“The U.S. Attorney General’s refusal to rule out the possibility of drone strikes on
American citizens and on American soil is more than frightening,” Sen. Paul said in a statement on his Senate
website Tuesday. “It is an affront the constitutional due process rights of all Americans.”
A.G. Eric Holder -- The question you have posed is therefore entirely hypothetical,
unlikely to occur, and one we hope no president will ever have to confront. It is possible, I suppose, to
imagine an extraordinary circumstance in which it would be necessary and appropriate under the Constitution and
applicable laws of the United States for the President to authorize the military to use lethal force within the
territory of the United States. For example, the president could conceivably have no choice but to authorize the
military to use such force if necessary to protect the homeland in the circumstances like a catastrophic attack
like the ones suffered on December 7, 1941, and September 11, 2001.
Drone strikes have killed American citizens in the past [without
constitutional due process], as was the case in Yemen with Anwar Awlaki and his son 16-year-old Abdulrahman
al-Awlaki.
Adan Salazar
Infowars.com
March 5, 2013
Despite reassurances following the Christopher Dorner manhunt that lethal drones won’t be used
to target American citizens on U.S. soil, a letter from Attorney General Eric Holder to Kentucky Senator Rand
Paul states otherwise.
An armed MQ-9 Reaper unmanned aircraft sits in a shelter Oct. 15 at Joint Base Balad,
Iraq, before a mission.
“It is possible, I suppose, to imagine an extraordinary circumstance in which it would be necessary
and appropriate under the Constitution and applicable laws of the United States for the President to authorize
the military to use lethal force within the territory of the United States,” the letter partially posted by
Mother Jones states.
Sen. Paul’s concerns that the government may use armed drones to target American citizens was the main reason he threatened to filibuster the nomination of John Brennan to head up the
CIA.
When Brennan referred Sen. Paul to the Department of Justice, this is the response he got from Holder:
As members of this administration have previously indicated, the US government has not carried out drone
strikes in the United States and has no intention of doing so. As a policy matter moreover, we reject the use
of military force where well-established law enforcement authorities in this country provide the best means for
incapacitating a terrorist threat. We have a long history of using the criminal justice system to incapacitate
individuals located in our country who pose a threat to the United States and its interests abroad. Hundreds of
individuals have been arrested and convicted of terrorism-related offenses in our federal courts.
The question you have posed is therefore entirely hypothetical, unlikely to occur, and one we hope no
president will ever have to confront. It is possible, I suppose, to imagine an extraordinary circumstance in
which it would be necessary and appropriate under the Constitution and applicable laws of the United States for
the President to authorize the military to use lethal force within the territory of the United States. For
example, the president could conceivably have no choice but to authorize the military to use such force if
necessary to protect the homeland in the circumstances like a catastrophic attack like the ones suffered on
December 7, 1941, and September 11, 2001.
“The U.S. Attorney General’s refusal to rule out the possibility of drone strikes on American citizens and on
American soil is more than frightening,” Sen. Paul said in a statement on his Senate website Tuesday. “It is an affront the constitutional
due process rights of all Americans.”
The Department of Homeland Security faced criticism
following an unsubstantiated report that surveillance drones were being used to aid the manhunt for
suspected cop killer Christopher Dorner in California earlier this year.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection were quick to issue a response denying their use of drones – in attempts to quell public outrage – and shortly thereafter, the Federal Aviation Administration reassured the public that lethal drones would never be used.
Many, however, were dismissive or oblivious of the fact that government surveillance drones have already been
used to spy on members of the public.
In 2011, police in Grand Forks, North Dakota called in a favor from their buddies at the DHS to use one of their drones to monitor the Brossart family farm after six cows had
reportedly wandered onto their property.
Drones are also routinely used to survey agricultural conditions and enforce environmental laws throughout the
country.
Last June, the EPA responded to a letter from Nebraska’s congressional delegation saying they “would use
such flights in appropriate instances to protect people and the environment from violations of the Clean Water
Act,” a fact they later denied following intense media scrutiny.
Indeed, the FAA has already secured authorization to have anywhere in the neighborhood of 30,000 drones
criss-crossing the skies by 2020.
Public sentiment towards drone use in America has shifted greatly in response to rumors of alleged drone use in
the Dorner manhunt. Also, last month a 16-page Justice Department memo concerning legal drone assassinations of American
citizens was leaked fueling further concerns that drones can and will be used to hunt and target American
civilians.
