Western Prisoners of Technotyranny of Shadow Governments in the Service of Corporate Elites

ꕤ Article SOURCE https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/john_whiteheads_commentary/the_nsas_technotyranny_one_nation_under_surveillance The NSA’s Technotyranny: One Nation Under Surveillance By John W. Whitehead May 26, 2015     “The ultimate goal of the NSA is total population control.”—William Binney, NSA whistleblower We now have a fourth branch of government. As I document in my new book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, this fourth branch came into being without any electoral mandate or constitutional referendum, and yet it possesses superpowers, above and beyond those of any other government agency save the military. It is all-knowing, all-seeing and all-powerful. It operates beyond the reach of the president, Congress and the courts, and it marches in lockstep with the corporate elite who really call the shots in Washington, DC. You might know this branch of government as Surveillance, but I prefer “technotyranny,” a term coined by investigative journalist James Bamford to refer to an age of technological tyranny made possible by government secrets, government lies, government spies and their corporate ties. Beware of what you say, what you read, what you write, where you go, and with whom you communicate, because it will all be recorded, stored and used against you eventually, at a time and place of the government’s choosing. Privacy, as we have known it, is dead. The police state is about to pass off the baton to the surveillance state. Having already transformed local police into extensions of the military, the Department of Homeland Security, the Justice Department and the FBI are preparing to turn the nation’s soldier cops into techno-warriors, complete with iris scanners, body scanners, thermal imaging Doppler radar devices, facial recognition programs, license plate readers, cell phone Stingray devices and so much more. This is about to be the new face of policing in America. The National Security Agency (NSA) has been a perfect red herring, distracting us from the government’s broader, technology-driven campaign to render us helpless in the face of its prying eyes. In fact, long before the NSA became the agency we loved to hate, the Justice Department, the FBI, and the Drug Enforcement Administration were carrying out their own secret mass surveillance on an unsuspecting populace. Just about every branch of the government—from the Postal Service to the Treasury Department and every agency in between—now has its own surveillance sector, authorized to spy on the American people. Then there are the fusion and counterterrorism centers that gather all of the data from the smaller government spies—the police, public health officials, transportation, etc.—and make it accessible for all those in power. And of course that doesn’t even begin to touch on the complicity of the corporate sector, which buys and sells us from cradle to grave, until we have no more data left to mine. The raging debate over the fate of the NSA’s blatantly unconstitutional, illegal and ongoing domestic surveillance programs is just so much noise, what Shakespeare referred to as “sound and fury, signifying nothing.” It means nothing: the legislation, the revelations, the task forces, and the filibusters. The government is not giving up, nor is it giving in. It has stopped listening to us. It has long since ceased to take orders from “we the people.” If you haven’t figured it out yet, none of it—the military drills, the surveillance, the militarized police, the strip searches, the random pat downs, the stop-and-frisks, even the police-worn body cameras—is about fighting terrorism. It’s about controlling the populace. Despite the fact that its data snooping has been shown to be ineffective at detecting, let alone stopping, any actual terror attacks, the NSA continues to operate largely in secret, carrying out warrantless mass surveillance on hundreds of millions of Americans’ phone calls, emails, text messages and the like, beyond the scrutiny of most of Congress and the taxpayers who are forced to fund its multi-billion dollar secret black ops budget. Legislation such as the USA Patriot Act serves only to legitimize the actions of a secret agency run by a shadow government. Even the proposed and ultimately defeated USA Freedom Act, which purported to restrict the reach of the NSA’s phone surveillance program—at least on paper—by requiring the agency to secure a warrant before surveillance could be carried out on American citizens and prohibiting the agency from storing any data collected on Americans, amounted to little more than a paper tiger: threatening in appearance, but lacking any real bite. The question of how to deal with the NSA—an agency that operates outside of the system of checks and balances established by the Constitution—is a divisive issue that polarizes even those who have opposed the NSA’s warrantless surveillance from the get-go, forcing all of us—cynics, idealists, politicians and realists alike—to grapple with a deeply unsatisfactory and dubious political “solution” to a problem that operates beyond the reach of voters and politicians: how do you trust a government that lies, cheats, steals, sidesteps the law, and then absolves itself of wrongdoing to actually obey the law? Since its official start in 1952, when President Harry S. Truman issued a secret executive order establishing the NSA as the hub of the government’s foreign intelligence activities, the agency—nicknamed “No Such Agency”—has operated