Droning On, Part (N+1)

Allegra Kirkland at TPM Livewire:

Man On Beach Takes Down Drone
By Throwing T-Shirt At It, Ends Up In Jail

A Southern California man’s relaxing day at the beach came to an unpleasant conclusion this week. After taking down a drone that was hovering over his group of friends by throwing his T-shirt at it, Augustine Lehecka found himself behind bars at the Vista County jail, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported.

Lehecka told the newspaper he “felt threatened” by the low-flying drone, which had four whirling blades and was equipped with a mounted camera.

"Threatened"? NFK! Threatened by the blades and by the spy camera!

(NOT the drone in the story - SB)

(NOT the beach party in the story - SB)

Out of concern for his friends' privacy, he said he tossed his shirt toward the drone, knocking it into the sand. Ten minutes later, he was arrested by sheriff’s deputies on suspicion of felony vandalism and taken to jail.

...

Lehecka was released eight hours later after posting a $10,000 bail, according to the newspaper.

On Tuesday, however, the district attorney's office declined to press charges against Lehecka.

The aircraft belonged to a pilot who works for a drone company, who said he was not invading the group’s privacy and suffered $750 in damage from the drone’s crash landing.

...

Several of our nation's founders mentioned that there was an inherent danger in amending the Constitution with a specific Bill of Rights: namely, that the list would become a formula for limiting our rights, which by the founders' intent were too numerous to be listed with any completeness.

And here we have exactly that: there is no explicitly listed right of privacy in the Constitution (though SCOTUS Justices have found aspects of such a right in various passages); therefore, in the opinion of jerk-off small-town sheriffs, there is no right to privacy.

I realize that I argue both sides of this issue in various contexts; e.g., photographers need a well-defined right to take pics of people and objects in public, i.e., in places where there is no reasonable expectation of privacy. But no right (not even speech) is completely unlimited, and if someone flew a drone with a clearly visible camera mounted on it over my beach party for more than, say, half a minute, I would be inclined to start tossing something at the drone, sand at the very least. If the drone pilot wants to avoid such physical commentary on his (I can't imagine "her") spying on a social event, he can hover a couple hundred feet up, where the drone is less vulnerable to anyone with a good arm, and... admittedly... the view probably isn't as good.

Privacy is scarce in these parlous times. If this ruling had gone the sheriffs' way instead of the beach party's, we might as well pitch privacy in the trash can designated for rights our overlords have already decided we don't get to have. I can only hope they are haunted by ghosts of Americans in history who have at least given actual thought to the matter of what privacy has to be available in a free society.

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AFTERTHOUGHT: Drones are relatively new. Many of the technologies have been around for a long time, but the particular combination has not. How well proven is it? Who can say! The 21st-century "tradition" says to corp's, "market a product as soon as you can sell it to someone; don't wait for years of testing to prove it safe and/or effective." And that's what drone manufacturers have done, by and large. People want 'em, people are willing to pay big $ for 'em... so people get 'em, and devil take the hindmost, not to mention the people standing right underneath 'em.

In countries where America's drones were first used for military purposes, no one in the local villages had any choice but to stand underneath the drones and, angrily or resignedly, die when the drones struck. The same is not true of Americans on their own soil. We are a tech-oriented people; we have our own anti-dronecraft weapons: we have open-carry laws and... and we even have T-shirts. Megalomaniacs challenging ordinary citizens by flying personal drones into their midst: beware!

Annoy Your Neighbor Your Neighbor's Attractive Spouse Any Local Airport All Commercial/Private Pilots Just About Anybody ... With Your Very Own DRONE!!