“Just six months ago, a survey conducted by The Associated Press and The National Constitution Center found
that more Americans supported than opposed the use of surveillance drones by domestic law enforcement agencies,”
writer and editor for PrisonPlanet.com Steve Watson wrote recently.
“Now, in the latest poll, 57 percent of respondents say it is unconstitutional to order the killing of Americans
overseas. Even more — 59 percent — believe that the federal government abuses its power when it comes to targeted
strikes.”
Moreover, “47 percent of respondents to the latest poll said they believe they have a right to destroy a UAV if
it flies over their house without their permission.”
Drone strikes have killed American citizens in the past, as was the case in Yemen with Anwar Awlaki and his son
16-year-old Abdulrahman al-Awlaki.
Proof: DHS Flying Killer Drones In US
Published on Feb 13, 2015
An InfoWars exclusive look at a FOIA document that shows who was using predator drones
and reapers domestically in 2014 while the FAA was cracking done on model planes with a legal prevarication that
usurped authority over even Frisbees
Privacy group petitioning government on drone capability to
identify armed individuals, intercept cell phones
Steve Watson
Infowars.com
March 6, 2013
Senator Rand Paul lashed out at the Obama administration
last night following suggestions by Attorney General Eric Holder that the president is within his rights to
assassinate Americans on American soil using drone strikes, without oversight.
“The thing about the drone strike program is, we’re not talking about someone’s actively attacking America,
we’re not talking about planes flying into the World Trade Center.” Paul said in a Fox News interview.
“What we’re talking about is you’re eating dinner in your house. you’re eating at a cafe or you’re walking down
the road. That’s when these drone strikes can occur.” Paul added, calling the development “particularly
disturbing”.
“If you’re an American and you’re accused of a crime, one of the basic principles, one of the protections we’ve
always had is, you get a trial… You don’t get convicted without a trial.” the Senator added.
“Listen to what his [Obama's] response is.” Paul urged. “His response is, we haven’t killed any Americans yet.
We don’t intend to, but we might. And that’s pretty disturbing.”
Paul was speaking in reaction to Eric Holder’s response to
his own letter asking if Americans could be targeted with drones.
Holder wrote that it was “possible,” for President Obama to “authorize the military to use
lethal force within the territory of the United States,” citing the 9/11 terror attacks as an example.
In a further statement today, Holder told Congress that the federal government has “no intention” of
using drones to strike at targets within the U.S., saying it’s easier to capture people here so that tool is not
as important.
“The use of drones is from my perspective something that is entirely, entirely hypothetical,” he said.
Senator Paul has called for a pledge from the White House that drone strikes will not be used in America
regardless of the circumstances.
“We’re talking about someone eating at a cafe in Boston, or New York, and a Hellfire missile comes raining in on
them,” Paul said during a previous appearance on Fox News. “There should be an easy answer from the administration
on this. They should say, ‘Absolutely no, we will not kill Americans in America without an accusation, a trial and
a jury.’”
“The U.S. Attorney General’s refusal to rule out the possibility of drone strikes on American citizens and on
American soil is more than frightening – it is an affront the Constitutional due process rights of all Americans,”
Paul wrote in a further statement on his website.
Meanwhile, where domestic drone use for surveillance is concerned, advocacy group the Electronic Privacy and
Information Center (EPIC) issued a statement on its website announcing that it is officially petitioning U.S. Customs and Border Protection over revelations that unmanned Predator
drones under the agency’s operation can listen in on electronic communications.
EPIC noted that documents it recently obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show that the
agency’s drones will be equipped with technology for signals interception and human identification.
The 2010 DHS “performance specification” document EPIC has uncovered states that “communication relay and
interception” are preferable operations to use drones for, rather than relying on “sensors mounted in airships,
aerostats, towers, and manned aircraft”. The document states that the capability has not yet been tested in the
field.
According to the document, the drones are to have a “signals interception receiver,” that would be capable of
intercepting cell phone and radio communications transmissions.
The Homeland Security design requirements also specify that the Predator B drones “shall be capable of
identifying a standing human being at night as likely armed or not”.
—————————————————————-
Steve Watson is the London based writer and editor for Alex Jones’ Infowars.com, and Prisonplanet.com. He has a Masters Degree in International Relations from the School of
Politics at The University of Nottingham, and a Bachelor Of Arts Degree in Literature and Creative Writing from
Nottingham Trent University.
