggling to comprehend all the references and implications. Up top I have summary about the history of the memo, as more info comes out, what it is about, with impartiality.
Lawfare overall perspective (3 Feb 07)

Lawfare often has posts about drones, the war on terrorism, Guantanamo Bay, and many other foreign policy implications. 2013 Feb 5,318 Benjamin Wittes and Susan Hennessey review history. I also add my 20 cents to their overview. o Over a period of several years, many administrative spokespersons have given speeches justifying the use of drones to kill enemies anywhere in the world. Various legal scholars around the world have disputed the legal theories given out by the US representatives. The give and take of these speeches revealed the existence of underlying documents which the administration was refusing to share with Congress or the court system. However, Congress keeps asking for them, as do law suits, and sometimes judges trying to decide the court cases. Mainstream news media fast asleep on this topic. o Al Aulaqi is one of several Americans killed by US drones. It was known he was on the kill list before it happened. His family went to US courts trying to fight this, but US courts said they could not interfere with administration policies. This was a bomb shell for some legal scholars; human rights activists. Mainstream news media still asleep. o After death of Al Aulaqi and other family members, surviving family again initiated law suit, with help of ACLU. There were also law suits in Britain over the death of British subjects thanks to US drones in which it was alleged that British intelligence fed USA the info leading to their deaths, and court cases in other nations. Some of those stories got a flurry of attention within the individual nations, but mainstream news media attention soon moved to other topics. o One case went all the way to the Pakistan Supreme Court, which ruled that what the USA is doing with drones is a severe international law violation of Pakistan sovereignty, and constitutes war crimes. The US gov ignored this, and so did mainstream news media. o The UN is now investigating the US for alleged war crimes, at the request of Pakistan, Russia, China, and I do not know what other nations.
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http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/02/just-calm-down-about-that-doj-white-paper/
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o o
Mainstream news media had a flurry of coverage, then attention shifted to other stories. Apparently there is an OLC319 document which justified the killing of Al Aulaqi in a nation where we are not at war, as defined by the US War Powers Act. Mainstream news media asleep. The ACLU and New York Times also had FOIA320 seeking basis for US thinking it Ok to kill people, rather than capture for trial. These legal challenges led to a discussion inside the administration, what to do about them. There were four possibilities: (1) say nothing, (2) give a speech, (3) release a white paper, and (4) release a redacted version of the documents. Mainstream news media asleep. There were a whole bunch of speeches, whose content were available to the general public. Mainstream news media asleep. A white paper was drafted, in fact there were a bunch of drafts, and delivered to a very small number of people in Congress, who were associated with certain committees. This was on condition they keep it confidential, do not say anything about it publicly. The speeches and the white paper were consistent with each other, each giving a few more details on a common theme, but they were not the whole story. They are like excerpts of a much larger legal opinion, which was kept secret for years. There are multiple law suits and FOIA pending, some rulings being appealed. US defense is that the US is at war with alQaeda and other related organizations, may target anyone in those groups, and this is not subject to review by any court in the world, or by Congress. Eventually, US court of appeals accepted the US defense in one of the ACLU cases, but stated various misgivings about the mess. This was a bomb shell for some legal scholars, human rights activists, social media, but mainstream news still asleep. President Obama has a bunch of new people for his second term, needing Senate approval. US drone and targeted killing policies should be part of what those hearings cover, possibly within the secret portions. The confidential white paper, which Congress got June 2012, somehow made its way to NBC news, which published the scoop. Mainstream news media wakes up, treats the leaked white paper, like it is a bomb shell, not putting it in the larger perspective. A story which has been developing for many years, is like a novel, we dont know how it is going to end. Journalists
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OLC = Office of Legal Counsel at the US Dept of Justice. FOIA = Freedom of Information Act.
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walking into the middle, a random chapter, with no knowledge of the long history perspective, are like Huh, whats going on? and with short news cycles, they dont have the time to figure it out. o Now that the white paper is in the public domain, Congress asks the Administration again, for what they have been asking for years, and packages it so the public can see the situation. Mainstream news covers this. o White House caves, and says Congress will get the secret stuff they have been asking for. Because it is secret, we really wont know if Congress gets it.
Lawfare Feb-6-23 + overall (3 Feb 23)

2013 Feb 06,321 Raffaela Wakeman writes that there is a lot of misinformation floating around about the leaked memo, tries to set us straight. 2013 Feb 06,322 Ritika Singh wrote about drone-proof cities. 2013 Feb 7,323 Steve Vladeck discusses many issues of leaked memo. o Some of what he writes about, I have in another chapter. Some of what he writes about is too soaked in law precedents for me to adequately digest and summarize. o Why is it structured to provide fuel to conspiracy theories? He thinks DoJ has been tone-deaf to many grievances, because they are missing some points. o Many people want to know the process inhow, exactly, the government decides that the various criteria it articulates for these strikes are met, who is in the room when such decisions are made, and whether anyone tries to argue the opposite side. o The issue reduces to how the government decides that a case is presentedand what checks there are to minimize false positives Nothing in the white paper provides any elaboration on this point and because of that, its mind-boggling that it took this long (and even then, only through a leak) for even this discussion to be publicly disclosed. After all, its not like anything in this white paper is classified. That is the same grievance many people have had with a lot of what is in Wikileaks. Feb 23, 2013 Jack Goldsmith clarifies one point some people have been asking about. Yes, the President of the USA has authority to kill US citizens who are inside the USA, without trial, under certain circumstances.324
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http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/02/todays-headlines-and-commentary-358/ http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/02/white-paper-shmite-paper-we-should-be-worrying-about-droneproof-cities/ http://www.theatlanticcities.com/politics/2013/02/imagining-drone-proof-city/4606/ 323 http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/02/whats-really-wrong-with-the-targeted-killing-white-paper/ 324 http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/02/of-course-president-obama-has-authority-under-somecircumstances-to-order-lethal-force-against-a-u-s-citizen-on-u-s-soil-and-a-free-draft-response-to-senatorpaul-for-john-brennan/
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Lawfare Feb-27 + overall (3 Feb 27)

Feb 27, 2013 Benjamin Wittes reminds us that he was one of the people testifying Feb 27, 2013 at the House Judiciary Committee hearing on Targeted Killing.325 He found it necessary to re-organize many sources into a coherent picture, which he now shares with us as a blog post.326 He both attempts to lay out a clear positive case for the position the administration has taken; and to address some of the mis-readings of the administrations view, found in other peoples writings. There are many posts, like this, which I would like to have in document format, for future review.
Lots news Garbage on Memo Gate (3 Feb 09)

Vast numbers of news media writers have been ignoring the issues of drones and targeted killings, so they come away from the NBC story with major misconceptions. Lawfare shares some examples:327

From Mother Jones: Obama Targeted Killing Document: If We Do It, Its Not Illegal From Wired: Obamas Memo on Targeted Killings Is a Drone Strike on the Law From CNNs Security Clearance: Memo backs U.S. using lethal force against Americans overseas From the New Yorker: Whom Can the President Kill? From Fox News: Obama drone programs potential targeted killing of American citizens abroad opens a dangerous legal slippery slope From The Washington Post: The Justice Departments chilling targeted killings memo From Global Post: Justice Department memo justifies targeted killing of Americans
I can add to this list: Fox News: President Obama gives himself permission to kill328 Yes these headlines are true today, but they would also have been true years ago. For all we know, they were also true under President Bush. These news media are treating the story as if it is new content. What is new is a 2012 memo about old information, got leaked. What is in the memo is not new information. It is not information which has been kept secret from the American people, or the world. There is information about killing Americans with drones and other targeted killing, which is
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See Drone Reports and drone-list for links to testimony from other people, and how the hearing went. 326 http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/02/in-defense-of-the-administration-on-targeted-killing-ofamericans/ 327 http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/02/a-brief-word-in-response-to-jack/ 328 http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/02/07/obama-gives-himself-permission-to-kill/
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secret, and is not in this memo. So the above headlines are all spouting out about ancient history, like they just woke up to some realities other people have known for years. An example of not putting this in perspective, is an often repeated remark that this administrative policy has not been tested in the courts, from which the journalist goes on to do some speculation what might happen if it is ever in a court case. 329 This is in total ignorance of the fact that there have been several court cases, in which this policy won. See elsewhere in my notes in this document, where I focus on the battles the ACLU has been having with this policy for several years. A real story is why the news media has not been covering this issue until Obama has drone leaders into Senate hearings. If we had never lost Petraeus, would the news media still be staying silent on this issue? Either they do not understand the topic, or they are deliberately doing anything but fair and balanced news, engaged in some kind of propaganda war against President Obama, which is not unusual, and what I normally expect from FOX. I suspect a mixture of the two. Some news media are deliberately distorting the subject, and some journalists are ignorant of the big picture. In the case of news media that dont understand the story, it is a disturbing reflection on the state of art of modern news media that this would be the case. I expect that Columbia Journalism Review, or one of the other news media fact checking outfits, will eventually come out and give the news media an F for their collective coverage of this story. Normally we do not see this. However, when there is a national news story, and it is in our town, it is often surprising how much the national media gets wrong. This reminds us that for stories we know nothing about, the media is also getting a lot wrong, and we are oblivious to it. Lawfare says QUOTE:330 This document is not being received asto use Jacks phrase331important because it fills in the details of the legal arguments made in general terms in leaks and speeches. Its being received as a bombshell of its own . And while the document is certainly important for the added richness and texture it offers elite readers, its marginal value to the mass audience is very nearly nil. UNQUOTE
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http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/02/the-targeted-killing-memo-a-weak-brief-beggingfor-a-court-case/272880/ 330 http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/02/a-brief-word-in-response-to-jack/ 331 http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/02/more-on-targeted-killing-white-paper/
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Lessons from news garbage (3 Feb 07)

We know that vast numbers of the general public get their news from mainstream news, so they do not see the spectrum of what is going on via alternative and specialized media, but is readily available to everyone.332 This may also be true for most people who work in mainstream news media. The news cycle is very short. It does not give journalists time to do proper self-education of complex stories, and this is a very complex story. So along comes this scoop via NBC News. One leaked memo, which fills in a few gaps in an esoteric subject which the specialized media has been covering for years. The general public sees it, because: 1. It is in NBC News. 2. Other News Media jump on the story, for the most part using journalists who have not previously been covering this story, so they get a lot of things wrong. 333 We are fortunate that the leaked memo was made available by NBC News, but I hate it that they overprinted their name all the way thru, making it hard to read. My making it available, it got into the hands of legal scholars and others, who merged the microscopic new stuff in it, with what administrative officials had been saying for years, to get an improved big picture. I think this leak is a good thing, because it has brought to the attention of a lot of the general public a story which they have been missing for years.
What is in leaked memo? (3 Feb 21)