covertly, unaccountable to Congress all the while using taxpayer dollars to fund its secret operations. It was only when the agency ballooned to 90,000 employees in 1969, making it the largest intelligence agency in the world with a significant footprint outside Washington, DC, that it became more difficult to deny its existence. In the aftermath of Watergate in 1975, the Senate held meetings under the Church Committee in order to determine exactly what sorts of illicit activities the American intelligence apparatus was engaged in under the direction of President Nixon, and how future violations of the law could be stopped. It was the first time the NSA was exposed to public scrutiny since its creation. The investigation revealed a sophisticated operation whose surveillance programs paid little heed to such things as the Constitution. For instance, under Project SHAMROCK, the NSA spied on telegrams to and from the U.S., as well as the correspondence of American citizens. Moreover, as the Saturday Evening Post reports, “Under Project MINARET, the NSA monitored the communications of civil rights leaders and opponents of the Vietnam War, including targets such as Martin Luther King, Jr., Mohammed Ali, Jane Fonda, and two active U.S. Senators. The NSA had launched this program in 1967 to monitor suspected terrorists and drug traffickers, but successive presidents used it to track all manner of political dissidents.” Senator Frank Church (D-Ida.), who served as the chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence that investigated the NSA, understood only too well the dangers inherent in allowing the government to overstep its authority in the name of national security. Church recognized that such surveillance powers “at any time could be turned around on the American people, and no American would have any privacy left, such is the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn’t matter. There would be no place to hide.” Noting that the NSA could enable a dictator “to impose total tyranny” upon an utterly defenseless American public, Church declared that he did not “want to see this country ever go across the bridge” of constitutional protection, congressional oversight and popular demand for privacy. He avowed that “we,” implicating both Congress and its constituency in this duty, “must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision, so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return.” The result was the passage of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), and the creation of the FISA Court, which was supposed to oversee and correct how intelligence information is collected and collated. The law requires that the NSA get clearance from the FISA Court, a secret surveillance court, before it can carry out surveillance on American citizens. Fast forward to the present day, and the so-called solution to the problem of government entities engaging in unjustified and illegal surveillance—the FISA Court—has unwittingly become the enabler of such activities, rubberstamping almost every warrant request submitted to it. The 9/11 attacks served as a watershed moment in our nation’s history, ushering in an era in which immoral and/or illegal government activities such as surveillance, torture, strip searches, SWAT team raids are sanctioned as part of the quest to keep us “safe.” In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, George W. Bush secretly authorized the NSA to conduct warrantless surveillance on Americans’ phone calls and emails. That wireless wiretap program was reportedly ended in 2007 after the New York Times reported on it, to mass indignation. Nothing changed under Barack Obama. In fact, the violations worsened, with the NSA authorized to secretly collect internet and telephone data on millions of Americans, as well as on foreign governments. It was only after whistleblower Edward Snowden’s revelations in 2013 that the American people fully understood the extent to which they had been betrayed once again. What this brief history of the NSA makes clear is that you cannot reform the NSA. As long as the government is allowed to make a mockery of the law—be it the Constitution, the FISA Act or any other law intended to limit its reach and curtail its activities—and is permitted to operate behind closed doors, [relying] on secret courts, secret budgets and secret interpretations of the laws of the land, there will be no reform. Presidents, politicians, and court rulings have come and gone over the course of the NSA’s 60-year history, but none of them have done much to put an end to the NSA’s “technotyranny.” The beast has outgrown its chains. It will not be restrained. The growing tension seen and felt throughout the country is a tension between those who wield power on behalf of the government—the president, Congress, the courts, the military, the militarized police, the technocrats, the faceless unelected bureaucrats who blindly obey and carry out government directives, no matter how immoral or unjust, and the corporations—and those among the populace who are finally waking up to the mounting injustices, seething corruption and endless tyrannies that are transforming our country into a technocrized police state. At every turn, we have been handicapped in our quest for transparency, accountability and a representative democracy by an establishment culture of secrecy: secret agencies, secret experiments, secret military bases, secret surveillance, secret budgets, and secret court rulings, all of which exist beyond our reach, operate outside our knowledge, and do not answer to “we