Tag: unmanned Drones

The Vichy Republicans Vs. The New Conservatives

On By kingsjesterIn Politics5 Comments

grahamandmccainYesterday, I wrote about Sen. Rand Paul’s 13 hour filibuster he delivered on Wednesday to bring to light President Barack Hussein Obama’s refusal to answer the question of whether he would use unmanned drones to hunt down and kill American Citizens on our soil, and to block the vote on Obama’s nominee for CIA Director, dhimmi John O. Brennan.

Unmanned drones killing American Citizens…sounds like a bad science fiction movie, doesn’t it?

Well, the good news is: He finally received an answer from Attorney General Eric Holder, who wrote him a short message, stating, “No”.

The bad news is: Yesterday morning, Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, fresh from being treated to an outrageously expensive dinner by Obama on the very evening Sen. Paul was delivering his inspiring filibuster, verbally attacked Rand Paul for his efforts. They mocked him and ridiculed him, saying that he “violated the Rules of the Senate”.

The Washington Times reports that

Mr. McCain quoted from a Wall Street Journal editorial: “The country needs more senators who care about liberty, but if Mr. Paul wants to be taken seriously he needs to do more than pull political stunts that fire up impressionable libertarian kids in their college dorms. He needs to know what he’s talking about.”

The senator went on to say that he didn’t “think that what happened yesterday was helpful to the American people.”

And where Democrats praised Mr. Paul for using Senate rules properly to launch a filibuster, Mr. McCain said it was an abuse of rules that could hurt the GOP in the long run.”What we saw yesterday is going to give ammunition to those who say the rules of the Senate are being abused,” the Arizona Republican said.

Mr. Paul said he was filibustering to get the administration to affirm it won’t kill non-combatant Americans in the U.S. — and his effort was joined by more than a dozen other senators who said they, too, supported his effort to get answers.

Mr. Graham said asking whether the president has the power to kill Americans here at home is a ludicrous question.

“I do not believe that question deserves an answer,” Mr. Graham said.

Mr. Graham and Mr. McCain led a Republican delegation that held a private dinner with President Obama on Wednesday, as Mr. Paul was holding the floor with help from other GOP colleagues.

Mr. McCain even joked about Mr. Graham’s “behavior” at the dinner.

“He was on his best manners and everyone was impressed,” Mr. McCain said.

Speaking to reporters after he came off the floor Wednesday, Mr. Graham said he defends Mr. Paul’s right to ask questions and seek answers, but said the filibuster has actually pushed him to now support Mr. Brennan.

Mr. Graham said he had been inclined to oppose the nomination because he’d found Brennan to be qualified for the job but also “arrogant, kind of a bit shifty.” He said he wasn’t going to filibuster him but would have voted against him on final passage, but now he’ll vote for him.

“I am going to vote for Brennan now because it’s become a referendum on the drone program,” he said.

Later in the day, Sen. “Grahamesty” did just that, helping to  bring about the approval of Brennan’s nomination.

Why did “The Sunshine Boys” attack Sen. Paul like that?

Rush Limbaugh, as he always does, had the answer:

It’s just that there’s nobody that we see that has any courage to stand up to the people who are doing the damage. Even when we have the White House, there’s no standing up to the people assaulting the country. Even when we’re campaigning, the candidate doesn’t stand up. Now, I know the president’s race frightens a lot of people away from criticizing him. (No two ways about that. It’s just the way it is.) But Rand Paul did it last night, and nobody’s calling him a racist today. Nobody’s calling him an extremist, and nobody’s calling him names — and he doesn’t care anyway.

But he [Sen. Rand Paul] stood up for freedom. Last night people finally had somebody to rally around. Somebody finally spoke up and reflected what you all think and what you all fear. And somebody, in addition to speaking up, was actually trying to put the brakes on the direction this country’s being taken. So, yeah, it made perfect sense for people to rally behind it and rally to it. And then today after that we get the old guard, the ruling class, Republican establishment types belittling what happened last night. Casting it aside. It’s insignificant. Violated the rules of the Senate. Bad image. Silly to say that the president wants to launch drone strikes on America. Why do we even have to answer that question. That’s so absurd, it’s silly. Why, it was embarrassing last night.

…You cannot have this many millions of Americans continually ignored and unrepresented in a representative democracy without a price to pay for it.

So Rand Paul does his filibuster, and people flock to it. Even Democrats flocked to it, all over Twitter, which is normally owned, run, and operated by the Democrats. All over Twitter last night, Rand Paul had people saying, “Well, wait a minute, I understand this.” I mean, the left, this should be a natural for them. This is the kind of stuff, this is why Code Pink exists, for example, among other things.