Got $1k or maybe $1.5k to throw away? Have a fondness for flying things, perhaps left over from the model aircraft of your childhood? Enjoy annoying the bejezus out of people of various sorts? Yes? Then take yourself to Micro Center or Amazon and acquire your very own personal DRONE! Be the first in your neighborhood to put some hapless child's eye out, or fly your very own remote-controlled craft through a neighbor's bedroom window! There are almost no laws at this point to restrict you from doing whatever you goddamned well feel like doing with one of these things, so what are you waiting for??? <sarcasm />

Those I've seen pictures of have camera mounts, but I'll bet if you're clever you can modify those to carry a firearm instead. Oh, yes;  the possibilities are limitless... <sigh />

Pakistani Drone Victim Seized, Tortured, Released, Threatened With More

You can't convince me this happened without Pakistani and US government knowledge. Kevin Gosztola:

A drone victim, journalist and activist who has spoken out against drone strikes in Pakistan, who was abducted from his home over one week ago, has been released.

Drone strikes vehicle

Kareem Khan, who has been pushing a legal case against the CIA and Pakistan government for killing his son and brother with a drone in December 2009, was abducted in the early hours of February 5 by at fifteen to twenty men. Some of them, family members said, were wearing police uniforms.

According to the human rights organization, Reprieve, Khan was taken to a cell in an “undisclosed location.” Later that day, on February 5, he was “blindfolded and driven for approximately 2-3 hours to another undisclosed location where he remained until his release.”

“While detained, Mr Khan was interrogated, beaten and tortured. He was placed in chains and repeatedly questioned about his investigations into drone strikes, his knowledge of drone strike victims and his work advocating on their behalf,” Reprieve reported.

Khan was driven to the Tarnol area nearby Rawalpindi, where he lives. His kidnappers threw him from the van and warned him “not to speak to the media.”

Prior to his abduction, Khan was due to fly to Europe and address German, Dutch and British parliamentarians about his experience with drone strikes and the work he has done as a journalist investigating strikes in the region. Also, according to Al Jazeera, he was to speak to “UK legislators in London and the International Criminal Court in The Hague.”

...

Parodying the late great Tennessee Ernie Ford,

...
If the drones don't get ya, then the state thugs will.
Ya dodge sick tin drones...

We are going through another of those periods in which it is dangerous to life and limb to be a journalist, especially a war journalist... and the dangers are not limited to the weaponry, or to the troops of just one side. And I wouldn't bet on its being confined to Pakistan in the long run.

Yet Another NSA Lie: Despite NSA Claims, Metadata, Cell Phone Tracking Technology Used For Drone Strikes

Via DSWright of FDL, we have Jeremy Scahill and Glenn Greenwald:

...

According to a former drone operator for the military’s Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) who also worked with the NSA, the agency often identifies targets based on controversial metadata analysis and cell-phone tracking technologies. Rather than confirming a target’s identity with operatives or informants on the ground, the CIA or the U.S. military then orders a strike based on the activity and location of the mobile phone a person is believed to be using.

...

This is bad enough in itself... people use other people's cell phones all the time... but think about it: As various American police departments and other law enforcement agencies deploy drones within the United States, do you doubt for a moment that they will ultimately apply the same approach? Somewhere, the shade of J. Edgar Hoover is smiling his twisted smile...

Haste Waste To The Wedding: At Least 8 Wedding Parties Struck By US Drones Or Piloted Aircraft Since 2001

Two articles provide the horrifying details. Rather than quote extensively, I'll let the articles speak for themselves. First, from Tom Engelhardt, via The Nation:

The US Has Bombed at Least Eight Wedding Parties Since 2001

Next, a piece by Heather Linebaugh, former US Air Force intelligence imagery and geo-spatial analyst, writing for The Guardian:

I worked on the US drone program. The public should know what really goes on

(H/T BrandonJ at FDL for both links.)