Multiple sources say there is nothing really new in the memo, from the perspective of people who have been following this story for a while.334 I tend to agree. It just organizes the administration position a little differently, gives ammo to commentators who have not been paying attention to the drone and targeted killing controversies. It is unclear from the memo, and from the administrations spokespersons, whether they think they can use drones to kill Americans who happen to be inside the USA, at time of the killing.335 There are articles about the memo in several sources The National Journal Politico US News and World Report The Empty Wheel
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http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/02/more-on-targeted-killing-white-paper/ http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/02/just-calm-down-about-that-doj-white-paper/ 334 http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/02/todays-headlines-and-commentary-358/ http://www.politico.com/story/2013/02/obama-faces-new-questions-on-drones-87242.html 335 http://www.emptywheel.net/2013/02/18/the-aumf-fallacy/
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They try to explain what is in it, and/or provide a navigation guide,336 but Lawfare takes issue with some of their content.337 So do I. The administration has been talking this line for a long time. See in my Drone Terms for example. US News and World Report The Week say this is new stuff, translation me means the reporters on this story, are brand new to this story. It reminds me of when I watched Gulf War I news briefings on C-Span, and 75% of the reporter questions were from people who knew nothing about the military. The Washington Post on You Tube, has a discussion what the memo says, and does not say, such as different standards for US and non-US citizens, also tries to explain how such memos fit into administration policy implementation.338
View leaked memo (3 Feb 06)

I uploaded copy of this memo into my Scribd Drone Info collection.339 As I note other people uploading copies, with slightly different names, I will also add to that collection. The description I posted when I uploaded it, is as follows: 340 We know from US drone strikes, labeled by other nations as war crimes, that US intelligence is flawed, in proper identification of militants to be attacked. For example: 2010 Sept: Zabet Amanullah, a candidate in Pakistan parliamentary elections, was traveling around, giving speeches to the voters. A US drone strike killed him and nine fellow election workers. It was a case of mistaken identity. The US thought he was someone else, involved with the Taliban. 2011 March 17, A Pakistani court hearing was held with tribal leaders, lawyers, judges, city fathers, etc. in Datta Khel, to resolve a mining dispute. Pakistani
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http://www.nationaljournal.com/nationalsecurity/how-the-u-s-determines-when-to-kill-one-of-its-owncitizens-20130205 http://www.politico.com/story/2013/02/obama-faces-new-questions-on-drones-87242.html http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/02/05/leaked-memo-outlines-policy-for-killing-americanswith-drones http://www.emptywheel.net/2013/02/04/this-isnt-the-memo-youre-looking-for/ http://theweek.com/article/index/239671/your-government-can-kill-you-if 337 http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/02/todays-headlines-and-commentary-358/ 338 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gm-ZiUWAjGE&feature=youtu.be 339 http://www.scribd.com/doc/124050365/US-DoJ-justifies-assassinating-Americans-via-NBC 340 See my Drone Dates and Drone Terms for additional details on these, and other similar incidents.
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police tried to provide security. US drone attacked, killed everyone who was there. 341 The US government says nothing was done wrong by the USA, in above two cases. 2011 April, A US drone killed two US soldiers, mistaking them for the enemy. 2011 Oct 31, A US drone killed a car load of soccer fans, mistaking their body language, cheering their team, as how the US would expect militants to behave. Given apparent errors in US judgment, and civilian court trials where accused are sometimes found innocent, it seems likely that innocent Americans may get labeled by the US as enemies to be assassinated, without an opportunity for them, or their families, to challenge the alleged evidence of their guilt, and avoid this targeted killing.
US Justification for Targeted Killing (3 Feb 27)

Just as the leaked memo is heavy reading, so is much of the lawyer talk for and against,342 so here I try to translate synopsis of some good info clarity for non-lawyers. The USA is engaged in a war on drugs, and has been engaged in a war on poverty. The use of the word war in these two examples, is to emphasize the importance of the effort. Neither are a real war in the sense of doing combat with an enemy, although there is a lot of violence in the war on drugs. The war on terror is a real war, against a real enemy in the military sense. It is not a war with another nation state, but an armed conflict with a stateless enemy which shifts its bases of operation from nation to nation, and includes many independent groups with similar goals. The government has an obligation to defend the nation, and its citizens abroad, including business enterprises and the US military, from attacks by individuals and groups seeking to harm them. It needs to have good legal justification for its actions doing so. A lot of what the government does is secret. Individual speeches, and documents are sometimes poorly drafted, from perspective of some concepts
341
Sources disagree on how many people were killed, around 50. But in addition to the mass casualties, this was effectively a regime change, by killing off all leaders of tribes around this one village. We do not know if this was US intention, because US refuses to explain why they attacked the Pakistani judicial systems meeting which the Pakistani military knew about in advance, and had approved.. 342 http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/02/in-defense-of-the-administration-on-targeted-killing-ofamericans/
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that other people want to understand better. This can lead to misunderstandings and confusion. The administration maintains: Authority to fight this war, comes from: o Authorization for the use of military force (AUMF) passed by Congress right after 9/11 and reaffirmed in 2012. o Constitutional authority placing the President in command of the armed forces, and other organizations which defend the nation from attack, by enemies foreign or domestic. The war is not exclusively with al Qaeda, but also with similar affiliated or associated co-belligerent forces. The war is not exclusively within the nation states where the UN, or Congress, or any ally have declared there to be a war, such as Afghanistan and Iraq, but in any nation where the enemy forces are located. Under International Law, this kind of conflict is called a non-international armed conflict (NIAC). In any armed conflict, the US is entitled to target the enemy with lethal force. There is no legal obligation to warn targets in advance of striking at them, or to try to capture them instead. But once a target offers to surrender, that must be accepted. Citizenship does not insure someone against the risks when people choose to take up arms in a foreign conflict, or against their home nation. All aspects, of the administration position, have been disputed by advocacy groups, international organizations, and persons within the legal community. However, they have not yet been disputed by Congress or the US Court System, although individual members of Congress, and individual judges have disputed some portions of this. Congress has funded the programs which carry out the Presidents actions. Congress has engaged in oversight over drone targeted killing. Some of us feel that oversight is inadequate, but there is clear evidence that oversight does exist, although many pundits are in denial of it.
Dangerous Precedents (3 Feb 14)

After 9-11, President Bush claimed alQaeda, and its allies, did not deserve certain rights accorded combatants under the Geneva Convention, and managed to ignore the Hague Convention in the process. Hague Convention relevance includes deliberate targeting of civilian homes, where we can reasonably expect that there might be a lot of totally innocent people there, in addition to the person in the building whom we suspect of being our enemy. A civilian
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home is not a legitimate military target, under the Hague Convention. The US drone war is in clear violation of this. There were several reasons given, by Bush administration. One I remember was that their uniforms were not recognized as valid by the US military, which could be said for any nations response to people who claim to be freedom fight ers. Other nations disagreed with President Bush, claiming that there is no such thing as a human having no rights under international law, that for example the ban on torture is absolute. The improper uniforms logic can be used to kill anyone, suspected of being our enemy, including small children. We think they are our enemy. We dont recognize the uniform (they are civilians, in civilian clothing, they are not really our enemy), so Ok to kill them. Now we are seeing a doctrine that says certain US citizens, and other people, deserve no rights because they are accused of very bad stuff, in the war on terrorism. 343 For example, Toure Neblett, stated QUOTE:344 We're at war with al Qaeda right now, and if you join al Qaeda, you lose the right to be an American. You lose the right to due process. You declare yourself an enemy of this nation, and you are committing treason. UNQUOTE One problem I have with the above attitude is that secret government agents can decide that ANYONE falls into this category, such as Toure Neblett. Just kill him, because the secret government agents think he is in that category. In the TV show where he said that, others who talked about children being killed, should have asked him at what age is one of those children considered to be a killable member of al Qaeda. The 16 year old, the 5 year old, is there no cut-off age below which children should not be killed, because they are considered to be enemies of our nation? So government abortion by drones is Ok, because a drone strikes a home containing 1 enemy and 10 innocents until moment of drone strike, one of whom is a pregnant woman, and they are all retroactively declared to be militants because they are in the same home as the main target. This same Toure Neblett is opposed to the death penalty for criminals, because the justice system is not always perfect, and there is a risk that innocent people might be convicted.345 But he does not believe in this principle when it comes to the drone wars. This is driven by a chain of logic: Is it OK for secret government officials to label someone as guilty of some crimes, or being a member of a terrorist organization, with no oversight to determine if a mistake or error in judgment was made?
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http://reason.com/blog/2013/02/07/msnbcs-tour-killing-untried-16-year-olds http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2013/02/05/watch-two-far-left-msnbc-hosts-actuallysupport-doj-drone-memo http://reason.com/blog/2013/02/07/msnbcs-tour-killing-untried-16-year-olds 345 http://www.mediaite.com/tv/toure-on-the-death-penalty-this-week-america-was-the-worlds-morallaggard/
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Does citizen abroad have due process rights? (In times past they did.) Military necessity demands that protection be eroded. Normally the way to change law is to have Congress pass it, President sign it, Courts allowed to review its constitutionality. But this is a national emergency, so the Presidents administration changes the law, kept secret from Congress, and blocks the courts from involvement. Some argue that constitutional rights protect U.S. citizens abroad, but these rights do not exist for Americans who have joined an enemy force, which is being targeted in an armed conflict. In other words, there is a categorical exclusion for wartime targeting. Others argue that all relevant constitutional protections apply to U.S. citizens abroad at all times, but that some constitutional rights relevant here require contextual balancing, taking into account the military targeting setting, which in this reality, results in little if any actual protection.. These arguments are how lawyers speak, in promoting their views in court cases, before a judge. Now we have mixed constitutional due process, with national security secret exceptions. Because accused terrorists are included in the same body of constitutional protections as people believed to be totally innocent, and because of the need to eliminate protection from the accused terrorists, we have a system which can eliminate protection from everyone, including innocents. Instead of a separate body of transparent law for well defined circumstances, this approach threatens weakening US protections all over, dissipating the rights of the law-abiding back home. The administration position, with or without the leaked memo, makes no exceptions to their reasoning, for people back home. One of the killings of US citizens was in a restaurant in a city. The drone destroyed the restaurant and presumably innocent people like the employees there, other patrons, because it was too much trouble to keep an eye on the target, while going thru local courts to have him extradited. By that reasoning, any state can target anyone in another state. It is a hassle for Ohio to extradite this guy, so bomb him in Kentucky.
Legal scholars, and others, are exploring the implications of this chain of reasoning. 346 One possible speculation is that this legal memo, white paper, going through several drafts, is in association with the administration planning its defenses against the many court cases coming through court systems, challenging the administrations kill list and targeted killings of citizens of US UK Pakistan, and other nations. Judges have in fact ruled in several cases. Some judges said they had no jurisdiction, were over-ruled on appeal. Some said what the US is doing is despicable, but the legal defense has merit. Some said the US is guilty of war crimes. These cases will continue, there will be more arguments in courts, thus the US administration continues to refine its position, and in so doing, precedents may be set, which may be dangerous.
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http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/02/john-yoo-on-targeted-killing-white-paper/ http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323951904578288380180346300.html?mod=googlenews _wsj http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/02/andrew-kent-on-the-white-paper-as-a-plus-for-civil-liberties/
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Some scholars are neither for nor against the memo, or the larger policies, but are more from a historical perspective describing reality.347
Misconduct Perceptions (3 Feb 17)