the people.” What we have failed to truly comprehend is that the NSA is merely one small part of a shadowy permanent government comprised of unelected bureaucrats who march in lockstep with profit-driven corporations that actually runs Washington, DC, and works to keep us under surveillance and, thus, under control. For example, Google openly works with the NSA, Amazon has built a massive $600 million intelligence database for the CIA, and the telecommunications industry is making a fat profit by spying on us for the government. In other words, Corporate America is making a hefty profit by aiding and abetting the government in its domestic surveillance efforts. Conveniently, as the Intercept recently revealed, many of the NSA’s loudest defenders have financial ties to NSA contractors. Thus, if this secret regime not only exists but thrives, it is because we have allowed it through our ignorance, apathy and naïve trust in politicians who take their orders from Corporate America rather than the Constitution. If this shadow government persists, it is because we have yet to get outraged enough to push back against its power grabs and put an end to its high-handed tactics. And if this unelected bureaucracy succeeds in trampling underfoot our last vestiges of privacy and freedom, it will be because we let ourselves be fooled into believing that politics matters, that voting makes a difference, that politicians actually represent the citizenry, that the courts care about justice, and that everything that is being done is in our best interests. Indeed, as political scientist Michael J. Glennon warns, you can vote all you want, but the people you elect aren’t actually the ones calling the shots. “The American people are deluded … that the institutions that provide the public face actually set American national security policy,” stated Glennon. “They believe that when they vote for a president or member of Congress or succeed in bringing a case before the courts, that policy is going to change. But … policy by and large in the national security realm is made by the concealed institutions.” In other words, it doesn’t matter who occupies the White House: the secret government with its secret agencies, secret budgets and secret programs won’t change. It will simply continue to operate in secret until some whistleblower comes along to momentarily pull back the curtain and we dutifully—and fleetingly—play the part of the outraged public, demanding accountability and rattling our cages, all the while bringing about little real reform. Thus, the lesson of the NSA and its vast network of domestic spy partners is simply this: once you allow the government to start breaking the law, no matter how seemingly justifiable the reason, you relinquish the contract between you and the government which establishes that the government works for and obeys you, the citizen—the employer—the master. Once the government starts operating outside the law, answerable to no one but itself, there’s no way to rein it back in, short of revolution. And by revolution, I mean doing away with the entire structure, because the corruption and lawlessness have become that pervasive. https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/john_whiteheads_commentary/the_nsas_technotyranny_one_nation_under_surveillance ---------------------- ꕤ ---------------------- COMMENT I switched my attention to another topic because the mass non-European invasion in Europe was seriously freaking me out, while the events in Israel were also beginning to do my head in.  But reading this is just as depressing. What applies in the US, applies elsewhere.  It's just different nations and different agencies, operating in much the same way and in cooperation with their US counterparts and allies (see Five Eyes & note the German BND cooperation with US spying, along with the Five Eyes partners). It sounds like all ordinary people are doomed to being controlled by shadow unelected governments, that are operating in the service of the corporate elite's interests, and evidently a law unto themselves. Can't see a revolution coming any time soon, so we're all prisoners and the entire Western democratic government edifice is a lie. ꕤ

'Is Obama the Worst President Ever?'

SOURCE http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/09/03/is-obama-the-worst-president-ever/ September 3, 2015 Is Obama the Worst President Ever? by Dave Lindorff Obama is on track to go down in history as one of the, or perhaps as the worst and most criminal presidents in US history. He started out, campaigning in 2008, as someone would would restore the rule of law in US international affairs and here at home after eight years of criminality during the Bush and Cheney administration, as saying he would end America’s wars and bring back an era of international cooperation and negotiation, and as saying that he would confront the dire threat of global climate change. On the basis of that promise, he won a dramatic election victory, raising hopes across the country and across many voting blocks. On that basis, he was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize — the first time the award was given before anything had been done by the laureate being honored. And on the basis of that promise, people expected action on climate change. Instead, the president began backpedaling almost instantly. Instead of restoring the rule of law, he almost immediately announced that he would not permit his Justice Department to engage in any prosecutions of CIA, FBI, military of Bush/Cheney administration personnel for violations of