Who flies the drones America uses to take out
military targets in foreign locales all over the globe? Aaron Dykes had the chance to talk to an Air Force drone
pilot operating out of Whiteman Air Force Base, and astonishingly, he admitted to me that he took part in strikes
on wedding parties in Middle East & Asian countries said to harbor terrorists.
Aaron Dykes confronted him with some of the troubling news that has emerged about the secret White House kill list
and the apparent readiness to destroy the lives of innocent bystanders in pursuit of a target -- women, children
and elderly villagers who are all considered nothing more than "collateral damage."
Did he, too, find these people dispensable? Did he share the cold rationale of our leaders that it is "worth it" to
kill these civilians to target an enemy? Aaron Dykes tried to find out when Dykes saw him during a wedding he
attended, all while Dykes was deeply aware of the unsettling irony that the celebration we were attending was seen
differently than the weddings, funerals and other gatherings that U.S. airstrikes have unofficially declared to be
venues of war.
Allowance for the use of short news clips used reasonably falls under the "fair use" doctrine. Under Copyright
Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as
criticism, comment, news reporting, and research.
Obama
the Assassin-in-Chief
Unmanned:
America's Drone Wars
We Have to Talk
About the Boy in the Ambulance...
Newsbud Interview: Peter B. Collins presents Prof. Rebecca Gordon
Professor Rebecca Gordon comments on the July 1 White House release of estimates of
civilian deaths from drone strikes targeting “militants” who pose and “imminent” threat to American
interests, and concludes that most of the deaths “are almost certainly illegal” under US and
international law. In this Newsbud interview, we discuss the drone programs, the
precedents established under Obama, and the failure of Congress to pass any laws regulating this
form of remote-control warfare
"Unmanned" investigates the impact of U.S. drone strikes at home and abroad,
observing their effect on the War on Terror, the lives of individuals, and U.S. foreign policy.
I wasn't going to, but then I saw the CNN anchor pretend to cry...
Attorney general Eric Holder wrote the following to Senator Rand Paul yesterday:
On February 20, 2013, you wrote to John Brennan requesting additional information concerning the
Administration’s views about whether “the President has the power to authorize lethal force, such as drone
strike, against a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil, and without trial.”
As members of this administration have previously indicated, the US government has not carried out drone
strikes in the United States and has no intention of doing so. As a policy matter moreover, we reject the use
of military force where well-established law enforcement authorities in this country provide the best means for
incapacitating a terrorist threat. We have a long history of using the criminal justice system to incapacitate
individuals located in our country who pose a threat to the United States and its interests abroad. Hundreds of
individuals have been arrested and convicted of terrorism-related offenses in our federal courts.
The question you have posed is therefore entirely hypothetical, unlikely to occur, and one we hope no
president will ever have to confront. It is possible, I suppose, to imagine an extraordinary
circumstance in which it would be necessary and appropriate under the Constitution and applicable laws of the
United States for the President to authorize the military to use lethal force within the territory of the
United States. For example, the president could conceivably have no choice but to authorize the
military to use such force if necessary to protect the homeland in the circumstances like a catastrophic attack
like the ones suffered on December 7, 1941, and September 11, 2001.
Were such an emergency to arise, I would examine the particular facts and circumstances before
advising the President on the scope of his authority.
There’s more to the following statement than appears at first blush:
As a policy matter moreover, we reject the use of military force where well-established law enforcement
authorities in this country provide the best means for incapacitating a terrorist threat.
Specifically, Holder did not say “we are legally constrained by the Constitution from depriving people of life,
liberty or property without due process of law, and from using military force on U.S. soil”. Instead, he said that
the Obama administration was so far abstaining from using a power it already has as acurrent
“policy” decision.
The concluding legal opinion represents a radical betrayal of constitutional limits imposed on the state for
depriving citizens of life, liberty and property. Officially now, Obama’s kingly authority to play Judge, Jury, and Executioner and deprive Americans of their life without due
process of law applies not only to Americans abroad but to citizens that are inside the United States.
“The US Attorney General’s refusal to rule out the possibility of drone strikes on American citizens and on
American soil is more than frightening – it is an affront the Constitutional due process rights of all
Americans,” Sen. Paul said in a statement.
Holder, along with the Obama administration, is making it seem as if the President’s use of lethal force, as
in the drone war, would only be used in circumstances like another impending 9/11 attack or something. Only
when an attack is imminent.
But that categorical limitation on the President’s authority to kill depends upon their definition of
“imminence,” which we learned from a leaked Justice Department white paper last month, is extremely broad.