Some writers compare and discuss which was worst: Torture approved under Bush administration; Drone killing increased in Obama administration.348
Lose Citizenship (3 Feb 10)

Would it be simpler when someone appears to take up allegiance with an enemy of our state, to declare them as no longer a citizen of our state,349 and thus no longer protected by its constitution? They would become stateless people, by alleged choice, like many refugees are stateless people not by their choice. They could appeal this by showing that they do not have allegiance with the enemy, and they honor the nations principles. There are some precedents. A person leaves nation-A and becomes a citizen of nation-B, so they lose citizenship with nation-A. Some people lose citizenship because the nation forgets they exist. In WW II many British orphanages sent the children to live in Australia, so they would be safe from the bombing. Records were lost, or destroyed in the war, and when it was over, the children in Australia had no citizenship either in Britain or Australia.
Legal sources approving of memo (3 Feb 07)

The New York Times writes, QUOTE:350 Matthew Waxman, a Columbia University law professor who worked on detainee affairs in the Bush administration, defended the reasoning as careful and narrow, saying it was limited to cases in which there are no viable alternatives. I see a very serious and reasonable effort to translate traditional legal principles to account for the context of this war, he said. UNQUOTE
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http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/02/tools-and-tradeoffs-putting-out-a-draft-for-comments/ http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/02/more-on-drones-versus-enhanced-interrogation/ http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/02/robert-gates-on-drones-and-the-politics-of-drones-v-enhancedinterrogation/ 349 http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/closeread/2013/02/john-brennans-cia-director-hearings-andthe-so-called-americans.html?mbid=gnep&google_editors_picks=true http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2013/02/06/krauthammer_if_you_take_up_arms_against_the_unite d_states_you_have_forfeited_your_rights.html 350 https://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/06/us/politics/obama-slow-to-reveal-secrets-on-targetedkillings.html?_r=1&
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Others say the law evolves to meet changing conditions. There is broad partisan support for the wars started at 9-11, and until the general public turns against the current wars, with the kind of overwhelming majority we saw with Vietnam and other wars, then those who prosecute the war have almost carte blanche.351
Legal sources disapproving memo (3 Feb 09)

Many lawyers and legal scholars are quoted in the news media, disagreeing with many elements of the DoJ memo. Many sources are disputing the language re-write. You know how many people claim they did not have sex with that person, because in their minds, sex is intercourse, not sodomy. Bill Clinton was not the first to make that assertion. But in US criminal law, those people are incorrect. Similarly there are things in International Law, where leaders of various nations have a different view point. Their different view point does not change International Law. Some of the re-definitions in the memo, which a lot of people have trouble with, include: 352 Imminent Danger for most people, that means right now, right away, like when the Weather Service says something bad is a Watch, it means that conditions that can cause a tornado, or blizzard, or flood, or whatever, are headed our way, but are not here yet; while a Warning means someone has sighted one in our neighborhood, and it could be here in seconds, so we need to implement our safety plan right now! Thus to the common man, it seems insane to put someone on a kill list for 2 years, until we find them, and kill them, then use the justification that there is an imminent risk they will do something bad, but it is not practical to have them arrested and brought to trial. It sounds like, the US does not want to bother with the hassles of proving a case to go thru the court system. Well the memo seems to define Imminent as whenever we say it is. People are targeted by drones, not because of a Warning, or Watch condition, but a Suspicion condition. Bad weather comes regularly, theres none in the forecast right now, but we know what weather is like. o It may be that many of us are confused, including the writers of the leaked memo, because we are accustomed to how the law works inside a nation criminal law, civil law, etc. but we have trouble navigating
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http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/view_from_chicago/2013/02/leaked_drone_memo_obama _can_do_whatever_he_wants_to_fight_terrorism.html http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/02/two-sharply-different-commentaries-on-the-white-paper/ 352 Imminent controversy confusion: http://opiniojuris.org/2013/02/05/the-doj-white-papers-confused-approach-to-imminence-and-capture/ http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2013/feb/06/drones-killing-made-easy/ http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/02/confusion-about-imminence-and-targeted-killings/ http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/02/the-white-paper-and-due-process/ http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/02/the-us-government-position-on-imminence-and-active-self-defense/ http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/02/more-on-over-reading-imminence/
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international law. Domestic law is not logical, rather it is based on precedents, and domestic institutions. International law is based on conventions, and treaties. It can be wrong to use domestic examples to explain similar sounding situations in international law. It is like using reality on Mars, to explain weather on Venus. Yes, they have some stuff in common, but not enough for that purpose. Trust Us353 is an argument the US Supreme Court rejected in Hamdi, where the Court upheld the Bush administrations power to detain enemy combatants, on the grounds that it had been authorized by Congress, but only after insisting that suspects could challenge the factual basis for their detention before a neutral decision maker. In other words, President wants to do something, that Congress has not authorized, and Courts say Ok, provided certain checks and balances are included in the process. The Obama administration repeatedly invokes the Hamdi case to justify targeted assassinations, which have been specifically prohibited by Congress, and then omits the Supreme Courts requirement that independent judges need to have the last word on whether or not suspects are, in fact, as dangerous as the administration claims. o Some lawyers sound like bad scientists . o A bad scientist is someone who decides what the results should be, then uses selective info to try to prove the foregone conclusion. o The leaked memo sounds like a decision was made to do something, then lawyers picked bits and pieces of laws, and court precedents, to make it sound like the decision was valid. o Just as the bad scientists work would not stand up to peer review, and be labeled as a fraud, some of these lawyers may be accused of fomenting war crimes. There have been many legal debates, which I have covered elsewhere in these notes. Some of them are re-occurring in this latest fire-storm triggered by NBC releasing the leaked memo. o Here is the issue of the Geography of War we are fighting a war in Afghanistan, but drones kill people in Pakistan, presumably to protect the troops in Afghanistan. Can they kill people anywhere in the world for that same purpose?354 What has happened to the War Crimes Act or 18 U.S.C. 1119(b), forbidding the killing of U.S. nationals abroad? Did Congress repeal it in secret, as part of the Patriot Act, or NDAA?355
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http://www.newrepublic.com/article/112338/obama-administrations-drone-memo-unconstitutional# http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/02/two-sharply-different-commentaries-on-the-white-paper/ http://reason.com/blog/2013/02/08/does-obama-think-he-can-order-hits-on-am 354 http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/02/does-the-white-paper-take-a-new-approach-to-the-geography-ofconflict/ 355 http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/02/just-calm-down-about-that-doj-white-paper/
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ACLU analysis of leaked memo (3 Feb 08)

ACLU = American Civil Liberties Union356. The ACLU argues, QUOTE: 357 Some of the white paper's key legal arguments don't stand up to even cursory review. The paper omits crucial language from Mathews v. Eldridge, a case in which the Supreme Court held that the question of what process must be afforded to a person before he is deprived of life or liberty must take into account "the risk of an erroneous deprivation of such interest through the procedures used, and the probable value, if any, of additional or substitute procedural safeguards." The white paper also suggests, incorrectly, that the courts have endorsed the view that there is no geographic limitation on the government's exercise of war powers. In fact all of the cases in which the D.C. Circuit has upheld the detention of a prisoner held at Guantanamo involved a connection of some kind to Afghanistan. And, more important, the Supreme Court case on which the white paper relies most heavily involved an American who was detained in Afghanistan. You can't reasonably read a case that permitted the military detention of an American on an actual battlefield to supply a green light for the extrajudicial killing of American terrorism suspects anywhere in the world. UNQUOTE
FAS analysis of leaked memo (3 Feb 06)

FAS = Federation of American Scientists. They wrote, QUOTE: 358 NBC says this document had been provided to members of the Senate Intelligence and Judiciary committees June 2012, by administration officials on the condition that it be kept confidential and not discussed publicly. UNQUOTE I am anxious to see additional source(s) confirming FAS assertion regarding the June 2012 time line.
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http://www.aclu.org/blog/tag/targeted-killings http://www.aclu.org/blog/tag/drones http://www.aclu.org/national-security/maine-senators-should-question-john-brennan-killing-program http://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/aclu-court-filing-argues-judicial-review-us-targeted-killingsamericans https://plus.google.com/u/0/110809308822849680310/posts/HsaJGu4vyuj

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http://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/justice-departments-white-paper-targeted-killing and http://www.aclu.org/national-security/justice-department-white-paper-details-rationale-targetedkilling-americans 358 https://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2013/02/keeping_secrets.html
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FAS argues that by Congress saying nothing about this material, is same as them endorsing it.
Informed Comment on leaked memo (3 Feb 06)

Juan Cole provides an independent and informed perspective on Middle Eastern and American politics. He has five objections to the vision of the memo, which seems to him are directly contrary to the spirit and the letter of the US constitution: I am quoting heavily from his blog, and paraphrasing and expanding in places. 359 1. In the Western tradition of law, there can be no punishment without the commission of a specific crime defined by statute. These people are being assassinated on mere suspicion that they have evil intentions. However, many things changed after 9-11, where it was not just a matter of catching people after doing bad deeds, and running them thru criminal justice, it was also intercepting and preventing terrorist plots. This seems to go one step further, assassinate people before they concoct their plots, thanks to the notion that they have got mixed up with bad company. It would be like killing everyone who is wearing the insignia associated with a street gang, on the assumption that sooner or later they may do bad stuff. 2. The presidents powers under the memo, to kill specific people, appear to be alleged to derive in part from the 2001 Congressional Authorization for the Use of Military Force, i.e. from the legislature. This concept was expressly prohibited by The US Constitution, Article I, Section 9, paragraph 3. The notion that war can only be declared on states, not organizations, ignores the precedent of the US going after pirates and drug cartels. 3. The memos vision violates the principle of the separation of powers. It makes the President judge, jury and executioner. 4. The memo resurrects the medieval notion of outlawry that an individual can be put outside the protection of the law by the sovereign for vague crimes such as rebellion, and merely by royal decree. The US Constitution framers insisted that you couldnt just hang someone out to dry by decree. Rather, a person who was alleged to have committed a crime such as treason or terrorism had to be captured, brought to court, tried, and sentenced in accordance with a specific statute, and then punished by the state. If someone is arrested, they have legal rights from the judicial system, including showing cause to be arrested, locked up, right to face accuser, and if evidence, right to face whoever interpreted the evidence. See in my Drone Terms, near the beginning, where I reference Amendments to the US Constitution, which I believe are relevant to Drones. 5. The memo asks us to trust the executive to establish beyond the shadow of a doubt the guilt of an individual in a distant land, to whom access is so limited that the US cannot hope to capture him or have local authorities capture him. The notion that the whole world is a battlefield violates basic legal conceptions of international law such as national sovereignty. There are several recent precedents showing that many errors have been made in enemy identification in recent US history.
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http://www.juancole.com/2013/02/objections-houses-killing.html See the full blog for full details.
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a. The vast majority of the prisoners in Abu Graib were innocent of any wrong doing. The Sunni Shite Kurd divide is such that many people turned in other people, they did not like, for the US rewards. b. A similar practice is allegedly going on in Pakistan, were people have to pay protection money to gangsters. Otherwise, the gangsters claim the people, who are not paying the extortions, are terrorists, so US drones will kill them. c. Vast numbers of people in Guantanamo Bay were merely in the wrong place at the wrong time, arrested in mass round-ups. Some people were enemies of the Taliban, turned in by the Taliban to get massive influx of US funding rewards. d. Many people tortured by the CIA, or its allies, were found to have been totally innocent.
Opinio Juris on leaked memo (3 Feb 07)

