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Search: drones

22 May

Iraq is buying US-made drones in order to carry out surveillance over their oil fields. After a suicide bomber kills 90 people in Yemen, al-Qaeda vows more attacks until the US-backed campaign against militants stops. The US is apparently weighing their stance on secrecy of the drone program employed to carry out targeted killings, according to the Wall Street Journal. Former dictator of Guatemala, Efrain Rios Montt, will face a second genocide trial after a judge ordered he could be prosecuted for ordering a 1982 massacre that killed 201 people....
22.05.12 | |

24 Jul

...between Kushner Venture Capital and the new NYU-Tel Aviv campus. Ben-Gvir has set his sights on the West Bank, appropriating and launching Smotrich’s Subjugation Plan. Ethnic cleansing remains the ambition—for now—with the Israeli cabinet pursuing a euphemistically-named strategy of ‘voluntary emigration,’ facilitated by the suffocation of life for the remaining Palestinian population. Official policy includes multiplying settlements, demolishing homes, destroying livelihoods, assassinating protesters, and abducting and imprisoning children. With the surrounding wall nearing completion, the West Bank has become a hyper-controlled enclave: turrets are supported by surveillance drones and AI-powered...
24.07.25 | |

05 Mar

...They also acknowledge that, even in the face of intense political pressure, governmental actors have furthered that stickiness by using an “inside strategy” of bureaucratic resistance to adhere to previously embedded, internalized norms of international law. At a strategic level, the commentators seem to agree that a strategy of “international law as smart power”–connecting with like-minded countries through engagement around values, translating new norms of international behavior from extant norms of international law to address novel situations and technologies (e.g., drones, cyberconflict), and leveraging that law-based cooperation into enduring diplomatic...
05.03.18 | |

28 Jul

...Europe’s existential crisis provided little succour. Even in this moment of supposed legal assertiveness, they remained trapped in international law’s theatre of managed suffering. Israel still controlled the ports, crossings, and airspace, deciding what and who enters and exits. Israeli drones continued their patrols, more quietly, at least until their armaments scorched another hospital. Bureaucratic checkpoints were replaced by biometric screening, courteousy of the new EU-Israel-UN taskforce. You might say that the occupation was being sanitised as the legal order that had birthed and sustained zionism had reverted to restraining...
28.07.25 | |

03 Apr

...don’t think Jack disagrees – that the Obama Administration has increased the use of drone strikes because it thinks the program has been effective in disrupting (perhaps destroying) Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan. That is, even if the detainees had lost their cases in Rasul, Hamdan, and Boumediene, drones would be with us in force. That alone gives us plenty to discuss. And leaves me still thinking that the causal connection Jack et al. would like to see between detention and targeting these days is more theoretical than real....
03.04.12 | |

11 Mar

...Abu Qatada from the UK to Jordan, after a judge last year banned the deportation. The US is using a UK air-force base for drone operations, calling for more staff to assist in operating Predator drones and oversight of US missions and operations. The Washington Post has a story discussing imminence in conflict, and the New York Times has a piece about Anwar Al-Awlaki. Hungary’s Parliament is set to adopt a constitutional amendment today that will restrict judicial powers and interpretation methods. The move could lead to EU aid cuts....
11.03.13 | |

25 May

Though I’m as much caught up in the drones debate du jour as anyone here at OJ, there are other pressing matters internationally, and one of them is olive oil. I’ve blogged about EVOO adulteration in the past year, but the current contretemps is different. EU regulators want to require that restaurants serve olive oil at the table in sealed individual servings (I guess a little bit like the little sealed catsup bottles one sometimes sees in restaurants in the USA) rather than the common practice of serving olive oil,...
25.05.13 | |

20 May

...aircraft. But again, given that the machine’s weapons are operated in real time by a human being, the ethical and legal questions are not so many (there are some, but I will skip over them). Here is a US Air Force photo of a Predator: A third layer carries robotics from air drones to the ground. The US military in 2007 deployed for the first time a remote operated ground vehicle with a weapon mounted on top to Iraq for field testing. (It has also been withdrawn again for further...
20.05.08 | |

23 Jul

...Shots were fired from Egypt into Israel at an Israeli army bus, but no one was hurt; the incident may heighten fears of an eroding Egyptian Sinai security since the fall of Hosni Mubarak. This comes after a portion of the Egypt-Israel-Jordan pipeline was exploded over the weekend. The US’ Defense Department is looking into sending drones to Kenya to help fight al-Qaeda and al-Shebaab militants, mainly in Somalia. Afghanistan’s intensifying “war by social media” has stepped up with new free speech activists using Twitter and Facebook to combat NATO...
23.07.12 | |

29 Mar

...the types of terrorism suspects who may be detained without trials as wartime prisoners. The outcome of the yearlong debate could reverberate through national security policies, ranging from the number of people the United States ultimately detains to decisions about who may be lawfully selected for killing using drones. I actually think the article overstates the differences somewhat. All the key players agree there is a war against Al Qaeda and that there is a power to detain and try Al Qaeda folks. The only question dividing them seems to...
29.03.10 | |

18 Mar

...battlefield robots. The immediate issues stemmed from the use aerial drones, of course, but on the horizon has been the possibility of robots being deployed in ground combat (as opposed to in bomb demolition, or other areas where remotely controlled units are already deployed). I am all for lawyers anticipating issues caused by technological change. But before we get there, there are a host of legal issues concerning the transactions that will support the R&D that will develop this technology. With the potential sale of Boston Dynamics to Toyota, it...
18.03.16 | |

18 Mar

...arguing that a civil a suit against American military contractors by victims of abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq should be allowed to proceed. And he sided against the government in requiring the CIA to disclose whether it possessed any documents concerning drones used in targeted killings.) By the time the remaining three Guantanamo detainee status cases got to Garland, another panel of the D.C. Circuit had held that the AUMF passed by Congress before the Afghanistan invasion in 2001 granted the President authority to detain individuals who...
18.03.16 | |