The memo refers to what it calls a “broader concept of imminence” than what has traditionally been required,
like actual intelligence of an ongoing plot against the US.
“The condition that an operational leader present an ‘imminent’ threat of violent attack against the United
States does not require the United States to have clear evidence that a specific attack on U.S. persons and
interests will take place in the immediate future,” the memo states, contradicting conventional international
law.
Instead, so long as an “informed, high-level” US official claims the targeted American has been “recently”
involved in “activities” that pose a threat and “there is no evidence suggesting that he has renounced or
abandoned such activities,” then the President can order his assassination. The memo does not define “recently”
or “activities.”
Holder also insists that in the case of such “extraordinary circumstances,” like another impending 9/11, he
”would examine the particular facts and circumstances before advising the president of the scope of his
authority.”
Boy, do I feel comforted.
This is not entirely surprising. As we noted in December 2011, a
top constitutional expert confirmed that Obama was claiming the authority to assassinate Americans on U.S.
soil. We reported that
month:
U.S. citizens are legitimate military targets when they take up arms with al-Qaida, top national
security lawyers in the Obama administration said Thursday.
***
The government lawyers, CIA counsel Stephen Preston and Pentagon counsel Jeh Johnson … said U.S.
citizens do not have immunity when they are at war with the United States.
Johnson said only the executive branch, not the courts, is equipped to make military battlefield
targeting decisions about who qualifies as an enemy.
The courts in habeas cases, such as those involving whether a detainee should be released from the
Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba, make the determination of who can be considered an enemy
combatant.
In a Google+ Hangout last month, President Obama refused to say directly if he had the authority to use
lethal force against US citizens. As Mother Jones reported at the time, the reason the president was being so coy is
that the answer was likely yes. Now we know that’s exactly what was happening.
You might assume – in a vacuum – that this might be okay (even though it trashes the Constitution, the
separation of military and police actions, and the division between internal and external affairs).
The government’s indefinite detention policy – stripped of it’s spin – is literally insane, and based on
circular reasoning. Stripped of p.r., this is the actual policy:
If you are an enemy combatant or a threat to national security, we will detain you indefinitely until the war is over
But trust us, we know you are an enemy combatant and a threat to national security
We may torture you (and try to cover up the fact that you were tortured), because you are an enemy
combatant, and so basic rights of a prisoner guaranteed by the Geneva Convention don’t apply to
you
Since you admitted that you’re a bad guy (while trying to tell
us whatever you think we want to hear to make the torture stop), it proves that we should
hold you in indefinite detention
The response by Holder could lead to a situation where “an Arab-American in Dearborn (Mich.) is walking down
the street emailing with a friend in the Mideast and all of a sudden we drop a drone” on him. He said it was
“really shocking” that President Barack Obama, a former constitutional law professor, would leave the door open
to such a possibility.
Who You Are – Collected information includes names, addresses, biometrics,
social media accounts .
What You Do – Travel history, communications, financial transactions and
movement of physical assets.
Who You Know – Relational information including family, friends, associates
and organizations.
Context – Contextual data such as demographics, politics, cultural norms
and religion.
Acloser look at the
upcoming Jade Helm military exercise, specifically its “master the human domain” motto, reveals a larger agenda in
regards to domestic policy.
...“They’re building an infrastructure of tyranny,” stated Infowars David Knight.
“There’s a legal infrastructure with things like the NDAA, there’s a technical
infrastructure with things like the capability to do dragnet surveillance, and then of course there is going to be
a military and law enforcement infrastructure, and those are merging.”
Last week’s assassination of two American citizens, Anwar al-Awlaki
and Samir Khan, is an outrage and a criminal act carried out by the President and his administration. If the law
protecting us against government-sanctioned assassination can be voided when there is a “really bad American”, is
there any meaning left to the rule of law in the United States?
In this March 11, 2013 edition of the Infowars Nightly
News, host Aaron Dykes explains how letters and memos from the Department of Justice make clear that as long as the
U.S. remains committed to the farcical War on Terror, the NDAA gives the White House the excuse to kill Americans
on U.S. soil via drone strikes, etc. and indefinitely detain anyone it claims is engaged in hostilities, all
outside of law.