Several thoughts, in no particular order:

Ms. Linebaugh remarks on the frequent severe psychological damage inflicted on drone operators and analysts by their work: the perpetual mental "videos" of drone kills running in one's mind; the (not surprisingly undocumented) suicide rate of drone analysts and operators. Two of her immediate colleagues committed suicide shortly after leaving the Air Force. Apparently the remoteness of drone targets is no insulation against the horrors of inflicting a particularly gruesome death. And there's always, always a feeling of uncertainty about whether the targeted people were indeed carrying weapons, or engaging in terrorist operations, or indeed anything other than civilians going about their nonthreatening daily business: was that individual carrying an assault rifle or a shovel? the drone camera images are too pixelated to tell you.

As for the wedding parties, do I even need to comment? Are the troops so under-trained, or the weapons so horrifyingly imprecise, that either the operators cannot tell if the targets are hostiles, or the drones themselves cannot "surgically" strike the bad guys? If so, why is the great United States of America using the damned things? If it is true that one can tell a lot about a nation by the ways they wage war, I can only imagine what America's use of drones says about our nation's character.

Aftermath of drone that killed
American citizen Anwar al-Awlaki (via PBS)

Is The CIA Freelancing? Juan Cole Examines The Possibility

Juan Cole:

Pakistan: North Waziristan (yellow)

The CIA drone strike in North Waziristan yesterday killed 25 persons and targeted a high-level meeting of the Pakistani Taliban (Tehrik-i Taliban Pakistan or TTP). It finally killed TTP leader Hakimu’llah Mahsoud of the large and important Mahsoud tribe in the Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA) of northern Pakistan. ... [Mahsoud's killing] was confirmed by the TTP ...

The deadly attack comes only weeks after Mahsoud said in an interview that he was ready for peace talks with newly elected Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif, over the objections of TTP hard liners. ...

This context for the drone strike has to raise the question of whether John Brennan, head of the CIA, is deliberately attempting to forestall Pakistan-TTP peace talks and is determined to prevent Nawaz Sharif and Obama from cementing a strong relationship. Pakistani officials are talking about a ‘sabotaging’ of the talks. ...

The TTP will certainly launch reprisals... The Pakistani public is bracing itself for attacks.

...

(Bolds original by Cole. Red is emphasis by SB.)

Is there any possibility that Brennan is acting without direct authorization of President Obama?  Does he have that little control of his department heads? I understand there are some aspects of CIA and NSA operations that have to be independent of direct control by the executive branch, but this one seems to me to bear specifically on a matter of foreign policy, of which one would think a president would keep close personal control.

Thanks to Edward Snowden, we know there are aspects of our government that are run by the NSA. Are there also aspects of foreign policy that are not merely implemented through the CIA but are actually established by that agency? Or is Obama, as so often seems the case, content to let his appointees do whatever they think best, even in cases where their actions may lead to war?

'Congress' Hears Pakistani Family Whose Grandmother Was Killed By US Drone

Kevin Gosztola at FDL:

Members of a family in Pakistan, who became victims of the United States drone program in October of last year when their grandmother was killed and children were wounded, traveled to the US to inform Americans of what the US government is doing to Pakistanis and how it directly impacts them.

Rafiq ur Rehman, the son of 67-year-old Mammana Bibi who was obliterated by Hellfire missiles fired by a drone while she was out in the family garden, addressed an audience at a congressional briefing convened by Congressman Alan Grayson today. Rafiq’s son, 13-year-old Zubair, who was injured in the strike, and his daughter, 9-year-old Nabila, also injured in the strike, spoke as well. Brave New Films director Robert Greenwald was present to introduce the family and show a clip from his new film in which the family appears, “Unmanned: America’s Drone Wars.”

...

Only five congressmen, including Grayson, made an appearance at the briefing: Rep. John Conyers, Rep. Rush Holt, Rep. Rick Nolan and Rep. Jan Schakowsky.

...

Five members of Congress. Five Democrats, mostly progressives. Only those five turned out to hear the aggrieved family. What does that tell you about how much the House of Representatives cares about Mr. Obama's drone victims?

So... an isolated mistake in a big war? Hardly. From the same article:

...

