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ACLU Sues Over Legality of "Targeted Killing" By Drones
MacAndrew writes "The ACLU has sued the United States Government to enforce a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for 'the release of records relating to the use of unmanned aerial vehicles — commonly known as 'drones' — for the purpose of targeting and killing individuals since September 11, 2001.' (Complaint.) The information sought includes the legal basis for use of the drones, how the program is managed, and the number of civilian deaths in areas of operation such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Yemen. The ACLU further claims that 'Recent reports, including public statements from the director of national intelligence, indicate that US citizens have been placed on the list of targets who can be hunted and killed with drones.' Aside from one's view of the wisdom, effectiveness, and morality of these military operations, the inclusion of US citizens suggests that summary remote-control executions are becoming routine. Especially given the difficulty in locating and targeting individuals from aircraft, risks of human and machine error are obvious, and these likely increase as the robots become increasingly autonomous (please no Skynet jokes). This must give pause to anyone who's ever spent time coding or debugging or even driving certain willful late model automobiles, and the US government evidently doesn't want to discuss it."
The war is controversial in general, but when it comes to actual operations on a warzone (in a country which has insurgency targetting US forces), citizenship should not be a factor in decision concerning use of force. A human life is not more valuable because the person happens to hold a US password. If you go and join some insurgency movement in a war torn country, expect to be treated like any other insurgent.
You may have a case against the drone war in general on humanitarian or human rights grounds, but don't play the "I'm am American and thus untouchable, kill those foreign Muslims but don't you dare to kill me, even if I'm doing the exact same thing. If you want US liberties, guess what, you should have stayed in the fucking US. The ALCU is way out of line here.
The people who are being targeted have done a little bit more than leave the country. They've left the country and joined up with enemies of the country who are actively engaged in the process of trying it do it harm.
And this has been proven in a court of law? Or is based on the hunch of some intelligence analyst who is contracted through a corporation to provide support to the DoD?
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
what the hell does the ACLU want?
It's right there in the summary:
If these records show that we're only killing "US Citizens are employed in the service of enemies of this Republic on foreign soil", that would be wonderful. I'd suggest that the ACLU stop there. If those records show that we're not only killing enemies, then there are serious questions to answer.
You can't just assume that every non-military US citizen killed in Iraq or Afghanistan is helping the insurgents without some data to prove it. All they're asking for is the data.
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The other reason to focus on drones, besides their novelty, is the fact that they are(notably unlike men with guns) commonly used on targets not immediately engaged in hostilities.
If somebody is actively involved in a firefight, this creates both a strong presumption of guilt and a strong practical difficultly in apprehension. Returning fire and killing them isn't ideal; but it is about as good as is practical. And, in such situations, I wouldn't see it as terribly relevant whether the shot is delivered by the forces on the ground, manned air support, or robotic air support.
However, one of the drone roles is the "We believe person X to be in building Y, not doing anything of note at present; but a known enemy on other occasions. Send a drone to blow up building Y." Here, there is none of the immediacy of the firefight scenario. In effect, a "trial" has occurred of citizen X, based on some sort of intelligence data, and now a sentence is being carried out. I'm sure that there are plenty of cases where, by high quality intelligence or by luck, the judgement is correct; but a request for information on how these judgements are carried out seems neither unreasonable, nor equivalent to demanding that soldiers in active engagement undergo absurd risks to take their opponents into custody undamaged.
When drones are used for air support of an active operation, they are generally called that. "Targeted killing", at least historically, always refers to the execution, by military means, of somebody believed to be an enemy in the context of some sort of military conflict; but not immediately engaged in hostilities.
Bunch of pussies shooting a $30000.00 bullet far away at some people, without accountability. No warriors, only point and click. Now you can be fat and not even be able to walk to kill. The civilian victims should start suing the government(s) responsible. They are wronged and this should clearly be illegal. I am very pro democracy and without accountability you are not in a real democracy. More like a republic led by pseudo dictators. I call them dictators because they say "national security" then they dictate what will happen, no debate, no constitution, no UN, no Geneva convention just... dictation.
I do hope all taliban/terrorists die, it just has to be done right or WE are the terrorists. They are hurting innocent people and to stop them from doing that we do the same? Strange world.
If a US Citizen is an enemy, they are fair game.
I'm going to take this sentence out of context since the rest of your post seems to be a bunch of rambling nonsense that has nothing to do with the issue presented.
Define "enemy". (without using the term "combatant")
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
And the changes were repealed in 2008.
It was added in 2006 so the military could help with basic law enforcement after Katrina. When it was no longer needed, it was repealed. Its kind of shocking it was repealed, but it was.
If so then there should be a policy reflecting that, and a politician somewhere that made the decision authorizing the action. Theoretically that should mean there is someone who could be held accountable by the public for the decision to assassinate fellow citizens. If, of course, one could find out what the policy is and who signed off on it.
Essentially, what are the legal grounds by which a citizen is designated as "Killable by U.S. the government"?
And if you think answering that question within the law isn't important, then answer this question: is a government that can't answer this question one that you would want to live under?
The ACLU is asking about is the process by which the US government decides that someone is a valid target. I think that pretty much everyone agrees that if someone is an enemy combatant (i.e. carrying weapons or attacking friendly forces) they are fair game. The question becomes what happens when the target is a) not in an area of active operations b)not engaged in armed conflict and c)a US citizen.
