In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Search: drones

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 | |

04 Apr

...at speed. The reported use by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) of the Gospel and its companion systems, Fire Factory, Depth of Wisdom, Alchemist, and Lavender, within the targeting cycle demonstrates a growing reliance on AI-DSS for military operations. Along with the development, testing and potential deployment of other AI-DSS for targeting, such as Project Maven, the US’ Algorithmic Warfare Cross-Functional Team, the integrated Gorgon Stare and Agile Condor systems on MQ-9 Reaper drones or other systems such as Palantir’s Artificial Intelligence Platform (AIP) Defense and MetaConstellation which are being...
04.04.24 | and |

26 Dec

...new Japanese PM. Eight children were among the 20 dead in a northern Syrian province after attacks. The Russian Parliament has unanimously approved a ban on Americans adopting Russian children in retaliation for a US law punishing human rights violations. The United States formally proposed a controversial sale of advanced spy drones to help South Korea bear more of its defense from any attack by the heavily armed North. Rebels in Central African Republic have advanced on the town of Kaga-Bangoro, moving them closer to the capital. The Washington Post...
26.12.12 | |

26 Mar

Greg Miller has a fascinating front-page story in the Washington Post yesterday (Sunday; it appears to be behind a free registration wall) profiling “Roger,” the mysterious head of the Counterterrorism Center at the CIA, a key figure in the pursuit of Bin Laden, and a principal architect of the drones program. Here’s the money quote, borrowing from Lawfare: Roger, which is the first name of his cover identity, may be the most consequential but least visible national security official in Washington — the principal architect of the CIA’s drone campaign...
26.03.12 | |

27 Dec

...the flying car fly itself. Thus, not only technological change, but regulatory changes concerning pilotless vehicles (such as Google’s self-driving car [Youtube clip] and drone tech) will make the flying cars more plausible. And, for autonomous cars (ground or flying) to have a global market, there will need to be coordinated–or at least non-contradictory–regulatory changes in many of the key markets around the world. So the regulatory environment (both in the U.S. and in other jurisdictions) of civilian drones and that of driverless-cars may incentivize or disincentivize investment in these...
27.12.12 | |

01 Jul

...apart after an onslaught by Sunni Islamists who have declared a “caliphate” to rule over all the world’s Muslims. Americas The US has armed drones flying over Baghdad to protect US troops that have recently arrived to assess Iraq’s deteriorating security, the Pentagon said on Friday. The White House says the US will no longer produce or acquire anti-personnel landmines in the future and intends to join the Ottawa Convention that bans their use. BNP Paribas has pleaded guilty to two criminal charges and agreed to pay $8.83 billion in...
01.07.14 | |

05 Dec

...a sufficient explanation, nor is technological innovation. True, we didn’t have drones 30 or 40 years ago, but the Cold War did witness many examples of extraterritorial projection of state power, with assassinations through poisoned-tip umbrellas and the like – but few gave human rights treaties more than a second thought in such situations. Without the cultural shift that we have been experiencing, the increasing emphasis on individual rights and law generally, I don’t think we would be discussing these cases no matter how powerful globalization turned out to be....
05.12.11 | |

14 Oct

...IS terrorists using drones and France’s joining the air campaign to bomb IS positions in Syrian territory. The extent to which air strikes would meet the necessity and proportionality requirements in the exercise of the right to self-defense under Article 51, however, remains less explored. This post does not aim to consider the issue of the permissibility of engaging in unilateral forcible measures against unattributable attacks by private groups. However, even assuming that the lawful exercise of the right of self-defense extends to action against irregular forces, it can be...
14.10.15 | |

04 Mar

...qualms about drones as technologies that enable the first two without putting US personnel at risk. Cave on anything beyond statements of legal principles and process, and the result will not be “institutional settlement,” but instead merely moving the goal posts; there isn’t really room for “dialogue,” let alone negotiation, but simply and necessarily one-sided articulation. That said, the articulation is important, because there is a problem when even a Kimberly Dozier story cannot resist a mild intimation of unsavory lack of accountability: “But a CIA-run war would mean that...
04.03.12 | |

30 Oct

...example, Reuters reported that of the 500 “militants” killed by drones between 2008 and 2010, only 8% were the kind “top-tier militant targets” or “mid-to-high-level organizers” whose identities could have been known prior to being killed. Similarly, in 2011, a U.S. official revealed that the U.S. had killed “twice as many ‘wanted terrorists’ in signature strikes than in personality strikes.” Despite the U.S.’s intense reliance on signature strikes, scholars have paid almost no attention to their legality under international law. This article attempts to fill that lacuna. Section I explains...
30.10.12 | |

30 May

...as it was tracked for more than three hours. Its movements matched radio intercepts of militants calling on others to join the battle near Khod, about seven miles (12 kilometers) from the site of the attack. No women were seen in the vehicles, but two children were spotted near them at one point. This was inaccurately reported by the drone crew, the report said. We usually think about drones killing innocent civilians directly. But let’s give them their due — they can kill innocent civilians in recon mode, as well....
30.05.10 | |

01 Jun

...meetings on Olympic Games, was acutely aware that with every attack he was pushing the United States into new territory, much as his predecessors had with the first use of atomic weapons in the 1940s, of intercontinental missiles in the 1950s and of drones in the past decade. He repeatedly expressed concerns that any American acknowledgment that it was using cyberweapons — even under the most careful and limited circumstances — could enable other countries, terrorists or hackers to justify their own attacks. One interesting sidenote not discussed in the...
01.06.12 | |