Some people think that what the USA is doing with drone strikes, targeted killing, this memo etc, it is unconstitutional.360 Kevin Jon Heller says this document is flawed.361 QUOTE: There is a complete failure to address the relationship between the organized armed groups that the US considers to be engaged in a single noninternational armed conflict (NIAC) with the US. Then it explicitly addresses the argument that the existence of a NIAC between the US and al-Qaida must be determined according to the test established by the ICTY in Tadic the test adopted by the ICRC,362 by the ICC,363 and by nearly all international law scholars. This analysis is absolutely correct: as long as the US is engaged in a NIAC with an al-Qaida group in a particular location because the organization of the group and the intensity of the hostilities there satisfy Tadic any member of that al-Qaida group can be targeted anywhere in the world. But it completely ignores one of the two constitutive elements of the Tadic test: the organization requirement. The White Paper simply assumes that al -Qaida and its associated forces constitute a single organized armed group for purposes of IHL364 a transnational, non-state actor that is one of the parties involved in the non-international armed conflict between the United States and al-Qaida that the Supreme Court recognized in Hamdan (emphasis mine). The actual organization of al -Qaida and its associated forces fatally undermines the White Paper. If those terrorist groups do not form a single
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http://www.newrepublic.com/article/112338/obama-administrations-drone-memo-unconstitutional# http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/02/two-sharply-different-commentaries-on-the-white-paper/ 361 http://opiniojuris.org/2013/02/05/the-doj-white-papers-fatal-international-law-flaw/ 362 ICRC = International Committee of the Red Cross. Sometimes they make rulings about the nature of some conflict. 363 ICC = International Criminal Court . 364 IHL = International Humanitarian Law.
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organized armed group, there can be no single NIAC between the US and al Qaida and its associated forces. And if there is no single NIAC between the United States and al-Qaida and its associated forces, the US cannot by its own standards justify targeting anyone who is a senior operational commander in one of those groups simply by citing the existence of the hostilities between the US and al-Qaida in Afghanistan. On the contrary, in order to lawfully target a senior operational commander in a terrorist group that does not qualify as part of al-Qaida in Afganistan, the US would, in fact, have to show (under Tadic) that there is a separate NIAC between the US and that group where that group is located. It is possible, of course, that the US could make the requisite showing. But the White Paper never even considers the issue, because of its flawed understanding of the Tadic test. As a result, the White Paper authorizes the use of lethal force against individuals whose targeting is, without more, prohibited by international law.
UNQUOTE
US Constitution relevance to Drones (3 Feb 09)

Incidentally, who knew the USA had 190 million US citizens living within a "Constitution-free Zone."365 That means you can forget about any constitutional rights if you are inside that zone when federal agents stop you, ask you questions, want to search you, your car, your laptop, your cell phone, etc. Some of my contacts might also be interested in this blog posting, by the USAF chief ethics lawyer, about when Lincoln suspended habeas corpus.366 Politico writes, QUOTE367 The Constitution says two witnesses are needed to convict for treason. Are two enough to order a deadly drone strike against an American? More? Fewer? Is eyewitness testimony enough or is some kind of surveillance or physical evidence needed? UNQUOTE How about evidence which can be faked? How about cyber treason? Here are some excerpts from my Drone Terms, of relevance to this topic. 1st Amendment of US Constitution has some relevance to the legalities of targeting US citizens for killing by drones or other means, and violent actions taken against apparently peaceful protests, including:
365 366
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2008/10/aclu-assails-10/ http://afgeneralcounsel.dodlive.mil/2013/02/09/an-historical-reflection-lincolns-other-proclamation/ http://www.fjc.gov/history/home.nsf/page/tu_merryman_narrative.html 367 http://www.politico.com/story/2013/02/obama-faces-new-questions-on-drones-87242_Page3.html
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o Freedom of Assembly o Freedom of Religion o Freedom of Speech
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We know US drones have been used to attack groups of people, engaged in the above 3 bullet points. They were in foreign nations, where maybe the US Constitution does not apply.
2nd Amendment of US Constitution has some relevance to the legalities of

targeting US citizens for killing by drones or other means, including: o Right to be Armed
We know US drones have been used to attack US soldiers (mistaken for the enemy), a Pakistani military base, and armed Pakistani police.
4th Amendment of US Constitution has relevance to legalities of targeting US

citizens for killing by drones or other means, and actions by the police taken against people photographing them doing their job, including: o Freedom from Unreasonable Searches & Seizures. o Search Warrants need Probable Cause. o Protection from excessive and arbitrary government intrusion.
In Drone Terms, I go into some detail regarding applicability of 4th amendment protections such as: People secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, such as e-mail, tapping cell phone traffic, sticking a GPS tracker on a persons car, suspicionless-searches such as at the border, police roadblocks, etc. using a thermal imager to see through walls, to see what people doing inside buildings.
5th Amendment of US Constitution has relevance to the legalities of targeting

US citizens for killing by drones or other means, and justifiability of torture, including: o Due Process of Law.368 o Prohibits Self-Incrimination and Double Jeopardy, within the USA.369 o Some protections are a combination of the 5 th and 14th amendments. Law enforcement may not use race, religion and/or other protected characteristics as grounds for determining whom to target for investigation.
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http://reason.com/blog/2013/02/08/how-obamas-drone-strike-policy-violates http://originalismblog.typepad.com/the-originalism-blog/2013/02/originalism-and-drone-strikesmichaelramsey.html 369 There have been cases of people targeted, arrested, cleared in one nation, then history repeats in another.
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Information about an individual, already contained within one government database, should not be shared with another government entity on the sole basis that the individual belongs to a particular race, or ethnicity, or practices a particular religion. o Provides a route for compensation if loud aircraft noise takes from the peace and quiet, and enjoyment for people on the ground. th 6 Amendment of US Constitution has some relevance to the legalities of targeting US citizens for killing by drones or other means, including: o Trial Rights o Must be notified of the charges and evidence against you o Right to a Lawyer, in criminal cases th 11 Amendment of US Constitution has some relevance to the legalities of victims of US drone attacks, seeking justice from US. o Immunity of government from some law suits th 14 Amendment of US Constitution includes some elements of topics hot in recent news: o Citizenship defined, such as born in USA, whose parents are illegals. o Equality of different people under the Law. o The 14th Amendment forbids each state government from denying to any person, within its jurisdiction, the equal protection of the laws and therefore prohibits government institutions and employees from discriminating against individuals on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, or religion.
Civil and Human Rights Organizations react (3 Feb 07)

The Bush administration had legal memos justifying the torture of people suspected of being enemies of the USA. Some of those people were later found to be totally innocent.370 The notion of our enemies not being covered by the Geneva Convention, thus justifying torture, was bandies around in public starting immediately after 9-11. But what triggered a fire storm of public comment were torture memos found out in 2004, 371 and when was the Abu Graib photo controversy? The Obama administration has legal memos justifying the killing of people suspected of being enemies of the USA. Some of those people were later found to be totally innocent.372 The leaking of this memo, may not yet have triggered a fire storm. We will have to see. The news media has a habit of having a story cause clbre of the moment, then forgotten a week later. In both cases, the administration tried to keep the memos secret, the targets of the torture or killing secret, the evidence supporting the notion that this or that person should be
370
In one case, a Canadian citizen was sent to Syria by the USA, to be tortured for a year. A Canadian investigation, led by the senior judge of the Canadian Supreme Court, found that he was totally innocent. 371 https://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/06/us/politics/obama-slow-to-reveal-secrets-on-targetedkillings.html?_r=1& 372 See examples I cited, in my description, when I uploaded a copy of the leaked memo to Scribd.
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attacked secret, and resisted efforts by Congress and the courts to lift the lid on the secrecy. There have been a whole string of fire storms in social media, about Congressional legislation which would strip away Civil and Internet rights, in which the news media does not seem to cover heavily. C. Dixon Osburn of Human Rights First said You cant say imminent and create a kill list of people who are on that list for years at a time. That is not imminent .373 Well maybe YOU cant say that, but the US administration i s saying it.
News Media reacts to leaked memo (3 Feb 09)