The administration ought to be just taking it on the chin over this. And they may be. Time will tell. My whole point here is I understand why people are rallying to Rand Paul and Rubio and Ted Cruz. And that’s going to continue. And the Republican establishment, as long as they continue to pretend this is 1990, ’98, 2000, as long as the old rules which guarantee defeat continue to dominate, then at some point something’s gotta give.

Rush is right, as usual.

Sen. Graham actually made the arrangements for the swanky meal, enjoyed by 12 Republican Senators Wednesday Night, which was hosted and paid for by Obama (which means you and I actually footed the bill). For them to be snuggling with the Manchurian President, while Rand Paul and others held the Senate Floor in defense of our Constitution, is despicable. Their love for their Capital Hill way of life took precedence over their service to their constituents and their Constitutional Duty.

McCain and Graham attacking Rand Paul reminded me of “Blazing Saddles”:

We must protect our phony baloney jobs, gentlemen! Hrumph!

The greatest U.S. President of our Generation, Ronald Wilson Reagan, once said,

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.

Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, and other “New Conservatives” seem to be willing to do just that.

If the old guard Vichy Republicans care more about their Capitol Hill way of life than their country and their constituents, then it is time for them to get out of the way, and allow Sen. Paul, and his allies to lead the battle against this corrupt anti-American Administration.

Because, as the old saying goes,

If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.

Until He Comes,

KJ

Senator Rand Paul: Taking a Stand for Freedom

On By kingsjesterIn Politics2 Comments

rand paulAs I woke up this morning, I learned that Senator Rand Paul (R, KY) had wrapped up, at the thirteenth hour, what had been nicknamed the Filiblizzard, brought about by the nomination of John O. Brennan to the post of CIA Director and the plans by President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder to use unmanned drones to hunt down and kill American Citizens on American soil.

The Washington Times has the story:

After years in the shadows, the administration’s secret drone program burst into very public view Wednesday with lawmakers grilling the attorney general over legal justification for targeted killings and Sen. Rand Paul launching an old-style one-man filibuster to demand answers from President Obama.

The Kentucky Republican held the floor for almost 13 hours, effectively blocking a vote on the nomination of John O. Brennan, whom Mr. Obama has tapped to be CIA director. He said he would relent only if the administration publicly vowed not to target Americans on U.S. soil.

“This is a long, drawn-out day, but it’s to try to get some answers,” Mr. Paul said after he crossed the eight-hour mark late Wednesday evening. “It’s to try to shame the president into doing the right thing.”

Democrats, who control the chamber, were forced to delay a vote on the Brennan nomination until at least Thursday, and it could go into the weekend, depending on what other blockades Republicans erect.

At issue is the administration’s argument that it can kill those it suspects have ties to terrorism, including U.S. citizens, without having to put them on trial.

The fulcrum of the debate is the drone program, started under President George W. Bush and expanded by Mr. Obama, which many lawmakers said gives too much power to the executive branch — and raises tricky questions about whether drones could be used to execute Americans in the United States.

The administration has only recently acknowledged the drone program and says it is seeking a public debate in order to find common ground on what Americans are ready to accept.

“I think there is going to be a greater effort at the transparency. A number of steps are going to be taken. I expect you will hear the president speaking about this,” Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. told the SenateJudiciary Committee on Wednesday morning.

But he faced bipartisan demands for more information and more clarity on what is and what isn’t allowed.

“You can hear almost unanimous concern about transparency and wrestling with how to move forward here in a way that protects both our constitutional liberties and our security as a nation,” Sen. Christopher A. Coons, Delaware Democrat, told Mr. Holder.

Under close questioning by Sen. Ted Cruz, Mr. Holder repeatedly said American citizens on U.S. soil were not “appropriate” targets for extrajudicial executions.

Mr. Cruz said that wasn’t good enough.

“You keep saying ‘appropriate.’ My question isn’t about propriety. My question is about whether something is constitutional or not,” the Texas Republican said.

“Let me be clear: Translate my ‘appropriate’ to ‘no.’ I thought I was saying no, all right? No,” Mr. Holder said.

Mr. Holder also said he is not sure Congress could ban the president from using drones to kill Americans on U.S. soil.

But, of course, as Obama said, “I am not a dictator”. Yeah, right.

The longest spoken filibuster in American history was by Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, who went on for 24 hours and 18 minutes in filibustering the Civil Rights Act of 1957.

