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Death By Metadata: The NSA's Secret Role In the US Drone Strike Program
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Glenn Greenwald reports at his new independent news site 'The Intercept' that according to a former drone operator for the military's Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), the NSA often identifies targets based on controversial metadata analysis and cell-phone tracking technologies. In one tactic, the NSA 'geolocates' the SIM card or handset of a suspected terrorist's mobile phone, enabling the CIA and U.S. military to conduct night raids and drone strikes to kill or capture the individual in possession of the device. The technology has been responsible for taking out terrorists and networks of people facilitating improvised explosive device attacks against US forces in Afghanistan. But he also states that innocent people have 'absolutely' been killed as a result of the NSA's increasing reliance on the surveillance tactic. One problem is that targets are increasingly aware of the NSA's reliance on geolocating, and have moved to thwart the tactic. Some have as many as 16 different SIM cards associated with their identity within the High Value Target system while other top Taliban leaders, knowing of the NSA's targeting method, have purposely and randomly distributed SIM cards among their units in order to elude their trackers. As a result, even when the agency correctly identifies and targets a SIM card belonging to a terror suspect, the phone may actually be carried by someone else, who is then killed in a strike. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, which uses a conservative methodology to track drone strikes, estimates that at least 2,400 people in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia have been killed by unmanned aerial assaults under the Obama administration. Greenwald's source says he has come to believe that the drone program amounts to little more than death by unreliable metadata. 'People get hung up that there's a targeted list of people. It's really like we're targeting a cell phone. We're not going after people – we're going after their phones, in the hopes that the person on the other end of that missile is the bad guy.' Whether or not Obama is fully aware of the errors built into the program of targeted assassination, he and his top advisers have repeatedly made clear that the president himself directly oversees the drone operation and takes full responsibility for it."
Do you really know if you're the first person to have used the particular SIM in your phone? Sure the vendor said it was new, but do you really know? Particularly if you live in a third world country where there's no big-name corporate retailers?
The much more significant point would seem to be that the use of military assets to bomb civilian criminals is not the sort of thing the U.S. government is supposed to have the authority to do.
These "terrorists" sound like they're criminals not soldiers, and as such they should be a matter for the Afghani police. They should be apprehended, brought to trial and if found guilty sentenced according to Afghani law.
Whether it a drone that fires the missile, or a cell phone meta-data-mining program that provides the target is rather less important than the fact that blowing up a building to kill a target is an act of war and really not an appropriate solution.
PR-wise, it doesn't matter because we (USofA!) will still claim that we killed their #2 or #3 sub-commander.
But you do raise an interesting point. Could those SIM cards be sold/donated to the enemies of X? So we (USofA!) end up killing X's enemies for him?
Cut the speaker and display wires (no sound and no lights) and you now have a "homing beacon" for a drone attack that can be hidden just about anywhere.
Actually most folks on this planet are pretty nice. Unless -of course- you start randomly bombing them, or steal their resources, or invade their country. Then they stop being quite as nice. Look at New Zealand. They don't go around pissing people off in the first place, so they never get attacked :-P
It sounds like you ARE a man who would have no compunction murdering an entire family.
If you think terrorists are scary, you should never drive or get in a car ever again, because doing that is much more likely to get you killed than the big bad oh-so-scary terrorists you're going on about.
Is the world "scary"? Well, everyone dies eventually, and I guess death is scary, so sure. What's scariest about it? Cancer and heart disease. Yup. If you're going to worry about stuff that could kill you, worry about cancer and heart disease. Because it's about 80% likely that that is what will kill you. Terrorists well let's see they're like #2000 on the list of stuff that is likely to get you killed, if that. So, no, it is not we who are not understanding what's happening around us. It is you who needs a crash course in statistics. Badly.
---linuxrocks123
vi ~/.emacs # I'm probably going to Hell for this.
Yes, the world is a dangerous place. It was a dangerous place 200 years ago too. More dangerous, by any metric. Yet we still banded together in the name of freedom and not only shrugged off our cloak of protection (England) but actually engaged it in war, in the name of freedom. Yes, indeed, there was a day when we consciously gave up safety for freedom. How far we have come...
There was a time when people understood that safety wasn't the holy grail we should be chasing after. That no matter how much you give up, you can never be truly, totally safe. That some things are more important than safety. Cattle are safe. Their protectors guarantee this to a great extent. Not only are they protected from predators, they're also protected from disease and have all their routine needs for food and shelter met. Is that the type of existence we should be striving for?
I don't believe your claims, but let's forget about that. Let's say that your claims are all indisputably true. Why should I be any more scared of these monsters that threaten to take my life than I am of my own government, which is actually succeeding in taking my freedom?
Are you one of those people that believes that life in bondage is more valuable than death in the name of freedom? How do you reconcile your stance with the attitude that prevailed at the founding of this country, which Patrick Henry summarized in 1775 with the words: "Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
The story of al-Awalaki's 16 year old son doesn't get enough coverage. Presumably, he's one of the 4 americans that have been (officially) killed by drone strikes.