international law or of US law. He introduced new secrecy rules, launched a record number of prosecutions of government whistleblowers, including an international manhunt to arrest or kill NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden which included the forcing down of a presidential aircraft carrying the president of Bolivia, wrongly suspected of flying Snowden from Russia to that Latin American country, and a secret espionage indictment against Wikileaks founder Julien Assange, who has thus been trapped for years in the little UK embassy of Ecuador which has granted him asylum. And most egregiously, Barack Obama, sabotaged the first international meeting on climate change held in Denmark, and has ducked every opportunity to have the US lead on reaching an international agreement to seriously reduce global carbon emissions. During the three Congressional electoral cycles and his re-election campaign in 2012, Obama studiously avoided pressing on any of these key issues, and especially on climate change. His position: “all of the above”, for energy development, has seen the US move, not towards carbon emission reductions, but towards expanded production of gas, oil and even coal extraction, making the US the largest oil producer in the world, and a major provider of dirty coal to both US electric companies and large coal using countries abroad, including China. Now we have this flimflam artist up in Alaska, talking about the crisis he has helped worsen, calling it an existential issue. And yet even as he speaks, the Shell Oil Company is towing a giant oil drilling rig up to the Arctic Ocean, thanks to an Obama administration permit, to begin drilling for oil in the shallow waters north of Alaska — drilling for yet more oil, that is, even as the world is facing a glut of the stuff, in a delicate region that would be devastated by a well blow-out, because ice would make containment an impossibility. Future generations of Americans will surely look back at President Obama as not just a con-man, but as someone who blew several trillion dollars on continued wars around the globe, as someone who terminally destroyed the Bill of Rights and the Constitution, instead of rescuing these documents as promised, and as the president who, when given the last real opportunity to reverse climate change, ducked the challenge and pandered to the corporations that selfishly wanted short-term gain over long-term survival for humanity and the biosphere. There are plenty of other criminal acts by this president to consider. On his watch, this first African-American president allowed an increased national police to become a fully-armed occupying army across the country. No American today is safe from abusive police who make up crimes and ignore the law at will, but paying a uniquely terrible price are African-Americans and other people of color, who once gave this president 90% of their votes or more, but who now are being gunned down with a grim regularity by mostly white cops who fire at the slightest provocation, even at unarmed kids. On his watch too, young children, fleeing US-caused gang violence in Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and elsewhere in Latin America, have been sent back to their home countries illegally, or held in prisons in this country in violation of direct court orders. He also ordered his Justice Department not to prosecute the criminal bankers who willfully destroyed the US and the global economy to profit themselves and their institutions. This president, let’s be clear, has not just been incompetent and gutless. He has been a slick political fraud and both a common and a Constitutional criminal. In a just nation of engaged citizens, Obama would already have been impeached for any number of serious crimes, beginning with the failure to prosecute known war criminals of the Bush/Cheney administration, including the president and vice-president themselves. That’s not going to happen, because this is not a just nation of engaged citizens. But there will be a reckoning. History will judge this president harshly, as it has judged criminal leaders of the past, from Rome’s Nero to Italy’s Mussolini or Uganda’s Idi Amin. It may strike some as hyperbole to put President Obama in league with such universally acknowledged monsters as these, but when human beings begin dying by the millions because of climate-change caused famines, floods, droughts and international armed conflicts we will surely look back at the actions and inactions of this particular president, who had the opportunity to make a huge difference and chose not just to do nothing, but to make things worse, and will say his crimes perhaps exceeded theirs. Dave Lindorff is a founding member of ThisCantBeHappening!, an online newspaper collective, and is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion (AK Press). SOURCE http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/09/03/is-obama-the-worst-president-ever/ ---------------------- ꕤ ---------------------- What stood out for me: USA refuses to prosecute CIA, FBI, military [or] Bush/Cheney administration personnel for violating US or international law. Obama admin: = violated & continues to violate the Bill of Rights and the Constitution Obama admin: allowed militarised police to become a fully-armed occupying army across USA "No American today is safe from abusive police who make up crimes and ignore the law at will" Obama admin: introduced new secrecy rules Obama admin: launched a record number of prosecutions of whistleblowers Obama admin: engaged in international manhunt for whistleblower