Here are some links to stories about this, in various news media: Forbes;374 Guardian in Britain;375 Huffington Post;376 NBC News;377 New Republic;378 New York Times;379 Reuters;380 US News via NBC News;381 The Week;382 Wired383 Danger Room.384 There are more stories on this, than I have time to digest. 385 Lawfare shares some links, QUOTE386:
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http://www.politico.com/story/2013/02/obama-faces-new-questions-on-drones-87242.html http://www.forbes.com/sites/gregorymcneal/2013/02/05/six-key-points-regarding-the-doj-targetedkilling-white-paper/ 375 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/feb/05/obama-kill-list-doj-memo 376 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/05/jay-carney-drone-memo-white-housereporters_n_2625080.html 377 http://openchannel.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/04/16843014-exclusive-justice-department-memoreveals-legal-case-for-drone-strikes-on-americans?lite 378 http://www.newrepublic.com/article/112338/obama-administrations-drone-memo-unconstitutional# 379 https://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/06/us/politics/obama-slow-to-reveal-secrets-on-targetedkillings.html?_r=1& 380 http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/05/us-usa-drones-idUSBRE9140X120130205 381 http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/05/16855539-judge-jury-and-executioner-legalexperts-fear-implications-of-white-house-drone-memo?lite 382 http://theweek.com/article/index/239671/your-government-can-kill-you-if 383 http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/02/legal-basis-killing-americans/ 384 http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2013/02/obama-imminence/ 385 http://reason.com/blog/2013/02/07/obamas-power-to-identify-combatants-is-t 386 http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/02/todays-headlines-and-commentary-358/
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Here are some articles on the White Paper, many of which unfortunately mischaracterize it as a legal memo: the National Journal,387 Politicos Josh Gerstein,388 Huffington Post,389 the Wall Street Journal,390 Wired,391 U.S. News and World Report,392 the American Prospects Jamelle Bouie,393 Scott Shane & Charlie Savage at the New York Times,394 Glenn Greenwald at the Guardian,395 Reuters,396 the AP,397 and the New York Times Conversation.398 And of course, no coverage would be complete without a New York Times Editorial. Heres one399, about the White Paper and its coy description of the underlying OLC memo.400 Hey, at least it described the documents appropriately. James Downie, the Washington Posts Day Editor, writes over at the PostPartisan blog about the White Paper.401 He is quite unhappy: Greg McNeal boils down what he considers the key takeaways from the White Paper here, saying that there were not very many surprises to those whove been paying attention to the administrations remarks on the topic.402
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http://www.nationaljournal.com/nationalsecurity/how-the-u-s-determines-when-to-kill-one-of-its-owncitizens-20130205 The National Journal says it was the DoJ which leaked the memo. I would like to see confirmation of that, before I rely heavily on that assertion. 388 http://www.politico.com/story/2013/02/obama-faces-new-questions-on-drones-87242.html 389 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/05/jay-carney-drone-memo-white-housereporters_n_2625080.html
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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324900204578286432096035960.html?mod=WSJ_Electi on_MIDDLETopStories 391 http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/02/legal-basis-killing-americans/ 392 http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/02/05/leaked-memo-outlines-policy-for-killing-americanswith-drones 393 http://prospect.org/article/what-does-justice-department-say-about-targeted-killings 394 https://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/06/us/politics/obama-slow-to-reveal-secrets-on-targetedkillings.html?_r=1& 395 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/feb/05/obama-kill-list-doj-memo 396 http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/05/us-usa-drones-idUSBRE9140X120130205 397 http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/justice-memo-details-broad-grounds-for-drone-strikes-againstqaida-linked-us-citizens-abroad/2013/02/05/aff49658-6fb9-11e2-b35a-0ee56f0518d2_story.html 398 http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/02/05/what-standards-must-be-met-for-the-us-to-kill-anamerican-citizen?hp 399 https://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/06/opinion/to-kill-an-american.html?hp 400 OLC = US Department of Justices Office of Legal Counsel 401 http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2013/02/05/justice-department-chilling-dronewhite-paper/ 402 http://www.forbes.com/sites/gregorymcneal/2013/02/05/six-key-points-regarding-the-doj-targetedkilling-white-paper/
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And David Cole has this New York Review of Books op-ed discussing what the white paper fails to address besides the legal framework thats in the OLC memo.403 Some find significance in the timing of the White Papers appearance, given that the principal coordinator of the Administrations drone strikes, John Brennan, will appear before the Senate later this week for his nomination hearing. Raise your hand if you think Brennans hearing will be even more unfriendly than Chuck Hagels. Heres a Times piece by Robert Worth, Mark Mazetti, and Scott Shane drawing the linkages,404 and a Washington Post piece by Greg Miller and Karen DeYoung.405 Also note: now we know the location of the drone base from which the al-Aulaqi strike was launchedSaudi Arabia.406 UNQUOTE More such links via Lawfare.407
Scribd reports related to leaked memo (3 Feb 06)

Michael Isikoff, National Investigative Correspondent, NBC News, wrote a 4 page article about it,408 uploaded to Scribd by Del.E.Tum.409 Free Britney410 wrote a 1 page article about it,411 uploaded to Scribd by The Hollywood Gossip.412 Conor Friedersdorf wrote a 2 page article about this, or a similar legal memo, in 2011, 413 uploaded to Scribd by Freedom of Speech.414
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http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2013/feb/06/drones-killing-made-easy/ OLC = US Department of Justices Office of Legal Counsel 404 https://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/06/world/middleeast/with-brennan-pick-a-light-on-drone-strikeshazards.html?hp 405 http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/brennan-nomination-opens-obama-tocriticism-on-secret-targeted-killings/2013/02/05/8f3c94f0-6fb0-11e2-8b8de0b59a1b8e2a_story.html?tid=pm_pop 406 http://thehill.com/blogs/defcon-hill/policy-and-strategy/281357-report-us-has-drone-base-in-saudiarabia Some of us know a lot more. See my Drone Nations. 407 http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/02/todays-headlines-and-commentary-357/ 408 http://www.scribd.com/doc/123949758/Justice-Department-memo-reveals-legal-case-for-drone-strikeson-Americans 409 http://www.scribd.com/Deletum7 410 http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/authors/free-britney/ 411 http://www.scribd.com/doc/123960875/Kill-Americans-Memo-Can-US-Take-Out-Citizens-Abroad 412 http://www.scribd.com/thehollywoodgossip 413 http://www.scribd.com/doc/83573212/The-Secret-Memo-That-Explains-Why-Obama-Can-KillAmericans 414 http://www.scribd.com/SekundNayture
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Bloggers on the leaked memo (3 Feb 07)

Here are links to original sources, where I quote what strikes my fancy, as good stuff. Fight Freedom I Network on You Tube415 Rense Radio Network on You Tube416 The Empty Wheel417
Social Media reacts to leaked memo (3 Feb 06)

Here is what I wrote about it, in G+ threads, soon after I got a copy, QUOTE: I glanced over the white paper. The legal geek is very high density, but if I understand it correctly, they are saying that if a US citizen abroad can be accused of being in bed with the terrorists, without opportunity to defend self against the accusations, then that justifies the US assassinating that person. They not only have to be active there, they also have to be high up in the leadership. Which begs the question, did a 16 year old boy really rise to that position? While most drone documents are mentioned in some activist forums, with barely a ripple in the news media, this particular one has been mentioned in lots of news media. It is pretty obvious, to me, that this is a leaked government document, and it has become too widespreadly distributed for the government to put the genie back in the bottle. Someone may be prosecuted for leaking it, but will the government go after all the pundits and people talking about the contents, like they went after all the people who support Wikileaks?
UNQUOTE
Petitioning US government (3 Feb 06)

Here is a petition asking President Obama for transparency in his targeted killing program.418
Inside Government commentary (3 Feb 06)

The senior ethics lawyer for the US Air Force has a blog. 2013 Feb 06 there is a post on the notion that maybe the USA needs to revise the laws justifying the US going to war against people. I think that is long overdue, considering drone attacks, cyber warfare, the war on terrorism, the war on drugs,
415 416
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEJyFt0QuFU&feature=youtu.be https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xo-BFjpmCH8&feature=youtu.be 417 http://www.emptywheel.net/2013/02/04/this-isnt-the-memo-youre-looking-for/ 418 https://ssl.capwiz.com/aclu/issues/alert/?alertid=61029451&type=PR
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the war on drug cartels, and other quazi militaristic scenarios, often not against another nation state.419
White House caves under pressure (3 Feb 15)

According to ACLU,420 Lawfare,421 Politico,422 and other sources,423 QUOTE: President Obama has reversed course and agreed to provide the congressional intelligence committees with classified Justice Department legal advice authorizing the use of drones to kill U.S. citizens abroad, two administration officials said Wednesday evening.424 The sharing of the information, which lawmakers had long sought, comes on the eve of a Senate hearing on John Brennans nomination to serve as the next director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Some senators had suggested that his nomination could be blocked if the administration was not more forthcoming. UNQUOTE Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), welcomed Obama's decision but suggested more disclosure was necessary. Also it seems like they limited access to the politicians, not their staff.425 . Note this is NOT to the general public, it is only secret info to Congressional Committees who decide if Obama picks get their jobs. They expect to see the info 24 hours before the hearings. From articles I saw about the hearings, it sounds to me like the administration gave Congress some stuff, but theres lots Congress asking for that they have not got. It sounds like this will not stop Brennan nomination from being approved. 426 It has been a common practice with nominations from many Presidents, that Congress is never supplied all that they ask for, of relevance to the candidate.
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http://afgeneralcounsel.dodlive.mil/2013/02/06/time-for-a-new-statutory-framework-for-war/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/us-needs-rules-of-engagement-for-secretwarfare/2013/02/05/449f786e-6a78-11e2-95b3-272d604a10a3_story.html 420 http://www.aclu.org/national-security/obama-give-doj-targeted-killing-memo-congressional-intelcommittees

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http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/02/white-house-to-hand-over-olc-memo-ontargeted-killing-to-congressional-committees/
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http://www.politico.com/politico44/2013/02/obama-reverses-course-approves-providing-legal-advice156326.html?hp=f2 423 http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-02-14/drones-transparency-on-rules-for-their-use-is-a-must 424 OLC = Office of Legal Counsel 425 http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/02/todays-headlines-and-commentary-361/ 426 http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/02/todays-headlines-and-commentary-359/ http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/02/brennan-confirmation-hearing-video/ http://www.aclu.org/national-security/senators-should-dissect-brennans-role-targeted-killing-tortureprograms
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Proposed improvements in current reality (3 Feb 07)

Some people are making proposals, which has a chance of passing muster with US Congress, Administration, and Court System.
Modify rule-book for battle-fields (3 Feb 10)

There are several areas in need of modification: 1. Domestic law should not apply to the battlefield. You are in an area where there is a war going on. The ruling law should not be the Constitution of your home nation, it should be the Hague Convention (what the war fighters are allowed to do) and the Geneva Convention (the rights of civilians on the battlefield). 427 2. Define where there is a battlefield, when there is no relevant declaration of war there. Examples: there was a declaration for Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, but the borders with neighbor nations were not respected, by either side, with the war fighters spilling over into adjacent nations, not officially part of the war. There are also places where there are civil wars, and states on the edge of being failed states. Neither domestic law, nor international conventions adequately address the needs there. Fix that situation, instead of weakening either constitutions or international law.
Replace rule-book for secret wars (3 Feb 08)

Inside the USA, Congress does not like what the President is doing, and this goes back at least to Bush. There are an infinity of law suits over what the Presidents men have been doing. The law suits are international. Other nations are having similar hassles. Jack Goldsmith in Lawfare,428 and Washington Post,429 says QUOTE:430 What the government needs is a new framework statute akin to the National Security Act of 1947, or the series of intelligence reforms made after Watergate, or even the 2001 authorization of force to define the scope of the new war, the authorities and limitations on presidential power, and forms of review of the presidents actions. The legal and political foundation for secret war is weak. The legal foundation rests mostly on laws designed for another task that government lawyers have interpreted, without public scrutiny, to meet new challenges. UNQUOTE As usual, I am excerpting to introduce a concept. Read the full story (see footnotes) for the full picture of what is proposed. For this to work, it needs the support of the President and Congress. We see how partisan Washington politics have become, and we saw how contentious past conflicts have been with Bush spying on private conversations, and past presidents such as Iran-Contra.
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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-08/obama-s-drone-attack-on-your-due-process.html http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/02/more-interesting-commentary-on-targeted-killing-white-paper/ 428 http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/02/u-s-needs-a-rulebook-for-secret-warfare/ 429 http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/us-needs-rules-of-engagement-for-secretwarfare/2013/02/05/449f786e-6a78-11e2-95b3-272d604a10a3_story.html 430 http://afgeneralcounsel.dodlive.mil/2013/02/06/time-for-a-new-statutory-framework-for-war/
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Revise System for Classifying documents (3 Feb 08)

Perhaps we need a revised system for classifying documents who may see , such as elected representatives, but not their staff how serious is it if someone leaks this? 431
Federal Intelligence Commission (3 Feb 21)