Obama's campaign staff said that the boy should've "had a more responsible father."
http://www.theatlantic.com/pol...
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
yawn.
I fear what my own government can do to me FAR more than I fear any 'terrorist'. and the chances of a US authority figure fucking us over (cops, judges, politicians, etc) is likely in our lifetimes while being hit by a terrorist is extremely unlikely.
we are tired of this 'rule by fear'. we understand you like to control us that way, but we are hip to your bullshit and one day, the tides will turn and your 'culture of fear' won't be so popular anymore.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Well...
His Executive Order for closing same pretty much had all the loopholes it needed, since it required that prisoners be returned to their countries of origin if possible (and most of the countries of origin didn't want those guys back).
Plus there was the part about "The Department of Defense has determined that a number of the individuals currently detained at GuantÃnamo are eligible for such transfer or release.", which implies strongly that there are also a number NOT so eligible.
Then there's the "This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations." part, which provides plenty of cover for the DoJ to determine that any particular inmate is NOT eligible for release.
In other words, the Executive Order was written so as to cover Obama's ass first and foremost, with the actual closing of Gitmo a bonus, if it happened.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
You don't understand the problem, it isn't about being nice, or anything wrong you might have done to them. They are ultimately going to come after New Zealand because New Zealand doesn't conform to the rules they demand you live under. Do you know anything about the age of Islamic conquest, such as when they invaded Europe or took Constantinople? That is what they are about, their goal is a Muslim world even if it takes force of arms. You don't want them to get stronger.
Al Qaeda-Trained Terrorists in New Zealand, Prime Minister Says
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
The U.S.'s brutal and stupid foreign policy, carried out by the NSA, CIA, DOD, et al., does at least as much -- possibly more -- to create monsters than protect us from them. It's a wonderful cycle for the military/industrial/security complex: the complex fscks over nation A, nation A gets angry and makes aggressive noise, the complex points at nation A and says, "See? See? Danger! Feed the complex so we can protect you!"
Of course kicking the hornet's nest and then telling people, "Hey, we need to go kick hornet's nests because look at how dangerous these hornets are!" is hardly an American invention. But we are the current masters of it for sure.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Do you know anything about the age of Islamic conquest, such as when they invaded Europe or took Constantinople?
Do you understand that the people who took Constantinople and invaded Europe further (to be stopped at Vienna) were different from the people who carried out the initial building of the Islamic Caliphate and invaded Europe several centuries prior? Different ethnicity, different nation, different language, different customs - that they had the same religion (though even that was practiced differently in many ways) is a relatively minor detail.
I mean, by your own logic, every single war of conquest by a Christian state against a non-Christian one would be "Christian conquest".
In reality, Islam didn't play any significant role as a driver of expansion other than in the very first campaigns (under Muhammad himself, and his first few successors). Ottomans took Constantinople and invaded Europe because they could, just as Europeans have invaded the Americas and subjugated the natives because they could, and in that day and age, "right of conquest" was the supreme law. In both cases religion was used as an excuse for propaganda purposes, but it was not the primary motivator.
For the night is dark, and full of terrors.
So, who are we going to hoist onto the sacrificial pyre today?
10% collateral damage is remarkably low. Estimates for WWII are 40 - 60%, and that ignores the 20 million Russian civilians who died along the way. NATO's bombing campaign in Kosovo was around 80%.
I know about the divisions of the world in Islam etc. I also know about their practical place in the hierarchy of things. What your theory doesn't explain is why Muslims fought each other all along - not just Sunni vs Shia, but Sunni vs Sunni as well. Ottoman claims to Caliphate were, shall we say, contentious for quite a long time.
In truth, Muslim nations are like all other nations. They also have nationalism, for which Islam is, at best, a notable but not overwhelming part of their national identity. Arabs revolted against Ottoman Caliphs numerous times for these reasons, and Turks themselves always had a nationalist streak that ultimately lead them to rediscover themselves as a nation in their own right, and substitute "Turkishness" for Islam.
The only Muslims today who care about all that Dar al-Harb stuff and who actually have any specific plans for the re-establishment of the Caliphate are Salafi, but they're also the ones who don't recognize the vast majority of Caliphs since Muhammad as rightful rulers (in particular, Ottomans), because they deviated from the pure original Islam. I mean, we're talking here about people who deem Saudi Arabia to not be sufficiently Islamic, on the basis that they don't solely base their jurisprudence on Sharia, but have a few other written laws as well as the ability of the king to pardon people duly convicted by a sharia court.
However, Salafi are a minority among the Sunni. They are a dangerous minority, yes, and they will stir trouble, but the idea of enemy at the gates of the Western civilization is absurd in this context, and any parallels with the Ottoman conquests with Europe are superfluous. Salafi jihadists are a small group of fanatical rabble. By treating them as an army, and by advocating for the response on the scale that you do, you give them far too much credit and dignity. In practice, they are less dangerous to our civilization than, say, Mexican cartels.