The Department of Justice Did NOT Disclaim Murder of Americans by Drone
Later that day, top constitutional and military law expert Jonathan Turley agreed:
We previously discussed how Attorney General Eric Holder wrote a letter confirming
that the President would have authority to kill citizens on U.S. soil without a charge or conviction. His
answer triggered a principled filibuster by Sen. Rand Paul and another embarrassment to Democratic Senators
who, again, chose personality over principle in staying silent. Now, Holder has issued a new statement. No,
President Obama still claims the right to kill U.S. citizens on his sole authority. However, Holder now says
that, if the citizen is “not engaged in combat on American soil,” the President cannot vaporize
him.The answer leaves the constitutional claim of Obama even more confused and
conflicted. Does this mean we have a third category now under the policy: citizen, citizen
terrorist, and citizen non-combatant terrorist?
In his prior letter, Holder answered a question about whether the President was claiming the right to kill
citizens on U.S. soil. This follows the release of a memo showing that Holder’s description of the policy at Northwestern
University Law School was narrower than the actual policy described within the Administration. A
memo leaked to the press shows that the Administration has adopted a virtual limitless definition of
imminence: “The condition that an operational leader present an ‘imminent’ threat of violent attack against
the United States does not require the United States to have clear evidence that a specific attack on U.S.
persons and interests will take place in the immediate future.”
Last week, Holder said “It is possible I suppose to imagine an extraordinary circumstance in which it would
be necessary and appropriate under the Constitution and applicable laws of the United States for the President
to authorize the military to use lethal force within the territory of the United States.”
***
It is not clear what Holder means by “engaged in combat” since the Administration memo shows that
the Administration is using an absurdly broad definition of “imminent” threat under the kill list
policy. Since the Administration has continued to assert that terrorists are engaged in a war
against the U.S., the terse reply of Holder seems designed to preserve later flexibility.
Moreover, there is nothing in the constitutional claim of the Administration that reflects such a
limitation. Deciding on where to kill a citizen would be an discretionary policy under the
sweeping presidential authority described by the Administration. As noted in earlier columns (here and here and here), it is astonishing how citizens, including so many liberals and civil
libertarians, Obama is saying that his appointment of a non-binding committee satisfied due process and
relieves any need for judicial review. Moreover, if the President has the inherent authority to kill a
citizen in Canada, it is not clear why such inherent authority would not exist a few hundred yards away in
Detroit. The Administration has said that it can use the unilateral power when it considers a capture to
pose undue risk to its personnel.
What is particularly striking is that we have a president who is asserting the right to kill any
citizen but the Administration has classified memos on that authority and the Attorney General will only give a
Senator a terse two line conclusory statement on scope. The Administration appears to believe
that there is little need to explain the details on killing citizens, such as how it
defines “combat.” Obviously, if there is a war occurring in the United States, a president has the
right to put down insurrection or attacks on the federal government. These strikes concern targeting
terrorists. One can easily foresee this or a future president insisting that an alleged terrorism conspiracy is
a form of combat.
It would seem an obvious thing to explain how they define combat and whether an alleged terrorist
would fall into it. Does this mean that there will be a category of non-combatant terrorists for
domestic strikes? How is that defined? It seems like a hole big enough to fly a drone
through.Since police can already use lethal force to stop an attack in progress, the answer
leaves more questions than it answers in my view. For a citizen it would mean that he or she can
be killed abroad on the basis of the Administration’s wildly broad definition of “imminent” but domestically
would fall under a different “combat” definition. Where is the line between an “imminent” threat and “combat”
drawn? Does Holder mean there is a different meaning to imminence when someone steps over the border? We
already have the definition of “imminent” and the Administration’s new definition of “imminent.” Is this yet a
third option?
Today, former constitutional lawyer Glenn Greenwald
weighs in:
As Law Professor Ryan Goodman wrote yesterday in the New York Times, “the Obama administration, like the Bush
administration before it, has acted with an overly broad definition of what it means to be engaged in
combat.” That phrase – “engaged in combat” – does not only include people who are engaged in violence at the
time you detain or kill them. It includes a huge array of people who we would not normally think of, using
common language, as being “engaged in combat”.
Indeed, the whole point of the Paul filibuster was to ask whether the Obama administration believes that it
has the power to target a US citizen for assassination on US soil the way it did to Anwar Awlaki in Yemen. The
Awlaki assassination was justified on the ground that Awlaki was a “combatant”, that he was “engaged in
combat”, even though he was killed not while making bombs or shooting at anyone but after he had left a cafe where he had breakfast. If the Obama administration believes
that Awlaki was “engaged in combat” at the time he was killed – and it clearly does – then Holder’s letter
is meaningless at best, and menacing at worst, because that standard is so broad as to vest the president
with exactly the power his supporters now insist he disclaimed.