Jennifer Gibson, a lawyer for the human rights organization, Reprieve, provided testimony and put the attack that killed their grandmother into perspective.

“This tragedy is far from the only one,” Gibson explained. “Since 2010, Reprieve and the Foundation for Fundamental Rights have interviewed more than 150 families and civilian victims of US drone strikes. Only three could make the long journey from the tribal areas of Pakistan, but all of them have stories, largely unheard and untold here in the US. Together they reveal a secret war that is immoral, unlawful and counterproductive. Mistakes like the mistake that killed Mammana Bibi are not stand-alone events. They started with the very first strike this administration took.”

...

Some say the United States has no obligation to "commit suicide" as a nation in the face of terrorism. I agree... but that has never been the issue. Neither does America have the right to kill people indiscriminately with a weapon against which there is no effective defense. Considering the number killed who are innocent bystanders, the practice of drone warfare is often effectively murder.

I am ashamed of what is being done in the name of my country. Ashamed. In my 65 years, I never felt this way until Mr. Bush Junior turned that nation into an international murder machine... and Mr. Obama decided to follow the same awful pattern.

FBI Director Mueller To Congress: Yes, We Do Use Drones Within The US

It seems to me I remember being told the FBI doesn't do this, wouldn't do this, etc.:

At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday, FBI Director Robert Mueller told lawmakers that his agency currently uses drones for surveillance.

...

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) asked Mueller if the FBI uses drones on "U.S. soil."

"Yes," Mueller said. "Let me just put it in context. [In a] very, very minimal way. And very seldom."

Kind of reminds me of the Captain in Gilbert and Sullivan's HMS Pinafore on his seasickness, his propensity to curse, etc.:

Crew: What, never?
Captain: No, never!
Crew: What, never?
Captain: Well, hardly ever!

Look: our government is systematically lying to us about the nature and degree of actions it is undertaking within our borders, directed at our own citizens, actions which may be in violation of the Bill of Rights. I submit that is unacceptable, even if it happens "[h]ardly ever!" And I strongly suspect it may actually be a bit more frequent than that...

Drones: Coming To A Police Department Near You

"AR Drone: almost certainly the world's
first Wi-Fi enabled iPhone-controllable
miniature flying device"
(H/T Glenn Greenwald)

Domestic law enforcement use of drones, probably smaller, more agile drones than the ones that fling Hellfire missiles in foreign countries (Pakistan etc.), is not only planned, but is being implemented domestically and being marketed to American police departments. These small drones are weaponized with Tasers or a beanbag gun... "nonlethal" weapons. This is not something that may happen, or will happen in the future: this is something being implemented and marketed right now. Glenn Greenwald provides such details as are known.

Many of your rights as an American citizen, as listed in the Bill of Rights, are for practical purposes at an end. Gratuitous warrantless surveillance is now a technologically realistic possibility; who's to stop your government from watching you?

As I think about the history of various new weapons, I can't help wondering if these technologies have some inherent vulnerabilities to simple, inexpensive countermeasures that will reduce their usefulness to police departments or at least make them very expensive to operate. Pebbles from pocket sling-shots or pea-shooters come to mind. Legal prohibitions against such countermeasures seem to me less than clearly sustainable in the face of people's Fourth Amendment right to be "secure in their persons... against unreasonable searches...", but IANAL. I don't know how much such defenses would be reality and how much fantasy, but it seems to me worth contemplating the possibilities: what are your privacy rights worth to you?

How Does Obama Really Feel About His Drone 'Kill List'? And Will It Pass To The Next President?

Kevin Gosztola of FDL's The Dissenter reveals that "an unnamed official with the Obama administration" told Scott Shane of the New York Times that in seeking to answer that question, the Obama administration contemplated the very real possibility that the levers of power might pass from Obama's to Rmoney's hands, and sought to codify and restrict the targeted assassination powers. From Shane's article:

...

