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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."
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.
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 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