The phrase “engaged in combat” has come to mean little more than: anyone the President accuses, in secrecy
and with no due process, of supporting a Terrorist group. Indeed, radically broad definitions of “enemy
combatant” have been at the heart of every War on Terror policy, from Guantanamo to CIA black sites to torture.
As Professor Goodman wrote:
“By declining to specify what it means to be ‘engaged in combat’ the letter does not foreclose the
possible scenario – however hypothetical – of a military drone strike, against a United States citizen, on
American soil. It also raises anew questions about the standards the administration has used in deciding to
use drone strikes to kill Americans suspected of terrorist involvement overseas . . .
“The Obama administration’s continued refusal to do so should alarm any American concerned about the
constitutional right of our citizens – no matter what evil they may or may not be engaged in – to due
process under the law. For those Americans, Mr. Holder’s seemingly simple but maddeningly vague letter
offers no reassurance.”
Indeed, as both Law Professor Kevin Jon Heller and Marcy Wheeler noted, Holder, by deleting the
word “actively” from Paul’s question (can you kill someone not “actively engaged in combat”?), raised more
questions than he answered. As Professor Heller wrote:
“‘Engaged in combat’ seems like a much broader standard than ‘senior operational leader’. which the
recently disclosed White Paper described as a necessary condition of killing an American citizen overseas.
Does that mean the President can kill an American citizen inside the US who is a lower-ranking member of
al-Qaeda or an associated force? . . . .
“What does ‘engaged in combat’ mean? That is a particularly important question, given that Holder did
not restrict killing an American inside the US to senior operational leaders and deleted ‘actively’ from
Paul’s question. Does ‘engaging’ require participation in planning or executing a terrorist attack? Does
any kind of direct participation in hostilities qualify? Do acts short of direct participation in
hostilities – such as financing terrorism or propagandizing – qualify? Is mere membership, however loosely
defined by the US, enough?”
Particularly since the Obama administration continues to conceal the legal memos defining its claimed powers
– memos we would need to read to understand what it means by “engaged in combat” – the Holder letter should
exacerbate concerns, not resolve them. As Digby, comparing Bush and Obama legal language on these
issues,wrote yesterday about Holder’s letter: “It’s fair to say that these odd phrasings and
very particular choices of words are not an accident and anyone with common sense can tell instantly that by
being so precise, they are hiding something.”
At best, Holder’s letter begs the question: what do you mean when you accuse someone of being “engaged in
combat”? And what are the exact limits of your power to target US citizens for execution without due process?
That these questions even need to be asked underscores how urgently needed Paul’s filibuster was, and how much
more serious pushback is still merited. But the primary obstacle to this effort has been, and remains, that the
Democrats who spent all that time parading around as champions of these political values are now at the head of
the line leading the war against them.
The First Rule Of The Drone
Program Is That You Do Not Talk About The Drone Program
...One of the first things they told me was, you’re not even to acknowledge the drone
program,” Gibbs said on MSNBC’s “Up With Chris Hayes” this past weekend. Gibbs said that he was told “You’re not
even to discuss that it exists.” Noting that the notion was “inherently crazy”, Gibbs said “You’re being asked a
question based on reporting of a program that exists.” “So you’re the official government spokesperson acting as if
the entire program—pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.” Gibbs, who was Press Secretary between 2009 and
2011, said.
...Gibbs stated that he expects the drone program to remain secret for the most part,
despite moves in Congress to force more transparency. “I have not talked to him about this, so I want to be
careful,” Gibbs said, “but I think what the president has seen is, our denial of the existence of the program when
it’s obviously happening undermines people’s confidence overall in the decisions that their government
makes.”
...Akram, who noted that US drone strikes had killed more than 1,000 civilians in
Pakistan, also said “We find the use of drones to be totally counterproductive in terms of succeeding in the ‘war
against terror’. It leads to greater levels of terror rather than reducing them.
Former Obama Press Secretary Was
Ordered To Act As If Drone Program Did Not Exist
-- Harriet Tubman --
"I freed a thousand slaves; I
could have freed a thousand more, if only they knew they were slaves."
Only the vigilant can maintain their liberties, and only those who
are constantly and intelligently on the spot can hope to govern themselves effectively by democratic
procedures.
"A society, most of whose members spend a great part of their time,
not on the spot, not here and now and in their calculable future, but somewhere else, in the irrelevant other
worlds of sport and soap opera, of mythology and metaphysical fantasy, will find it hard to resist the
encroachments of those who would manipulate and control it.”