Thurmond began speaking at 8:54 p.m. on August 28, 1957 and did not stop until 9:12 p.m. on the 29th.

That rhetorical marathon took a lot of preparation, though. Here are some of the details, according to the Associated Press:

Thurmond took a steam bath earlier in the day to rid his body of excess liquid. This avoided the potential for any “accidents” in the chamber.

He went to the floor armed with cough drops and malted milk tablets.

He allowed others to make short remarks and ask questions during his time, allowing him to sneak off to the cloakroom to gobble a sandwich.

He had his aide wait in the cloakroom with a pail when he was about to step down from the dais in case of an emergency evacuation.

So far, Paul’s discussion has been much more lively than Thurmond’s speech, with heavy ad-libbing and contributions from seven different Senators, including Democrat Ron Wyden.

A major question, though, is what exactly did Thurmond talk about for 24 straight hours? Most of the content of the then-55-year-old’s speech was about the right to a trial by jury.

Via Michael McGraw-Herdeg on Quora, here’s what Thurmond talked about for one straight day:

Thurmond read, verbatim, the voting laws of each one of the 48 states.

He read the U.S. criminal code

He read a Supreme Court decision, followed by more laws. A friend brought him a glass of orange juice.

He allowed Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson to conduct some minor Senate business, such as preparing to swear-in the new Senator from Wisconsin, with a promise that Thurmond will be allowed to resume his filibuster.

At 1:40 a.m., Thurmond talked about jury trials.

By 6:45 a.m., Thurmond was having a back and forth with an arriving Senator about the bill. The Senator then left for breakfast with President Eisenhower.

Thurmond fielded questions from sympathetic Senators looking to give his voice a break.

Thurmond read the Declaration of Independence.

Thurmond allowed Johnson to swear in the new Senator from Wisconsin at roughly 1 p.m.

Thurmond welcomed Italian dignitaries to the chamber and then resumed discussing jury trials.

Thurmond took questions from sympathetic Senators again, as well as abuse from adversaries.

A letter from the President Dwight D. Eisenhower momentarily interrupted the discussion of jury trials.

The Senator finished up with a summary of his opposition to the bill. “Mr. President, I urge every Member of this body to consider this bill most carefully. I hope the Senate will see fit to kill it. I expect to vote against the bill. [Laughter.]”

The Senate later passed the bill. Thurmond’s oratorical marathon didn’t change a single vote.

Senator Paul’s filibuster may not , either. But, at least he did something.

Which is more than I can say for the RINOs up on Capitol Hill.

Until He Comes,

KJ

Administration Sanctions Remote Control Elimination

On By kingsjesterIn Politics2 Comments

obamabigbroRemember when we were kids, all the science fiction novelists writing about the future being a “brave new world”?

Well, it’s a new world alright. However, with this Administration in charge of it, the word “‘dangerous” has replaced the word “brave”.

NBC News reports

Legal experts expressed grave reservations Tuesday about an Obama administration memo concluding that the United States can order the killing of American citizens believed to be affiliated with al-Qaida — with one saying the White House was acting as “judge, jury and executioner.”

The experts said that the memo, first obtained by NBC News, threatened constitutional rights and dangerously expanded the definition of national self-defense and of what constitutes an imminent attack.

“Anyone should be concerned when the president and his lawyers make up their own interpretation of the law or their own rules,” said Mary Ellen O’Connell, a law professor at the University of Notre Dame and an authority on international law and the use of force.

“This is a very, very dangerous thing that the president has done,” she added.

The memo, made public Monday, provides detail about the administration’s controversial expansion of drone strikes against al-Qaida suspects abroad, including those aimed at American citizens.

Among them were Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan, who were killed by an American strike in September 2011 in Yemen. Both men were U.S. citizens who had not been charged with a crime.

Attorney General Eric Holder, in a talk at Northwestern University Law School in March, endorsed the constitutionality of targeted killings of Americans provided that the government determines such an individual poses “an imminent threat of violent attack.”

But the memo obtained by NBC News refers to a broader definition of imminence and specifically says the government is not required to have “clear evidence that a specific attack on U.S. persons and interests will take place in the immediate future.”

Glenn Greenwald, a constitutional lawyer who writes about security and liberty for the British newspaper The Guardian, described the memo as “fundamentally misleading,” with a clinical tone that disguises “the radical and dangerous power it purports to authorize.”

“If you believe the president has the power to order U.S. citizens executed far from any battlefield with no charges or trial, then it’s truly hard to conceive of any asserted power you would find objectionable,” he wrote.