One proposal is an independent regulatory agency, much as the Federal Election Commission is. Members of the new FIC must be nominated by the president and must undergo Senate confirmationthus allowing for congressional oversight of the FICs activities. It would be a way to approve / not approve who goes on a kill list. 432
FISC for Kill List (3 Feb 21)

There is a secret court to approve taking action against suspected terrorists, and foreign agents, without going thru the due process for people accused of normal crimes. FISC = Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court..433 With people accused of ordinary crimes, their lawyers get to see search warrants, justification for wire taps, etc. FISC approves doing this without accused lawyers being in the know, and maybe timing the searches when no one is home, in hopes they wont know their home or place of business now has bugs.. There is a proposal to have a similar one to review the justification for placing people on kill lists. Once approved by the secret court, the administration could kill them at its convenience, without further court review.434 Except for top administration officials and Congress, very few people have knowledge of the workings of the FISA court.435 One retired judge, with relevant experience, has spoken out,436 to remind one and all that judges decide cases, not render advisories. This proposal has led to push back by many who propose alternatives, which they think would be better, or would work better.437 Our court system works when there is an
431 432
https://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2013/02/brennan_perhaps.html Some kind of judicial role in approving kill list decisions, via an agency Congress may have oversight role. http://afgeneralcounsel.dodlive.mil/2013/02/20/yet-another-drone-oversight-proposal/ http://www.acus.org/new_atlanticist/drones-and-law-restoring-checks-and-balances 433 http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/02/context-for-judicial-oversight-of-the-targeted-killing-program-abrief-history-of-the-creation-of-the-foreign-intelligence-surveillance-court/ 434 http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/02/a-fisc-for-drone-strikes-a-few-points-to-consider/ http://www.rollcall.com/news/feinstein_tells_brennan_she_will_consider_judicial_oversight_for_drone222241-1.html?pos=adp 435 http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/02/carrie-cordero-on-fisa-court-lessons-for-a-drone-court/ 436 http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/judges-shouldnt-decide-about-dronestrikes/2013/02/15/8dcd1c46-778c-11e2-aa12-e6cf1d31106b_story.html 437 http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/02/why-a-drone-court-wont-work/
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adversarial relationship, two sides arguing two view points.438 Secret tribunals dont work well when the government is able to keep secrets from defense and judges. There are also separation of powers constitutional issues.439 The ACLU is opposed to this idea.440 The ACLU believes that extradition, and criminal prosecution of suspected terrorists, is a better answer.
After Action Damages Court for Wrongful Victims (3 Feb 11)

A before action court only addresses legitimacy of targeting this or that alleged enemy. It does not address collateral damage of (a) you got the wrong guy (b) when the drone strike occurred, there were innocent bystanders Instead of court review of administration kill list, there are those who favor some place for alleged wrongful victims families and nations to seek identification of wrongful actions, compensation, and create a record for administrative investigations to improve the targeting identification. Different pundits suggest different mixtures of what belong in such a judicial architecture.441 The Gitmo court cases demonstrate that the US court system is well able to balance what needs to be kept secret, while seriously entertaining the grievances of alleged victims of administration errors in judgment. Although damages court can never make victims whole, their existence would impose upon administration killing implementation, a degree of accountability for prudent behavior, which does not now exist.
Congress Public Fact finding (3 Feb 11)

After the leaked memo was blasted all over the media, many Congress persons acted like this info was news to them, and they asked various administration officials for clarification. It is possible that for some, it really was news to them. There is lots of evidence Congress approves 100% what President is doing with drones,442 thinks of the protestors as a fringe group, whose vote is meaningless, so no
438
http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/02/neal-katyal-on-a-drone-national-security-court-within-theexecutive-branch/ 439 http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/02/still-more-drone-commentary-anthony-clark-arend-on-judicialoversight-of-drones/ http://anthonyclarkarend.com/humanrights/judicial-oversight-of-drones/ 440 http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/02/aclu-opposes-fisa-like-judicial-review-of-drone-strikes/ 441 http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/02/why-a-drone-court-wont-work/ 442 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-21389200
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need to pay them any mind. However, from what they say, it is evident that politicians in favor of drones vs. wanting changes, is not according to normal partisan political lines. 443 According to Reuters, Senator Dianne Feinstein, the Democrat who chairs the Intelligence Committee, said that she had been calling on the administration to release legal analyses related to the use of drones for more than a year.444 Feinstein said the document obtained by NBC had been given to congressional committees last June on a confidential basis, and that her committee is seeking additional documents, which are believed to remain classified.445
Which Memos many versions (3 Feb 07)

The Empty Wheel points out, QUOTE446 Just minutes after Pat Leahy reminded the Senate Judiciary Committee they got the white paper at a hearing last August, John Cornyn said this, Cornyn: As Senator Durbin and others have said that they agree that this is a legitimate question that needs to be answered. But were not mere supplicants of the Executive Branch. We are a coequal branch of government with the Constitutional responsibility to conduct oversight and to legislate where we deem appropriate on behalf of our constituents. So it is insufficient to say, pretty please, Mr. President. pretty please, Mr. Attorney General, will you please tell us the legal authority by which you claim the authority to kill American citizens abroad? It may be that I would agree with their legal argument, but I simply dont know what it is, and it hasnt been provided. [my emphasis] It does not seem likely that this memo was used to authorize the attacks on Awlaki, because when they first tried to kill him on December 24, 2009, the Intelligence Community didnt believe him to be operational; at that
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https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/drone-strikes-washington-debates-oversight-article1.1259993?localLinksEnabled=false&google_editors_picks=true 444 https://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2013/02/leak_boosts.html 445 http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/05/us-usa-drones-idUSBRE9140X120130205 446 http://www.emptywheel.net/2013/02/04/this-isnt-the-memo-youre-looking-for/
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point,447 according to the knowledge the government had at that time, Awlaki would not meet the three criteria laid out in this [leaked] memo. More importantly, one question that Wyden keeps asking would be nonsensical if he believed the content of this white paper reflected the actual authorization used to kill Awlaki. Ron Wyden, who has gotten this white paper, still keeps asking this question. Is the legal basis for the intelligence communitys lethal counterterrorism operations the 2001 Congressional Authorization for the Use of Military Force, or the Presidents Commander-in-Chief authority? UNQUOTE
Wyden asks Brennan (3 Feb 19)

2013 Jan 14, Senator Ron Wyden wrote a letter to Deputy National Security Advisor John Brennan448 asking about US administration justification to kill Americans using legal opinions kept secret from Congress. It ends with some specific questions.449 In his letter, he lists prior instances of similar questions to US administration officials for similar information, dating back several years, where he says Congress has not yet received satisfactory answers. He says the situation is unacceptable. He has obligations, under his oath of office, which the administration is frustrating. He also talks about the revelation that the CIA had repeatedly provided inaccurate information to the White House, Congress, and the Justice Dept, and wants to know whats going to be done about that.
Wyden questions (3 Feb 06)

Senator Ron Wyden ends his letter to John Brennan with some questions about his nomination to take over the CIA, after his experience running the Drone Killing program out of the White House. QUOTE450
447
http://www.emptywheel.net/2012/07/25/what-was-the-evidence-supporting-the-first-strike-on-anwar-alawlaki/ 448 https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/pull-back-curtain-drones-article-1.1236893?print http://cobbnewsandtech.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-drone-threat-to-americans-on.html http://www.thedailysheeple.com/the-drone-threat_022013 449 I downloaded it from http://www.wyden.senate.gov/news/press-releases/wyden-statement-on-dojmemo-on-the-killing-of-americans-during-counterterrorism-operations 450 http://www.wyden.senate.gov/news/press-releases/wyden-statement-on-doj-memo-on-the-killing-ofamericans-during-counterterrorism-operations I copied image of the questions attachment.
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UNQUOTE
11 Senators ask President Obama (3 Feb 07)

2013 Feb 4, Eleven Senators wrote a letter to President Obama.451 When I uploaded a copy to Scribd, I wrote the following summary description:
451
I found it here: https://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2013_cr/olc-lethal.pdf thanks to: https://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2013/02/keeping_secrets.html I did not see any copyright notice, so I uploaded a copy to Scribd: http://www.scribd.com/doc/124071124/Congress-ask-why-US-kill-Citizens-2013-Feb Note that the 11 consist of 8 Democrats and 3 Republicans. http://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2013/02/senators-ask-obama-for-legal-opinions-okingdrone-156084.html
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Some US citizens have joined alQaida, or other organizations, which the USA is at war with. The US administration has documents justifying when people, suspected of doing this, may be assassinated by the CIA or US military. Various news media and legal activists have sued under FOIA to see those documents, but the US has asserted they are military secrets. Now here come 11 US Senators asking to see this info. The senators agree that when US citizens take up arms against the USA, like some did during the US Civil War, there will be circumstances where the President is justified in ordering US forces to attack those individuals. But they believe that Congress has the right and obligation to oversee the basis for such Administration decisions. They cite particular documents and authorizations they have requested from specific government agencies, which they say have not yet been supplied to Congress. It is important to clarify these issues, to avoid excess confrontations when the Senate votes on the Presidents nominees for the agencies which carry out these targeted killings. The Empty Wheel points out, QUOTE452 There are just 11 Senators on this list:

Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) Mike Lee (R-Utah) Mark Udall (D-Colo.) Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) Susan Collins (R-Maine) Dick Durbin (Ill.) Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) Tom Udall (D-N.M.) Mark Begich (D-Alaska) Al Franken (D- Minn.)
And just three of these Wyden, Mark Udall, and Collins are on the Intelligence Committee. Thats not enough to block Brennans confirmation. But it may be enough to block Hagels confirmation, given all the Republicans who are opposing him. 9 of the 11 Senators453 who demanded the memo have seen this white paper (all but Tom Udall and Jeff Merkley are on either the Senate Intelligence of Judiciary Committee). Yet theyre still demanding to know
452 453
http://www.emptywheel.net/2013/02/04/this-isnt-the-memo-youre-looking-for/ http://www.emptywheel.net/2013/02/04/white-house-still-witholding-targeted-killing-memo/
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the executive branchs official understanding of the Presidents authority to deliberately kill American citizens. UNQUOTE It surely sounds like this leaked memo is not what Congress really got to see back in June 2012, or there are memos far more substitutive, that Congress has found out about, wants, are not getting. Several members of Congress have made statements about this letter, and the circumstances which led to it: Senator Grassley454 Senator Ron Wyden455
Wyden asks Holder (3 Feb 06)