Edward Snowden Obama admin: forced down of a presidential aircraft carrying the president of Bolivia (wrongly suspected of flying Snowden from Russia to Bolivia} Obama admin: initiated a secret espionage indictment against WikiLeaks founder, journalist-publisher, Julian Assange (trapped for 5 years in the confines of UK embassy of Ecuador, which has granted him political asylum) Obama admin: =  ordered his Justice Department not to prosecute criminal bankers who destroyed the US & global economy for own profits Obama admin: = blew several trillion dollars on continued wars around the globe Obama admin: = pandered to corporations out for short-term gain over long-term effects on environment Obama admin: = expanded production of gas, oil and even coal extraction making the US the world's largest oil producer Thanks to Obama admin: USA = a major provider of dirty coal to both US electric companies + large coal using countries abroad, incl. China. Thanks to Obama admin: Shell Oil Company = towing a giant oil drilling rig up to the Arctic Ocean (Obama administration permit, to begin drilling for oil in the shallow waters north of Alaska) ꕤ ꕤ

Intel & Surveillance News

US vows to help #Philippines in intel gathering / oldest US ally in Asia no specifics re support see Territorial dispute South China Sea #China claim Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei + Taiwan have overlapping claims http://www.philstar.com/headlines/2015/08/26/1492532/us-vows-help-philippines-intel-gathering MacDonald, Dettwiler & Associates Lttd /MDA CA$3.9 million contract with National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency http://softwaredev.itbusinessnet.com/article/MDA-to-provide-operational-enhancements-for-information-solution-to-support-flight-operations-at-airports-4038599 other MacDonald, Dettwiler & Associates Lttd /MDA  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacDonald,_Dettwiler_and_Associates National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency combat support agency, under USA DOD & intelligence agency US intel comm GEOINT NGA credited by WH military officials for providing info re Op Neptune's Spear 2011 / bin Laden #Serbia National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency cause of #NATO Bombing of Chinese embassy in Belgrade / CIA argues otherwise. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Geospatial-Intelligence_Agency USA military - DRONES Spent last decade amassing over 7,000 surveillance drones / some size of birds / others as big as as jetliners Drone technology = USA spy planes will be phased out starting in 2018 Without US ground troops in Iraq and Syria, #USA commanders rely on airborne #surveillance more than ever before Iraq war - USA had plenty fighter pilots - low on aerial surveillance re what happening ground / long distance pilots on amphetamine paste Over decades, U-2 spy plane claimed lives of 30 pilots / many have nearly crashed after suffering decompression sickness Russia U-2 spy plane shot down over Soviet Union in 1960 / capture of pilot Francis Gary Powers / traded for Soviet spy 1962 It is after satellites could be relied upon for remote control that drones could be used for surveillance. US Airforce trained: x18 U-2 pilots trained 2014 x57 ground-based pilots for Global Hawk (drone) [ looks like drones are the go ] DRONES = cost about half what the U-2 spy planes cost per flying hour to operate Global Hawk = drone http://www.latimes.com/nation/great-reads/la-na-c1-spy-plane-pilot-20150826-story.html Potomac Advocates (PRASAM) PRASAM, intel community's 'official' lobbyist grabbed lion’s share of USG lobbying 4 intel community /subsription http://www.intelligenceonline.com/government-intelligence/due-diligence/2015/08/26/prasam-intelligence-community-s--official--lobbyist,108088706-ART More Potomac Advocates http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/firmsum.php?id=D000036775 Kratos Defense & Security Solutions, Inc provides war fighter solutions and security related services engineering, Information Technology services and war fighter solutions primarily for US National Security priorities services include command, control, communications, computing, combat systems, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (c5ISR), weapon systems lifecycle support, military weapon range and technical services, network engineering services, advanced information technology services, security and surveillance systems, and critical infrastructure design and integration services. http://www.americantradejournal.com/kratos-defense-security-solutions-inc-short-interest-update-2/657949/ #Canada Surveillance Police surveillance camera goes up in East Vancouver neighbourhood / gang violence issue http://www.news1130.com/2015/08/25/police-surveillance-camera-goes-up-in-vancouver-neighbourhood/ #Surveillance Windows 10 heralds a future in which the cloud rules and computers snitch on us by default default / automatic sharing of data the new normal — from your voice & typing patterns to unique machine ID s/ track & target #surveillance By default, users of Mac OSX & Ubuntu Linux transmit local search terms to respective companies + third parties http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2015/8/when-surveillance-is-a-feature-not-a-bug.html #AmericanAggression masked as deterrence to 'Russian aggression' USA send F-22 Raptors to Europe European Reassurance Initiative $985 million in overseas contingency operations USA funding - 2015 current fiscal year. http://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/defense/2015-08-25/us-will-send-f-22s-europe-bolster-allies-deter-russia