Lets take a hypothetical case of a US citizen operating in Yemen who the US government believes to be funding AQ. Is it legal for the president to order the US military to kill this person? It would pretty clearly be illegal to summarily execute them if they were operating out of New Jersey, but frankly is Yemen any different?
Well, the problem is not collateral damages.
It's the problem that a government in peacetime (despite all rethorics, the US is not at war, war on terrorism is the legal equivalent of war on drugs and other PR stunts) has death lists of people that it intends to murder.
So who decides who is allowed live?
(Btw, you DO REALIZE that the Nazis that laws on the books that authorized them to murder "inferior races". Guess it's better that the US has death lists of people "wanted dead" without any legal base.)
A completely secondary thing is up to which point collateral is acceptable, but that's not the point of the ACLU action.
The ACLU is targeting the part that some part of the executive branch of the US government, decides who gets killed, in secret. Without any review.)
Where is the difference to some rogue dictatorship?
That's fine, we don't have to use the drones for precision attacks, we can keep them in a surveillance only role.
We can just go back to daisy cutters and carpet bombing once the target has been spotted.
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
I'd think the ACLU would seek action in a court of law. Or even a framework of laws that define what is correct and what isn't.
We need to consider ending our military's ability to operate completely outside the law. The police don't need that kind of power, nor fire, nor any other government service group. We'd need to redesign the system, but we should consider it.
Look, during hostilities, people get killed. That's what happens. US citizen or not, if they are on the battlefield fighting American troops they will get shot at. But if they are hanging out at the Taliban Tavern drinking a pint of Osama bin Lager with their mates, possibly planning the next 9/11 attack, killing them then is a summary execution rather than an act of war. I think the ACLU has a point that we should investigate, arrest and try them rather than summarily executing them.
Rational people disagree about the meaning of the 4th amendment. This has been debated for like the past 100 years. The ACLU has a view on gun rights that I don't agree with, and a lot of other people don't. That doesn't make them a hypocrite because they disagree with me. Let me ask this: have the ACLU actively fought against individual rights? Or have they just avoided supporting individual rights cases? ( That's not a rhetorical question, I honestly don't know ).
Everybody is a hypocrite on something. That's no reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater. There's plenty of good that the ACLU is doing, and if they don't do it, there's not much of anybody else doing it. Don't cut your nose to spite your face, I say. Like I said, we have the NRA supporting individual gun rights, but who is supporting the first and fourth amendment ( amongst others )? The ACLU.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
Interestingly, over the years I find that I have lined up against the ACLU's positions more often than I agree with what they are attempting to accomplish... this particular case is just another example.
And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make
Well, hint. For the majority of the world population, the US is also just foreign soil. You just defended 9/11, right? I mean, I'm almost sure that at least one person killed during the attacks had been a serious criminal by some foreign country's definition of serious criminal, and the rest where just collateral damage. As some supporters here already argued, they should have kept better company. (Sounds slightly different, when applied in reverse, doesn't it?)
However, with these drones, they are specifically targeting people.
Would you prefer that we go back to carpet-bombing?
If you'd like to volunteer to serve them papers I'm sure we can manage to kill two birds with one stone.
While the United States is certainly not perfect when it comes to the execution of military procedures, the fact is that in most cases, the United States has played by the established rules of engagement. Yes, the united States has ABSOLUTELY engaged in military pursuits that have been unethical end illegal, but just remember that the United States fights an enemy who does not recognize ANY such rules other than what they interpret in their holy books.
And to those who complain about how the U.S. treats its prisoners, enemy combatants, or whatever PC term you wish to use, the fact remains that prisoners of the United States have it far easier and are treated far more humanely than what the U.S. soldiers face.
I am not weighing in on either the pro- or anti- "killing from drones" question.
But I would like to point out that drones create an opportunity that is perhaps in a blindspot for many in and out of the military.
When a soldier goes into a firefight, why must he shoot to kill? Because the other side is shooting to kill him. A remote controlled drone breaks that model. The enemy cannot kill the drone operator, they can only damage the drone - a matter of expense rather than life or death.
In the sort of "war" we're now in, with enemies who hide amongst their own families and neighbors, the chances are very high that you create one new enemy for every enemy you kill, and several for every civilian. So with drones, the military value equation is strongly tipped toward NOT killing, if you can achieve your objective in other ways.
Instead of blowing up that car full of insurgent leaders, disable it in the middle of the desert by blowing a hole through the engine block. Develop knock-out gas bombs, or a fragmentation bomb that injects tiny frozen pellets of a knock out drug. THEN send in your troops, or even a drone "paddy wagon". Taze that guy who MAY have a gun, then have the drone roll over and inject him with a sedative.
Yeah, I know, it sounds all "liberal, peace-nik, kumbaya-ish". But if it does a better job than bullets and bombs, without risking your soldiers - why not? You can always follow up with lethal force if it doesn't work.
"No person shall be . . . deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law"
It seems pretty clear that to many people here, a non-citizen isn't a "person". OTOH, in the US at least, a registered corporation is a "person". So corporations should be protected but visiting tourists shouldn't.
At least that's the idea that many are expressing here.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.