2013 Feb 8, Senator Ron Wyden sent a letter to Attorney General Holder asking about US administration justification to have laws and legal opinions kept secret from Congress, in particular those associated with the killing of Americans, with no accountability, no transparency, no court review. He asks a lot of questions about these policies which have been kept secret from Congress. 456 He refers to situations dating back several years, where administration officials had claimed things, he had asked for clarification, and been told he could not have it. It is unacceptable that the administration states they have the legal authority to do things, while keeping the details secret from Congress. QUOTE457 How much evidence does the President need, to decide that a particular American is part of a terrorist group? Does the President have to provide individual Americans with an opportunity to surrender, before using lethal force against them? Is the Presidents authority to kill Americans based on authorization from Congress, or his own authority as Commander in Chief? Can the President order intelligence agencies to kill an American who is inside the United States? What other limitations or boundaries apply to this authority?
454 455
http://blogs.press-citizen.com/2013/02/05/2243/ http://www.wyden.senate.gov/news/press-releases/wyden-statement-on-doj-memo-on-the-killing-ofamericans-during-counterterrorism-operations 456 http://www.wyden.senate.gov/news/press-releases/wyden-statement-on-doj-memo-on-the-killing-ofamericans-during-counterterrorism-operations 457 http://www.wyden.senate.gov/news/press-releases/wyden-statement-on-doj-memo-on-the-killing-ofamericans-during-counterterrorism-operations
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Americans have a right to understand how the US government interprets the statement in the Bill of Rights that no American shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law with regard to operations against suspected terrorists. UNQUOTE
Congress Prior Knew (3 Feb 06)

Here is a summary of what I believe Congress persons knew about this info, before the memo got leaked, and the media storm began. 2010 April, Congress House of Representatives held a hearing on the topic of the legality of drones being used to target the killing of people.458
How Know Who is Enemy? (3 Feb 10)

In my opinion, this drone controversy would be 1,000 times smaller, if it was not so obvious to the whole world, other than US administration, that the drone targeted killing is going after so many totally innocent people. I attribute reasons for innocent people dying to several causes, including: Culture clash of civilizations, where US military officers, raised in Western world do not recognize reality of tribal and other cultures, so that activities in areas where we are fighting AlQaeda which are perfectly normal there, are seen by US military personnel as suspicious, and thus legitimate targeting. Methodologies by which we get military intelligence on legitimate targets, often come to us from allies who have their own disputes, we were not involved with, but now that they are mislabeling their enemies as our enemies, that has embroiled us in a civil war, in which the other side in the war with our allies, has now been pushed by the drone war, to become allied with AlQaeda against us. Drones which target private homes, are not linked with thermal imaging to see that this or that home also contains 10 children, babies, so the folks pulling the trigger have the option of saying We do not want to kill and maim a household of children, lets postpone our assassination of the enemy person who just went into that house. US leadership personnel needs to have a good understanding of civil liberties, both domestic and international, how to get good security, and technology. Often we get none of the above. One way the lack of good technology manifests itself is deploying thousands of easily hackable drones, so whatever new weapons technology we develop, it is in our enemies hands almost immediately after we
458
Here are links to 75 page transcript of that hearing. It is public domain. It is House Hearing Transcript 111-120 or PDF 64-922. Abstract Summary = http://www.hsdl.org/?abstract&did=5044 Full 2 Meg Transcript = https://www.hsdl.org/?view&did=5044
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deploy it. Another consequence of this is the inability to do friend-foe recognition. In the First Gulf War, there were id-signallers attached to the tanks and other vehicles of the many nations in the coalition, so the war fighters could distinguish our guys from the other guys. If todays military and intelligence community had competent cyber security, which they do not, then Pakistani police could have consumer electronics which say I am a Pakistani policeman only when on the person of that officer, so that drones would not be killing them, just because the US military sees somebody in a village who is armed. Other people are doing a great job exploring this issue of how do we know who really is our enemy, legitimate targets, blowback from killing the wrong guys, and the notion that nationality should not confuse military battlefield logic. Where I had been writing, that in my opinion, military intelligence, in this regard, is broken, other people use the better terminology of threat identification. Geoffrey Corn writes,459 in Lawfare, QUOTE:460 What actually is the threat identification criteria relied upon to justify the killing of a human being who, no matter how dangerous intelligence indicates he may be, wont be sitting in a T-72 tank in the Fulda Gap? There is a rational reason why such information should not normally be publically disclosed. Conventional enemies rely on their capability to gain advantage over our forces; unconventional enemies rely on the exact opposite: our inability to even identify their capabilities will enable them to achieve their objectives. Disclosing this information may help this enemy understand exactly how we identify who to target and when and where to do so, which in turn will enable the enemy to adjust its conduct to avoid that outcome. It would, in essence, be analogous to having shared with our Soviet enemy the exact details of how our forces identified their key tactical vulnerabilities, which would have enabled them to make it that much harder for our forces to prevail. UNQUOTE As usual, read the whole thing, not just my excerpts, for some great material!
American Civil War precedent (3 Feb 11)

The leaked memo, and the many administration speeches before it, are about loss of constitutional rights for US citizens at time of war, when they get onto the other side, or falsely accused of being on the other side, such as Japanese Americans in WW II. It is of some historical interest how such people were treated in previous US wars.
459 460
http://www.stcl.edu/faculty/Geoffrey_Corn.htm http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/02/geoffrey-corn-guest-post-on-the-drone-white-paper-and-threatidentification/
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Charles A. Blanchard, General Counsel, United States Air Force, comments in his Blog, about points made by Fordham Professor Andrew Kent writes on the US constitutional status of civilians residing in the Confederate States of America, during the American Civil War. QUOTE461 Over the course of the Civil War, the Supreme Court, Executive and Congress all came to agree that, even though secession was illegal and null, and so residents of the Confederate States of America were still U.S. citizens living in U.S. territory, for military purposes residents of the CSA would be treated as de facto enemy aliens (noncitizen nationals of a country at war with the United States). Under well-established prior law, nonresident alien enemies, and all enemy alien combatants no matter where located or domiciled, lacked any protection from the Constitution or other domestic law, and any right to protection of the courts of the United States (a categorical exclusion from the Constitutions protections). UNQUOTE
Al Mac Research split (2 Oct 11)

My drone documents are named with a version #, which I increment as I replace with re-writes. In parentheses after each chapter heading is date in format (Year Month Day) when I last updated the contents of that chapter. People with an earlier edition can see what has been updated since they last got a copy. Some chapter headings end in an exclamation point. These indicate either identification of a controversy, and-or links to what the facts may be. Some chapter headings have a number # sign at the end. These indicate chapters with specifics on counts of people killed. Other symbols may be added later. This helps correlation of conflicting info sources, in my further research. Formerly, all my notes on Drones were in one document, which was growing excessively large. I have now split them into the following:
Drone Dates = Time Line Calendar of Dates of What Happened in Drone usage
History, and When we found out, thanks to publication of Key documents. 462
Drone Issues = A summary of what the controversial problems appear to be, reasons
we need to figure out what is happening, then participate in the political debate over what
461
http://afgeneralcounsel.dodlive.mil/2013/02/11/the-white-paper-and-the-civil-war/ http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/02/andrew-kent-on-the-white-paper-as-a-plus-for-civil-liberties/ 462 Drone Reports is a directory of major sources of info, which I have located so far, downloaded some.
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should be happening. Some of the things people believe about drones, they may be mistaken, those concerns belong in the directory, and need to be investigated, clarified, will be in my other drone documents.
Drone Log = Al Mac tracking overall collection of Al Mac Drone documents,

primarily for personal convenience this info will be least interest ing part of the collection, for other people.
Drone Nations = A list of nations where drones are operating, being manufactured,
purchased, hacked, crashing, being used by military, not necessarily of same nation. With each nation listed, I have footnotes with links to examples of how drones are being used in that nation, the sophistication of the drones, and more info. We see many articles claiming drones are in 40 or 50 nations. The last relevant GAO report, which I saw on this, says that 50 nations are manufacturing drones, with over 900 different models total, and many of them exporting to other nations in the world. Drone Nations is a directory of nations with drones, with multiple links cited on what each nation is doing with drones, and my effort to correlate mismatches between different sources. In time, I expect this list to grow.
84 nations have their own drones, some manufactured domestically, some imported. 11 nations do not have their own drones, but are the targets of military drone action. 2 nations do not have their own drones, but other nations base their military drones there,
and we found out about them due to drone crashes there (one of my sources is a directory of 100 drone crashes where). Thats 84-97 nations with drones, depending on how you want to count them. Theres several nations (like Iran and Israel) which both make drones, export drones commercially, and use drones to attack one another. When Iran did a hack down of a US drone a while back, many people thought it was a fluke, but in Oct 2012: an Iran-built drone flew over Israel, which was not able to hack it down, so they shot it down. This shows that Iran has become a leader in cyber wars.
Drone Notes = my main overall document, which later may be split again.
Here you can find: o Links to where I get this info, including official sources; 463 o Hundreds of USA locations, where drones are in use; o Legal complications; Political Complications; o Statistics on numbers of innocent bystanders killed, and numbers of enemy targets; o Technology advances, changing nature of Drone Capabilities;
463
Now just footnote citations, since directory of sources has moved to Drone Reports.
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o Other topics.
Drone Scribd
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Drone Scribd = I created a Drone Info collection on Scribd, which lists many
educational, interesting, and stimulating Scribd articles and documents on Drones.464 Then I started reviewing them. Where I found, what seemed to me to be errors of fact, distortions, or incomplete pictures, I cite sources to complete the story, to help authors, of the other efforts, address gaps in their presentations. So in addition to my summary observations on many Scribd info sources about Drones, I also try to provide a road map to other sources I have found, relevant to the picture(s) painted by these Scribd reports. Also see Drone Notes, which contained this same kind of research material, before I started the Drone Scribd focus.
Drone Terms = Glossary of Terminology, Acronyms, Concepts etc. which have come
up in my drone research. I have also encountered some parallel tales of alleged official misconduct, which have led to some non-drone content. By end of Sep 2012, it had grown to 750 acronyms, terms, and concepts defined, relevant to my Drone research so far. For more details, see Al Mac Shared Research section, at end of Drone Notes document, and what is in Drone Log.
Drone Research Sharing Sites (2 Oct 09)

Many places on the Internet, we must register with the site, to access info there, but some people are nervous about personal info which must sometimes be divulged to do so. In theory, with Google Drive Documents, where I have collection = Drone Info, with my Drone Dates + Issues + Log + Nations + Notes + Reports + Scribd + Terms,465 all you need is the url in my footnote link, to get at my Drone Info466 Google collection, which also includes many official documents from government and other sources. If you are on Scribd, here you can locate what I have uploaded there so far.467 It includes a spectrum of research into many different topics, not just on Drones. If you are on Linked In, and connected to me: http://www.linkedin.com/in/almacintyre
464 465
http://www.scribd.com/collections/3807680/Drone-Info at http://www.scribd.com/AlMac99 https://docs.google.com/folder/d/0B9euafJH4b-ZLWR0bmZLS3d5OVk/edit 466 Google Drive Document Collection = Drone Info: https://docs.google.com/folder/d/0B9euafJH4b-ZLWR0bmZLS3d5OVk/edit I also have a Google Drive Doc Collection = Disaster Avoidance, where I look into what the heck happened to cause various disasters, various proposals to be better prepared for better response, in many cases I do not yet have all the answers I desire. https://docs.google.com/folder/d/0B9euafJH4bZMTA0YTM0YzktNTI0YS00NjVhLTg5NTItY2RiZjhiM2MzODkw/edit 467 http://www.scribd.com/AlMac99
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then you can access my Linked In Box Net shared document files. There, I have folders for many topics, including Drone Info. That folder contains my Drone Dates + Issues + Nations + Notes + Scribd + Terms. Within the Linked In Box Net Drone Info folder, I have Drone Sources sub-folder, with copies of various official documents from my collection. I have a growing collection of documents on drones downloaded from a multitude of official sources. I have not uploaded all the same ones to all the above collections, for various reasons. For some the copy-right permission to re-share them is murky. Some I have not yet studied, may adjust their naming after doing so, to make the content clearer. The Author of this research, Alister Wm Macintyre, welcomes other people to download copies of Als work, but warns that different cited sources have different attribution and copyright restrictions, so care should be followed downstream, in selecting where to reuse the material.
Contacting author (2 July 10)