... With a continuing debate about the proper limits of drone strikes, Mr. Obama did not want to leave an “amorphous” program to his successor, the official said. The effort, which would have been rushed to completion by January had Mr. Romney won, will now be finished at a more leisurely pace, the official said.

...

Gosztola's concerns are much like my own:

...

The revelation is remarkable in that it shows GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney—not the fact that the power to extrajudicially kill people suspected of committing or having ties to terrorism was being claimed—was why the administration began to have increased concerns over drone warfare.

...

Clearly there needs to be a formal policy in place regarding targeted assassinations using drones: they are sloppy weapons liable to kill far more people than the intended target, and in those few cases where the targeted person has been an American citizen, that citizen had no opportunity for a trial, a proof of his/her guilt before a court of law, and a formal sentence by such a court. In other words, if drone use were not bad enough on the grounds that America is murdering babies, it is still worse because it is used unapologetically to violate the Fourth Amendment. All of this needs to be thought out, debated and decided by a team of advisors not given to thinking in lock-step with the president.

That said, drone warfare is liable to continue and even increase into the indefinite future, including, yes, into a Republican presidency, if indeed that would be any worse. (I always said Obama is the lesser evil, not that he is not capable of evil.) If this haphazard, cowboy-shoot-first attitude continues, it will not be long before America has no friends among the nations and leaders of the world... and who can blame them. We need three things: real rules in place and implemented in the field, clear accountability for every drone strike, and... most of all... transparency. These acts are being committed in my name, and in yours if you're an American citizen: you deserve to know as specifically as possible who is being killed and why, what their nationality is, if they are noncombatants, whether their due process rights were preserved, and who dies as "collateral damage" from this most indiscriminate of weapons.

And Mr. Obama... well, he needs to pull out the book from which he used to teach Review of Constitutional Law (or whatever it's called), and spend some time with his nose in it. Apparently he's forgotten some things. Apparently, many of the rest of us have forgotten those same things. It's time for a serious review of the rightful limits on presidential power.

Droning On Forever

Droning on for hours

The BBC says that DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) has succeeded in flying a pair of drones "closely" (necessarily at most 100' apart) at an altitude of 48,000' for a period of 2½ hours, long enough for one drone, at least in theory, to refuel the other. Neither drone had a pilot aboard.

No Pakistani doctors near the border reported advance complaints from civilians of potential neck injuries from looking skyward 24x7. [/snark]

Drones refueled in this manner would be able to increase their wedding party kill ratio (WPKR) to better than 50%, including presumably the bride and groom on their wedding night, DARPA did not announce. [/snark]

I'm sorry. I still fail to see the moral difference between these drones and Germany's V‑2s in W.W.II. Both kill(ed) noncombatant civilians far from any battlefield. And drones will soon be able to fly essentially forever, or until the vendor needs a new contract, whichever comes first. Isn't modern technology wonderful? [/snark]

(H/T fatster at FDL.)

Newsy Video On DISCLOSE Act Followup; Another On ACLU And Family Lawsuit Over Awlaki Death

Derek Hamm of Newsy Community has requested in an email that I embed a video they have made on the DISCLOSE Act failure. Instead, I'll refer you to the Newsy site for the video. It's a good video, but I'm trying to spare some of my lower-bandwidth readers, and I've already posted several videos still on this current main page, so you can watch it over there instead.

UPDATE:  I am indebted to newsy.com for informing me of the lawsuit by the ACLU and the family of Anwar Al-Awlaki against the US government for the assassination of Awlaki and his 16-year-old son in a targeted drone strike. You may recall from my earlier posts that Awlaki was an American citizen not engaged in any battlefield action against American troops at the time of his assassination, and therefore should have been captured and put on trial for any alleged acts of terrorism. Instead, his name was added to President Obama's "kill list," and with no trial, no arrest and not even any showing of probable cause, he was assassinated. As I've said before, this is as un-American as it gets; our nation's founders are surely turning in their graves.