The attorney general told reporters Tuesday that the administration’s primary concern is to keep Americans safe, and to do it in a way consistent with American values. He said the administration was confident it was following federal and international law.

“We will have to look at this and see what it is we want to do with these memos,” he said. “But you have to understand that we are talking about things that are, that go into how we conduct our offensive operations against a clear and present danger.”

White House press secretary Jay Carney said that while the government must take the Constitution into account, U.S. citizenship does not make a leader of an enemy force immune from being targeted.

The drone strikes, and now the Justice Department memo, are expected to figure prominently Thursday when the Senate takes up the nomination of John Brennan, the White House counterterrorism adviser and architect of the drone campaign, to lead the CIA.

This Administration’s surveillance on American citizens has been in the works for quite a while..and, it is probably going to be activated domestically as well.

In an article posted on May 12, 2012, rt.com reported that

A leaked US Air Force document stipulates a drone that happens to capture surveillance images of Americans may store them for a period of 90 days. The paper appears to justify spying on citizens, as long as it is “incidental.”

The document accepts that the Air Force may not record information non-consensually; however it does state “collected imagery may incidentally include US persons or private property without consent.”

The report, dated April 23 was discovered by Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists and has been put online.

Data that is accidentally recorded may be stored for a period of 90 days by the Pentagon while it is analyzed to see if the subjects are legitimate targets for state surveillance. The Pentagon may also disseminate this data among other government organizations if it sees fit.

“Even though information may not be collectible, it may be retained for the length of time necessary to transfer it to another DoD entity or government agency to whose function it pertains,” states the document.

In addition, it justifies the gathering of data on domestic targets in certain circumstances. According to the paper, these include surveillance of natural disasters, environmental studies, system testing and training, and counterintelligence and security-related vulnerability assessments.

The document seems to spell bad news for civil liberties, considering the US government passed a bill in February allocating $63 billion to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

If the bill is signed into law it will effectively allow the FAA to fill US skies with drones, a massive 30,000 predicted to be operational in US airspace by 2020.

Over 30 prominent civil rights groups in the US have rounded on the FAA and demanded that it reconsider the legislation and hold a rule-making session to address privacy and safety threats.

“Unfortunately, nothing in the bill would address the very serious privacy issues raised by drone aircraft. This bill would push the nation willy-nilly toward an era of aerial surveillance without any steps to protect the traditional privacy that Americans have always enjoyed and expected,” said the American Civil Liberties Union in response to the legislation.

The bill has sparked fears among Americans that their civil liberties may be under threat, considering that the use of drones in Afghanistan and Pakistan has been extended to carry out attacks on militants.

I remember a movie from the 1980s titled “Real Genius”. A young Val Kimer and a bunch of underage geniuses at a University were working on a super-powered laser that could be shot by a pilot in a space shuttle to assassinate somebody sitting by their pool.

Now, we have unarmed drones, piloted by joystick, like a video game, which can not only be used for 24 hour surveillance on American citizens, but can also be used to eliminate American citizens.

Skynet has become aware.

Until He Comes,

KJ

Unmanned Drones: Big Brother’s Eyes in the Sky

On By kingsjesterIn Politics4 Comments

obamabigbroDo you remember the end of the third “Terminator” movie? John Connor was watching helplessly from a mountain bunker as a fully autonomous software system launched nuclear missles and devastated the planet.

Far-fetched, you say? Au contraire.

The Washington Post reports that

The United Nations, looking to modernize its peacekeeping operations, is planning for the first time to deploy a fleet of its own surveillance drones in missions in Central and West Africa.

The U.N. Department of Peacekeeping has notified Congo, Rwanda and Uganda that it intends to deploy a unit of at least three unarmed surveillance drones in the eastern region of Congo.

The action is the first step in a broader bid to integrate unmanned aerial surveillance systems, which have become a standard feature of Western military operations, into the United Nations’ far-flung peacekeeping empire.

But the effort is encountering resistance from governments, particularly those from the developing world, that fear the drones will open up a new intelligence-gathering front dominated by Western powers and potentially supplant the legions of African and Asian peacekeepers who now act as the United Nations’ eyes and ears on the ground.

“Africa must not become a laboratory for intelligence devices from overseas,” said Olivier Nduhungirehe, a Rwandan diplomat at the United Nations. “We don’t know whether these drones are going to be used to gather intelligence from Kigali, Kampala, Bujumbura or the entire region.”

Developing countries fear Western control over intelligence gathered by the drones. Some of those concerns are rooted in the 1990s, when the United States and other major powers infiltrated the U.N. weapons inspection agency to surreptitiously collect intelligence on Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s military.