When searching for me: Alister William Macintyre = my full name (Wm for middle initials) Al Macintyre = name I have used during most of my career Macwheel99 = e-mail handle (Mac-Wheel is a play on Surname) Macwheel98 = a few places where they messed up my access as Macwheel99, so I opened new account with this count down. AL MAC = sign-on name work place computers AlMac99 = user-id when joining places where function of user-id unclear to new users Here is how to get a hold of me via various social media. https://plus.google.com/u/0/108007903544513887227/about http://www.linkedin.com/in/almacintyre also on Facebook (may be leaving FB) http://emergencysociety.com/ http://haitirewired.wired.com/profile/AlisterWmMacintyre http://rebuildhaitibetter.ning.com/profile/AlisterWmMacintyre Haiti Research shared with / posted at http://www.haiti.prizm.org/ and http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HaitiDisasterRecoveryResearch/
Revision History (2 Oct 19)

Here is additional aid for people revisiting my notes. Where has there been the most significant growth, in addition to the hints implied by chapter headings with date in parentheses, showing when I last added anything to a chapter, such as an additional citation? Note that I also periodically move some chapters from one split area to another, to help improve overall organization, as some sub-topics become more important. 2012 Oct-17 Issues V 4.8
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o Where the beginning is a list of issues, that concern many people, worth exploring and figuring out, towards the end is what I have figured out which disturbs me greatly about the nations vulne rability to a great spectrum of threats, apparently not on the radar screens of the people in charge of National Defense, and serious holes in what passes for privacy protection for the people. In this stage of development of my notes, I explained Manchurian Chip, and correlations from multiple reports. 2012 Oct-16 Terms V 4.78 = 870 acronyms and concepts defined o Additions to: GPS Spoofing; Targeted Killing; UN Charter. 2012 Oct-13 Nations V 4.75 with Hezbollah Drone over Israel. 2012 Oct-11 Scribd V 4.72 shared: 60 pages; 236 foot; Doc 690k; PDF 447k. o Lots of minor changes, but the major addition was my argument that: o Given that there is ample evidence Congress is doing drone oversight; o It is wrong for people to call upon Congress to do oversight of drones; o While at the same time try to explain why I think Congress should get an F grade for the quality of this work. 2012 Oct 10 Reports V 4.7 shared: 20 pages, 110 foot, 284k Doc, 180k PDF. o V 4.7 listed: 67 documents referenced, plus my 8 splits, so far. 6 suggested key education 44 drone downloads 7 Scribd mentioned 6 National Security 10 More 2012 Oct-10 Issues V 4.66 with Legal Issues added. 2012 Oct-9 split Drone Dates from Drone Notes. o This is time line calendar of what allegedly happened when, how we found out, thanks to key publications, when they came out. o Scribd did not get copy of this, because I am concerned about
copyright associated with some heavily used sources.

o V 4.62 started with: 29 page, 122 foot, 380k Doc, 280k PDF 2012 Oct-8 Scribd V 4.2 shared 52 pages, 206 footnotes, 620k doc, 400k PDF. o Now 46 docs in Scribd Drone Info collection, including some of mine. I have reviewed 13 of those docs, the latest on International Law. Latest review: UN report on legalities of targeted killing. I also have some reviews there, of key docs I not yet found on Scribd. Road map to rapid Drone Education is now in Terms and Scrib. I am undecided where it belongs, maybe in Drone Reports, split planned. 2012 Oct-7 Terms V 4.1 shared 138 page, 470 foot, 2.26m Doc, 1.2m PDF. o 830 acronyms and concepts defined, in V 4.1 Terms. o o o o
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o Latest focus = need for innocent victims to have remedy alternatives, what exists so far through International Law courts, international law within national legal systems, and whole Human Rights area. 2012 Sep-30 Nations V 3.8 shared 16 pages, 114 foot, 575k Doc, 270k PDF. o 85 nations & regions identified as having drones operating. GAO was not counting nations where they being attacked by drones, but not yet have their own, which can change rapidly as we have seen with Iran taking down a US drone, reverse engineering it, then exporting the technology. GAO also not counting nations, used as bases for other nations military drones, where sometimes they crash. 2012 Sep-15 Terms V 3.0 shared 50 pages, 274 foot, 575k Doc, 325k PDF. o 520 acronyms and concepts defined, in V 3.0 Terms. o Scribd Acronym section may have some additions, which have not yet made it into the complete Terms collection. o
76 nations known to GAO I reconcile this.
Drone Scribd started early 2012 Sept (2 Oct 15)

2012 Sep-9 V 2.8 Scribd shared 39 pages, 160 footnotes, 480k doc, 240k PDF. o Now 35 docs in Scribd Drone Info collection. o I had now reviewed 12 of those docs, the newest 3 on International Law. o There has also been growth in Issues, and Corrections. 2012 Sep-7 V 2.7 Scribd uploaded 23 pages, 100 footnotes, 305k doc, 140k PDF, more than double size of initial launch. o Now 34 docs in Scribd Drone Info collection. o I had now reviewed 9 of those docs, including ACLU lawsuits, and FOIA requests, on behalf of allegedly innocent people killed by US drones, outside areas where any war declared, and who never had access to due process. Drone Wars UK Briefing. o Instead of Acronym section by document being reviewed, a consolidated reference in the front, since many docs shared similar needs. 2012 Sep-6 I split Drone Scribd separate from Drone Notes. o I had started a Drone Info collection on Scribd, intended to review individual docs there, correlate the value of their information. o Initially I found 19 docs for Scribd Drone Info collection. o I first reviewed 2 docs on police use of drones. I had previously reviewed many more docs on this topic, with what I learned from them, in Drone Notes, but due to my uncertainty about their copyright constraints, I had not uploaded these others to Scribd Drone Info collection. I see a need to correlate what I have
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learned from multiple sources, into a factual package of what we know so far. That may belong in the factual corrections section of Drone Scribd, with possible updates to Drone Issues, crosspointing appropriately. o I had separate sections with citations to factual corrections, so if authors, of the other reports, accepted the validity of my corrections, they could use info at those citation links in drafting future improvements of their own documents. o These other documents, as I went thru them, also resulted in additions for my Issues section of Drone Notes, plus some more stuff into Drone Terms. 2012 Sept-3 I split Drone Terms separate from Drone Notes. o 265 acronyms and concepts defined, in V 2.4, at time of initial split. o With later splits, Drone Terms became the largest document in my collection, so its revision history will stay with Drone Notes, for the time being, as I try to figure out how to cope with that mushrooming size. 2012 May, I started this research. o Prior to the start of this document, many friends had shared random links, to disturbing stories about drone trends, via social media. This became an effort to put the many links and contexts into a more coherent package.
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Located in my personal PC / Studies / Drones

Located in my personal PC / Studies / Drones

Located in my personal PC / Studies / Drones

Synopsis Whats This? (2 Oct 11)

Road Map to Understanding (2 Oct 13)

Located in my personal PC / Studies / Drones

Author ideological interjection (2 Nov 30)

http://www.lawfareblog.com/2012/10/readings-two-leading-academic-social-science-journals-onterrorism/ 11 http://www.tandfonline.com/action/aboutThisJournal?show=editorialBoard&journalCode=ftpv20& 12 http://www.tandfonline.com/action/aboutThisJournal?show=editorialBoard&journalCode=ftpv20

Located in my personal PC / Studies / Drones

Located in my personal PC / Studies / Drones

Drone Activist Directory (2 Oct 11)

Located in my personal PC / Studies / Drones

Also see Links at: Living Under Drones;31

Drone Scribd Introduction (2 Sep 10)

Located in my personal PC / Studies / Drones

Terrorism and Brutality (2 Sep 10)

Located in my personal PC / Studies / Drones

Located in my personal PC / Studies / Drones

Explain Child+ (2 Sep 8)

Located in my personal PC / Studies / Drones

Explain Drone+ (2 Oct 8)

Located in my personal PC / Studies / Drones

Explain Geneva Convention+ (2 Sep 9)

Geneva Convention(s),61 usually refers to international law treaties regarding

Located in my personal PC / Studies / Drones

Located in my personal PC / Studies / Drones

Explain International Law+ (2 Sep 8)

Located in my personal PC / Studies / Drones

Explain Latency+ (2 Nov 01)

Located in my personal PC / Studies / Drones

Explain Targeted Killing+ (3 Mar 16)

"One Hell of a Killing Machine": Signature Strikes and International Law

Located in my personal PC / Studies / Drones

Located in my personal PC / Studies / Drones

US Drone FAQ (3 Feb 18)

Located in my personal PC / Studies / Drones

ACLU Drone Lawsuits (2 Oct 10)

FOIA Lawsuit: Drone targeted killing (3 Mar 15)

Located in my personal PC / Studies / Drones

ACLU wins appeal against CIA (3 Mar 15)

Located in my personal PC / Studies / Drones

Lawsuit: Yemen Children Massacred by US drone (2 Sep 7)

Lawsuits: 3 US citizens killed by drones (2 Dec 25)

Located in my personal PC / Studies / Drones

ACLU loses FOIA on US citizens killed by drones (3 Jan 07)

Located in my personal PC / Studies / Drones

Legality of US Citizens killed by drones (2 Sep 11)

ACLU FOIA: Drones in USA (2 Oct 24)

Located in my personal PC / Studies / Drones

USDA = United States Dept of Agriculture;

Located in my personal PC / Studies / Drones

EFF FOIA: Drones in USA (2 Oct 24)

Drone Wars UK Briefing for 2011 (2 Sep 7)

Reprieve Drone Lawsuits in Britain (2 Dec 28)

UN 2013 Investigation (3 Mar 04)

Located in my personal PC / Studies / Drones

Located in my personal PC / Studies / Drones

UN 2013 Investigation backlash (3 Jan 28)

Located in my personal PC / Studies / Drones

Located in my personal PC / Studies / Drones

UN 2013 Investigation background (3 Jan 24)

UN rapporteur on Brennan to run CIA drones (3 Feb 10)

Located in my personal PC / Studies / Drones