Understanding Indications & Warning Efforts Of US Ballistic Missile Defence – Analysis http://www.eurasiareview.com/26082015-understanding-indications-and-warning-efforts-of-us-ballistic-missile-defense-analysis/ Surveillance / Militarised Police #Baltimore police Coming Storm 'Stingray' Surveillance by Police http://www.citylab.com/crime/2015/08/youre-going-to-hear-a-lot-more-about-police-use-of-stingray/402283/ USA Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act | CISA concerns re proposed Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act ie - nature and volume of private data about users being funneled to the government (and intelligence agencies) by companies who opt to participate in the information sharing scheme contemplated by the law https://www.justsecurity.org/25475/cisa-surveillance-law-xss-attack/ USA - Surveillance Act (FISA) electronic surveillance under Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) fed appeals court upheld sentence http://www.startribune.com/federal-appeals-court-upholds-women-s-prison-sentences-in-terror-case/322843851/ Military Drones Market to Reach $11 Billion by 2021 From $3 Billion in 2014 http://www.aviationpros.com/news/12106991/military-drones-market-to-reach-11-billion-by-2021-from-3-billion-in-2014 Ghostery privacy extension / Ghostrank Ghostery privacy extension http://www.extremetech.com/internet/212476-is-it-safe-to-use-the-ghostery-privacy-extension ---------------------- ꕤ  ---------------------- COMMENT Random surveillance articles.  Bit of a mixed bag that's thrown up some military stuff.  Mostly just skimmed. The ballistic missiles article could be interesting, as it's a bit hard to apply lessons of history to present day strategy, without knowing anything about today's military capabilities.  That might be a reading list article.  Not sure I'll get there.  Swamped with all the earmarked stuff I think might be a good read.  Not enough time in the day for all this stuff.  lol The US proposal for companies to share info with government and spy agencies is about as totalitarian as it gets. ꕤ

Stand by for: Killer Robots

Killer robots must be banned, warns Amnesty International By WMNDavidWells  |  Posted: April 16, 2015 DRONE-POLICE-1 Not a ‘killer robot’ – but a surveillance drone being tested by Merseyside Police in 2007 Killer robots must be banned before their “insidious creep into policing” puts lives at risk and “poses a serious threat to human rights”, Amnesty International has said as it launched a new briefing in Geneva. Amnesty said that governments must ban any further development of killer robots as there is a “likelihood that they will be used in police operations” in an address to the UN’s Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW). The organisation is calling for a pre-emptive ban on the development, stockpiling, transfer, deployment and use of fully autonomous weapons systems (AWS or killer robots), including drones. The call comes months after a report highlighted how police in Wiltshire, Merseyside, Staffordshire, Essex, and the West Midlands have already acquired or used drones for surveillance and other operations. That report, published last year by the University of Birmingham Policy Commission, in research led by Sir David Omand, a former director at the Government’s listening post at GCHQ, warned that authorities must look at governing how and when drones can be used. Last year, the Royal Navy also launched its first-ever squadron comprised entirely of unmanned aircraft in Cornwall. The new squadron, based at RNAS Culdrose in Helston, is also responsible for trialling the next generation of pilotless aircraft. The pilotless drones of 700X Naval Air Squadron act as 'eyes in the sky' on reconnaissance missions and and counter-piracy patrols. The fleet includes three high tech Boeing Insitu ScanEagle devices, which are launched from aircraft carriers with a giant catapult. Each plane can spend up to 18 hours in the air beaming back live footage of targets to a three-man Royal Navy operating team. The drones have previously been used to locate mines in the Gulf but will now be assigned to Lieutenant Commander Alan Rogers, whose new squadron is one of the Navy's smallest in terms of human personnel. Amnesty today said that precursors to fully autonomous weapons – including drones and other unmanned weapons systems which are currently operated by humans –are already used to commit violations and present serious challenges to ensuring accountability. But, the organisation said, rapid advances in technology could mean the next generation of robotic weapons would be able to select and attack targets, potentially killing or injuring people, without effective human control – a chilling prospect which carries a new set of concerns. “The second round of talks in Geneva this week are a clear sign that governments are waking up to the wide range of serious concerns posed by killer robots, whose development and deployment in the near future seem all but inevitable if we don’t act now,” said Rasha Abdul Rahim, Campaigner on Arms Control, Security Trade & Human Rights at Amnesty International, who is currently at the CCW talks in Geneva. “The legal, ethical, and moral quandaries of using these systems in warfare are rightly beginning to receive the attention they deserve. But what’s still being widely overlooked is the likelihood that they will also be used in police operations, and it is urgent that this is addressed now. “Relying solely on machines to maintain law and order is not just a