FBI admits using drones to spy in US - The Hill - covering Congress, Politics, Political Campaigns and Capitol Hill. The FBI uses drones to watch specific targets within the United States, bureau Director Robert Mueller revealed on Wednesday.
States join battle over drone flights - The Hill's RegWatch. The nascent drone industry is coming under threat from lawmakers on Capitol Hill and in state legislatures who are weighing restrictions on their use in the United States.
Eighteen states have considered bills that would limit the use of unmanned aerial systems, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, and more are likely to follow suit. In Washington, meanwhile, lawmakers are pushing for new civil liberties and privacy protections to ease fears about invasive surveillance from the skies. Manufacturers of unmanned aerial systems say there is vast potential for police departments and law enforcement officials to use drones in their work. Justice Department memo reveals legal case for drone strikes on Americans. A secretive memo from the Justice Department, provided to NBC News, provides new information about the legal reasoning behind one of the Obama administration's controversial policies.
Now, John Brennan, Obama's nominee for CIA director, is expected to face tough questions about drone strikes on Thursday when he appears before the Senate Intelligence Committee. NBC's Michael Isikoff reports. By Michael Isikoff, National Investigative Correspondent, NBC News. Holder Letter on Counterterror Strikes Against U.S. Citizens - Interactive Feature. Facebook Twitter Google+ E-mail Share Published: May 22, 2013 The day before President Obama’s planned speech on drone policy, Attorney General Eric H.
Holder: We've Droned 4 Americans, 3 by Accident. Oops. In an extraordinary admission, Attorney General Eric Holder has told Congress that U.S. drone strikes since 2009 have killed four Americans — three of whom were “not specifically targeted.”
Obama Admits 4 US Citizens Killed by Drones, Deaths of Those Not Targeted Left Unexplained. Photo by The White House (via Flickr) (update 1 & 2) Ahead of a major speech on counterterrorism policies tomorrow, the administration of President Barack Obama has officially declassified information related to drone strikes against four American citizens and also acknowledged for the first time that they were killed by the United States.
Obama: U.S. will keep deploying drones when they are only option. Drone strikes are a necessary evil, but one that must be used with more temperance as the United States' security situation evolves, President Barack Obama said Thursday.
America prefers to capture, interrogate and prosecute terrorists, but there are times when this isn't possible, Obama said in a speech at the National Defense University in Washington. Terrorists intentionally hide in hard-to-reach locales and putting boots on the ground is often out of the question, he said. Thus, when the United States is faced with a threat from terrorists in a country where the government has only tenuous or no influence, drones strikes are the only option -- and they're legal because America "is at war with al Qaeda, the Taliban and their associated forces," Obama said.
U.S. Drone Strikes: White House Takes Lead On Drone Process. WASHINGTON -- White House counterterror chief John Brennan has seized the lead in guiding the debate on which terror leaders will be targeted for drone attacks or raids, establishing a new procedure to vet both military and CIA targets.
The US President's Hit List or "Death by PowerPoint" Last Friday, I wrote a post on how: US national security agencies increasingly use computerized analysis of collected data to designate a person as an enemy combatant.The US currently uses non-judicial Presidential "hit lists" to simplify the killing of people (including US citizens) designated as enemy combatants.The US is rapidly increasing its use of drones to kill enemy combatants nearly anywhere in the world 24x7x365.
The scary part is that the combination of these trends is the path of least resistance to an automated totalitarianism. For those of you out of the loop on what is going on, it probably seemed to be a bit of a stretch. Particularly, the idea that the President could put American citizens on a military hit list without going through a judicial process. A Senator's Lonely Crusade to Learn the CIA's Secrets - Conor Friedersdorf. Ron Wyden is entitled to know the rules that surround targeted killing and all the countries where America is killing people.
But no one will tell him. Reuters Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, has sent an extraordinary letter to top White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan, President Obama's choice to lead the CIA. The letter poses questions about executive power, like "How much evidence does the President need to determine that a particular American can be lawfully killed? " and "Does the President have to provide individual Americans with the opportunity to surrender before killing them? " Families of Americans killed by drones file suit. Surveillance Drone Supposedly Spotted Over Elgin [UPDATE] Image via YouTube screen grab. World Outline: Home. Ioerror: The US has killed a US Cit... Secret panel can put Americans on kill list' Transcripts. Return to Transcripts main page Interview with Dick and Liz Cheney; Interview With Michael Hayden, Jane Harman; Interview with Haley Barbour Aired October 2, 2011 - 09:00 ET CANDY CROWLEY, HOST: In the words of Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, this has been a bad year for terrorists.
Today, the struggle against al Qaeda with former Vice President Dick Cheney and Liz Cheney, former State Department official, and with former CIA director Michael Hayden and the former ranking member of the House intelligence committee, Jane Harman. Secret U.S. Memo Made Legal Case to Kill a Citizen. Release the al-Aulaqi OLC opinion, Or Its Reasoning. The Washington Post reports that the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel wrote a classified legal opinion in support of the al-Aulaqi killing. Carrie Budoff Brown* at Politico reports that former U.S. The due-process-free assassination of U.S. citizens is now reality - Glenn Greenwald. (updated below) It was first reported in January of last year that the Obama administration had compiled a hit list of American citizens whom the President had ordered assassinated without any due process, and one of those Americans was Anwar al-Awlaki.
No effort was made to indict him for any crimes (despite a report last October that the Obama administration was “considering” indicting him). Despite substantial doubt among Yemen experts about whether he even had any operational role in Al Qaeda, no evidence (as opposed to unverified government accusations) was presented of his guilt. Qaida’s YouTube Preacher Is Killed In Yemen. An American citizen responsible for taking al-Qaida’s message viral has been killed in Yemen, according to the Yemeni government. As a target, the Obama administration considered him second only to Osama bin Laden. Was Killing Al-Qaida’s YouTube Preacher Illegal? Radical Cleric Back on YouTube, Despite Video Purge. Family hits out at US in fury at fate of Awlaki's slain son - Middle East, World. Close Read: An American Teen-ager in Yemen.
Here is a birth certificate, for a boy who was born in Denver, Colorado, on September 13, 1995. Obama Drones Kill 2 Citizens; Where's the Law? In Focus: Drones on trial after Marines killed. November 9, 2011. Awlaki Killing Is Awash in Open Secrets. The Rude Pundit. The Case for Using Predator Drone Strikes Against Wall Street Executives:From a secret Justice Department memorandum obtained by the Rude Pundit:
BoingBoing: New reality: US assassinat...