Obama officials weigh drone attack on US suspect

[Constitutional Paulicy]

http://l.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/zwZpggOiGyRLifMsVcbYGA--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTY1NztweW9mZj0wO3E9Nz U7dz05NjA-/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/ap_webfeeds/44901099c97d70054b0f6a706700de0e.jpg

Obama officials weigh drone attack on US suspect
WASHINGTON (AP) 3 hours ago
By KIMBERLY DOZIER


WASHINGTON (AP) — The case of an American citizen and suspected member of al-Qaida who is allegedly planning attacks on U.S. targets overseas underscores the complexities of President Barack Obama's new stricter targeting guidelines for the use of deadly drones.

The CIA drones watching him cannot strike because he's a U.S. citizen. The Pentagon drones that could are barred from the country where he's hiding, and the Justice Department has not yet finished building a case against him.

Four U.S. officials said the American suspected terrorist is in a country that refuses U.S. military action on its soil and that has proved unable to go after him. And Obama's new policy says American suspected terrorists overseas can only be killed by the military, not the CIA, creating a policy conundrum for the White House.

more here... http://news.yahoo.com/obama-officials-weigh-drone-attack-us-suspect-200554380--politics.html

[Constitutional Paulicy]

Go to the 8 minute mark in this video interview. It discuses the use of the CIA in the attack on Anwar Al-Awlaki. The article above mentions the "New" policy...


Four U.S. officials said the American suspected terrorist is in a country that refuses U.S. military action on its soil and that has proved unable to go after him. And Obama's new policy says American suspected terrorists overseas can only be killed by the military, not the CIA, creating a policy conundrum for the White House.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAkQDBzmUFM&feature=youtube_gdata

[Constitutional Paulicy]

Coincidence that this AP article was released just hours after the new Snowden documents revelations were released?

[Brian4Liberty]

Where is this accused suspect? A cafe in Paris or Berlin?

[Constitutional Paulicy]

Here is the new website for firstlook.org where the article by Jeremy Scahill and Glenn Greenwald is posted it was mentioned at the end of the video from Democracy Now...........

The NSA’s Secret Role in the U.S. Assassination Program
By Jeremy Scahill and Glenn Greenwald
10 Feb 2014, 12:03 AM EST


The National Security Agency is using complex analysis of electronic surveillance, rather than human intelligence, as the primary method to locate targets for lethal drone strikes – an unreliable tactic that results in the deaths of innocent or unidentified people.

According to a former drone operator for the military’s Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) who also worked with the NSA, the agency often identifies targets based on controversial metadata analysis and cell-phone tracking technologies. Rather than confirming a target’s identity with operatives or informants on the ground, the CIA or the U.S. military then orders a strike based on the activity and location of the mobile phone a person is believed to be using.

The drone operator, who agreed to discuss the top-secret programs on the condition of anonymity, was a member of JSOC’s High Value Targeting task force, which is charged with identifying, capturing or killing terrorist suspects in Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

more here... https://firstlook.org/theintercept/article/2014/02/10/the-nsas-secret-role/

[Brian4Liberty]

The National Security Agency is using complex analysis of electronic surveillance, rather than human intelligence, as the primary method to locate targets for lethal drone strikes – an unreliable tactic that results in the deaths of innocent or unidentified people.

Good enough for government work, eh? In essence, there is a computer program that creates a rough probably based on the data input (which could be wrong). The government then uses that as justification for execution without due process or trial. Yippee! Computers now decide life and death!

[pcosmar]

Where is this accused suspect? A cafe in Paris or Berlin?

Snowden?

[Philhelm]

According to a former drone operator for the military’s Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) who also worked with the NSA, the agency often identifies targets based on controversial metadata analysis and cell-phone tracking technologies. Rather than confirming a target’s identity with operatives or informants on the ground, the CIA or the U.S. military then orders a strike based on the activity and location of the mobile phone a person is believed to be using.

If this is true, it is both insane and evil.

[Lucille]

‘How Do You Surrender to a Drone?’ Jeremy Scahill Rips Obama on Drone Strikes
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/how-do-you-surrender-to-a-drone-jeremy-scahill-rips-obama-on-drone-strikes/


Journalist and documentarian Jeremy Scahill sat down with Jake Tapper on Monday to take on the Obama administration on drone strikes after reports that the White House is debating whether to take out an American citizen and al-Qaeda member with a drone, a particularly sore subject after the big droneibuster of 2013 and the controversy over the 2011 killing of American citizen and al-Qaeda member Anwar al-Awlaki.

Scahill argued that in order for such measures to be taken, “the threat should be imminent,” and in many cases the burden of proof has not been there. He asked, “How serious are these threats that we’re facing and is it more that we’re going after people because of their propaganda value or the potential threat they pose to the United States than actual?”

RELATED: ‘Sick Joke’: Jeremy Scahill Rips Apart ‘Murder Inc.’ GOPers For ‘Partisan’ Disdain Of Obama Drone Policy

He argued that “how a nation treats its own citizens is a good indicator of how it treats other people,” and when you get down to it, “how do you surrender to a drone?”

Scahill also talked about his piece with Glenn Greenwald about the NSA’s involvement in drone strikes, explaining that cell phone metadata is being used to pinpoint people’s locations to launch drone strikes, but the problem is they’re targeting the phone and not the people...

h/t http://www.wendymcelroy.com/news.php?extend.5799

Obama, Bound By No Law, May Assassinate Another American
http://antiwar.com/blog/2014/02/10/obama-bound-by-no-law-may-assassinate-another-american/


Under unprecedented pressure and public scrutiny for his unchecked secret drone war, President Obama recently narrowed the scope of the targeting policy. And now, apparently, there are bureaucratic protocols (not, mind you, the Fifth Amendment) getting in the way of killing the suspect.