hypothetical scenario explored in countless sci-fi films. It is a chilling idea which may actually be realized if current developments are left unchecked. Now is the time for states to ban killer robots both on the battlefield and in policing, before we reach the point of no return.” Amnesty International’s new briefing, Autonomous Weapons Systems: Five key human rights issues for consideration, focuses on the implications of police use of killer robots in law enforcement. It argues that police use of robotic weapons would be fundamentally incompatible with international human rights law, resulting in unlawful killings, excessive use of force causing injuries, and undermining the right to human dignity. Unlike highly trained law enforcement officers, robots could not by themselves peacefully diffuse confrontations, distinguish between lawful and unlawful orders, make decisions about graduated response with a view to minimising harm, or be held accountable for mistakes or malfunctions that result in death or serious injuries, Amnesty said. Fully autonomous weapons without some level of human oversight have not yet been deployed, but rapid advances in technology are bringing them closer to reality, the organisation suggested. Amnesty’s address suggested there is just a “small leap” from products that are already on the market to fully fledged killer robots. It said companies in the UK, USA, Jordan, Israel, Spain and elsewhere are already developing “less lethal” robotic weapons for policing that are remotely operated or which fire automatically when touched. These include unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, and ground vehicles that can apparently shoot electric-shock darts, tear gas and other less-lethal projectiles, resulting in the risk of death or serious injuries. One example is the ShadowHawk drone being developed by US-based Vanguard Defense Industries. The ShadowHawk is designed to carry out operations similar to those of a surveillance helicopter, but it can also be weaponised. A media report hailed these capabilities when a Texas Sheriff’s office purchased one in 2011: “Although its initial role will be limited to surveillance, the ShadowHawk Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, previously used against suspected terrorists in Afghanistan and East Africa, has the ability to tase suspects from above as well as carrying 12-gauge shotguns and grenade launchers”. Amnesty International believes that in policing operations, autonomous weapons systems would not be able to properly assess complex policing situations and comply with relevant standards. “Under international standards, police may use force only when strictly necessary and to the extent required for the performance of their duty. They prohibit the use of firearms except in defence against an imminent threat of death or serious injury. It’s very difficult to imagine a machine substituting for human judgment, which is critically important to decisions on the use of potentially lethal force,” said Rasha Abdul Rahim. Amnesty International and its partners on the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots are calling for a global pre-emptive ban on the development, transfer, deployment and use of autonomous weapons systems, for either armed conflict or law enforcement. In the absence of such a prohibition, Amnesty said that states must publicly support and implement a call by the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions to impose a moratorium on the development, transfer, deployment and use of such systems. The organisation said that, in the meantime, “it is imperative that due consideration be given to the human rights implications of autonomous weapons systems”. http://www.westernmorningnews.co.uk/Killer-robots-banned-warns-Amnesty-International/story-26342813-detail/story.html COMMENT Thought this was an interesting article.  Militarised police is already an issue in USA and it looks like UK is heading that way. Check out what the Texas police have got!  Bet the Chicago PD's envious. Killer robots don't sound too good to me, so I'm all for stopping development etc. But Amnesty International sounds like it's another tool in the imperialist arsenal:  SYRIA: “Human Rights” Warriors for Empire Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have chosen the side of Empire in the Washington-backed belligerency http://www.globalresearch.ca/syria-human-rights-warriors-for-empire/29422 EXTRACT Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are swigging the ale with their fellow buccaneers. These “human rights” warriors, headquartered in the bellies of empires past and present, their chests shiny with medals of propagandistic service to superpower aggression in Libya, contribute “left” legitimacy to the imperial project. London-based Amnesty International held a global “day of action” to rail against Syria for “crimes against humanity” and to accuse Russia and China of using their Security Council vetoes to “betray” the Syrian people – echoing the war hysteria out of Washington, Paris, London and ... Riyadh and Doha. New York-based Human Rights Watch denounced Moscow and Beijing’s actions as “incendiary” – as if it were not the empire and its allies who were setting the Middle East and Africa on fire, arming and financing jihadis – including hundreds of veteran Libyan Salafists now operating in Syria.   http://www.globalresearch.ca/syria-human-rights-warriors-for-empire/29422 So the Amnesty International call for a moratorium or ban on autonomous weapons systems (killer robots), would just be what:  performance?