The growing American use of drones in Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere to identify and kill suspected terrorists has only heightened anxieties about their deployment as part of multilateral peacekeeping missions.

U.N. officials have sought to allay the suspicions, saying there is no intention to arm the drones or to spy on countries that have not consented to their use.

The U.N. drones would have a range of about 150 miles and can hover for up to 12 hours at a time. They would be equipped with infrared technology that can detect troops hidden beneath forest canopy or operating at night, allowing them to track movements of armed militias, assist patrols heading into hostile territory and document atrocities.

“These are really just flying cameras,” said one U.N. official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the topic. “Our best method of protection is early warning. We recently had a patrol ambushed in Darfur. If you had a drone ahead of the patrol, it could have seen the ambush party.”

“If you know armed groups are moving in attack or battle formation early enough, you can warn civilians,” the official added.

The United Nations, which manages a force of more than 100,000 blue helmets in 15 peacekeeping missions, views drones as a low-cost alternative to expensive helicopters for surveillance operations.

Wait a cotton-pickin’ minute. Did that report say that unmanned drones were in use in OUR country, the good ol’ U.S.A.?

You betcha, Red Ryder.

As foxnews.com reported on May 14th, 2012

Unmanned drones could soon be buzzing in the skies above many U.S. cities, as the federal government green-lights the technology for local law enforcement amid widespread privacy concerns.

The Federal Aviation Administration on Monday began to explain the rules of the sky for these newly licensed drones at potentially dozens of sites across the country. The agency, on its website, said that government “entities” will have to obtain a special certificate in order to fly the aircraft, adding that the FAA is “streamlining the process for public agencies to safely fly (drones) in the nation’s airspace.”

In doing so, the government is taking a tool that has become synonymous with U.S. counterterror warfare in countries like Pakistan and Yemen — and putting it in the hands of U.S. law enforcement.

Unlike some of the drones used overseas, these will not be equipped with missiles. They are to be used purely for surveillance. But that alone has raised serious privacy concerns on Capitol Hill and beyond.

“Our Founding Fathers had no idea that there would be remote-control drones with television monitors that can feed back live data instantaneously — but if they had, they would have made darn sure … that these things were subject to the Fourth Amendment (protecting individual privacy),” Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, told Fox News.

Drones have already been employed domestically. In what was described as the first case where an unmanned drone was used to arrest an American citizen on U.S. soil, a North Dakota SWAT team reportedly borrowed a Department of Homeland Security drone to monitor Rodney Brossart — who was involved in a 16-hour standoff at his North Dakota farm over six cattle that had wandered onto his property and which he claimed as his own. The SWAT team apparently used the drone to make sure it was safe to arrest him, though his lawyer has since claimed Brossart was subjected to guerrilla-like police tactics and had his constitutional rights violated.

Advocates, though, say the drones are a force-multiplier for local cops.

“They’re not going to be used for constant surveillance — typically they can stay in the air for about 30 minutes, so they’re only going to be used for specific missions,” said Gretchen West, executive vice president of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International.

She said the drones would help law enforcement have “more eyes in the sky to help … assist them when they’re going into potentially volatile situations.”

Lawmakers like Barton say there are “legitimate uses” for drones on U.S. soil, but that strict privacy standards will be needed.

“It would be okay for a drone to be used in order to make sure that all the cattle on a ranch are identified on an ongoing basis. It’s okay … to survey a forest to make sure there are no forest fires. But it would not be okay if that individual who purchased the drone then decided ‘I think I’ll go and check and see what’s going on over in my neighbor’s backyard’,” Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., said. “That would be wrong and that has to be protected against.”

And, if the thought of spies in the sky is not enough to scare you, how’s this story reported by the BBC grab ya?

A laser weapons system that can shoot down two drones at a distance of over a mile has been demonstrated by Rheinmetall Defence.

The German defence firm used the high-energy laser equipment to shoot fast-moving drones at a distance.

The system, which uses two laser weapons, was also used to cut through a steel girder a kilometre away.

The company plans to make the laser weapons system mobile and to integrate automatic cannon.

The 50kW laser weapons system used radar and optical systems to detect and track two incoming drones, the company said. The nose-diving drones were flying at 50 metres per second, and were shot down when they reached a programmed fire sector.

If these lasers can shoot down unmanned drones, what, or who else can they be aimed at?

Waging war by pushing buttons. How…sanitary.

Unmanned Drones watching our every move. Will “Skynet become self aware”?

Until He Comes, 

KJ