Those new bureaucratic protocols, however, are as dispensable as the Constitutional mandates constraining government power over the individual.
[...]
So while Obama supposedly imposed procedural limits on drone-killing U.S. citizens without due process, those are not rules he has to follow. They are not binding, just as the Fifth Amendment’s mandate that “no person shall…be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law,” is not binding. The president can do what he wants. There are no legal restraints on his actions.

What does this say about the presidency in 2014, then? Is Obama a president or a king? In a 1775 critique, John Adams described an emperor as “a despot, bound by no law or limitation but his own will; it is a stretch of tyranny beyond absolute monarchy.”

I honestly don’t know how else to describe the office of the presidency if it openly admits it is bound by no law.

[Brian4Liberty]

Snowden?

No, whoever this person is that they want to kill. It's not Snowden (in this case).

[Brian4Liberty]

Four U.S. officials said the American suspected terrorist is in a country that refuses U.S. military action on its soil

Now which evil, backwards, terrorist nation won't let us fire missiles from a drone in their country based on the output from a computer program? Perhaps if we can guarantee that the collateral damage will be less than $10 million dollars and 30 innocent bystanders (per strike), maybe then more nations will sign on?

[enhanced_deficit]

Did they leak this to media for any propganada purpose or it is SOP to "weigh" on drone attacks through media news?

Secondly, there seem to be very few drone attacks since this news about neocons' plant SWC dronebag :

While You Were Debating Obama’s ‘Selfie,’ U.S. Drones Killed 13+ Yemen Wedding Guests (http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?436307-While-You-Were-Debating-Obama%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%98Selfie-%E2%80%99-U-S-Drones-Killed-13-Yemen-Wedding-Guests&)


http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/dam/assets/131215195303-yemen-drone-art-story-top.jpg
A Yemeni boy walks past a mural depicting a U.S. drone on December 13 in the capital Sanaa.

http://media2.wptv.com//photo/2013/12/10/WPTV_Obama_Selfie_20131210122944_320_240.JPG (http://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&docid=K_TVYhSOkZt6gM&tbnid=3HUiUSTtSvCROM:&ved=0CAUQjRw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wptv.com%2Fdpp%2Fnews%2Flocal _news%2Fwater_cooler%2Fpresident-obama-selfie-president-takes-selfie-with-prime-ministers-at-mandela-service&ei=SrW4UuCZJJOgkQeX3YCoBw&bvm=bv.58187178,d.eW0&psig=AFQjCNFA4swHIfgykm4D_TNC7Wrh1-YjdA&ust=1387923112688653)
http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.1543379.1386700910%21/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_635/south-africa-mandela-memorial.jpg (http://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&docid=4HsUeOKH4In3DM&tbnid=_IlqjVhXlI9b3M:&ved=0CAUQjRw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nydailynews.com%2Fnews%2Fpoli tics%2Fpresident-obama-poses-funeral-selfie-article-1.1543188&ei=6vCoUvWpFIrLkAenlYHAAw&bvm=bv.57799294,d.eW0&psig=AFQjCNH4JS61BAi2ySf8De8-k4QbOgsEJQ&ust=1386889785787533)








Related

Drone strikes: tears in Congress as Pakistani family tells of mother's death

Translator brought to tears by family's plea as Congress hears from civilian victims of alleged US drone strike for the first time


http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2013/10/29/1383072506298/ddbd0c18-2c73-4691-86c5-816923a294f6-460x276.jpeg
Nabila Rehman, 9, holds up a picture she drew depicting the US drone strike on her Pakistan village which killed her grandmother. Photograph: Jason Reed/Reuters

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SWC Drone King's Victims Diaries I (http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?431097-U-S-drone-strikes-killed-Pakistani-grandmother&p=5277619&viewfull=1#post5277619)

SWC Drone King's Victims Diaries II (http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?431958-Girl-who-survived-Obama-drone-attack-is-younger-than-his-daughter&p=5288233&viewfull=1#post5288233)

Afghan President Again Demands US Airstrikes End (http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/afghan-attack-deadliest-war-foreign-workers-21585761)

ABC News-14 minutes ago

Most Americans see Obama as Dishonest, Untrustworthy (http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?433586-Majority-of-Americans-now-believe-Obama-is-quot-dishonest-and-untrustworthy)

Ex-Defense Secretary Robert Gates has harsh words for Obama (http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?440387-Ex-Defense-Secretary-Robert-Gates-has-harsh-words-for-Drone-King)

3 Americans Killed in US Military Plane Crash in Afghanistan (http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2014/01/3-americans-killed-in-u-s-military-plane-crash-in-afghanistan/)
ABC News (blog)-Jan 9, 2014

US-Afghan Relations Hit New Low As Little Boy Accidentally Killed ... (http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=newssearch&cd=25&cad=rja&ved=0CDMQqQIoADAEOBQ&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.businessinsider.com%2Fus-afghan-relations-hit-new-low-as-little-boy-accidentally-killed-by-us-forces-amid-security-deal-row-2014-1&ei=WeXQUvmdMsrrkAeD4IEg&usg=AFQjCNE7g_UoQbyGiQolMIYfKK9T24lBww&bvm=bv.59026428,d.cWc)

The 12-Year War: 73% of U.S. Casualties in Afghanistan Occured on Obama's Watch (http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?427493-The-12-Year-War-73-of-U-S-Casualties-in-Afghanistan-on-Obama-s-Watch&p=5221296#post5221296)