Tag: drones

US Drone Attack Kills at Least 10 Afghan Civilians—Including 6 Children

A U.S. drone strike purportedly targeting a suspected ISIS-K vehicle in a residential neighborhood of Kabul, Afghanistan killed at least 10 members of a single family—including six children—as they were getting out of their car on Sunday.

Relatives of the victims told the Washington Post that the strike—which was the second attack the U.S. carried out in Kabul over the weekend—”hit a nearby vehicle” that the Pentagon claims was an “imminent” threat.

The civilian victims of the U.S. strike were all “from a single extended family,” the Post reported.

Samim Shahyad, a 25-year-old journalism student, told the New York Times that the U.S. attack killed his father, his two brothers, four of his young cousins, his niece, and his sister’s fiancé. Shahyad added that three of the victims were girls who were just two years old or younger.

“The American aircraft targeted us,” said Shahyad. “I do not know what to say, they just cut my arms and broke my back, I cannot say anything more.”

One neighbor at the scene of the attack said in an interview with CNN that “not much is left of their house and nothing can be recognized, they are in pieces.” The person estimated that as many as 20 people may have been killed in the U.S. drone strike.

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T Is For Tyranny: How Freedom Dies From A To Z

“Plays, farces, spectacles, gladiators, strange beasts, medals, pictures, and other such opiates, these were for ancient peoples the bait toward slavery, the price of their liberty, the instruments of tyranny. By these practices and enticements the ancient dictators so successfully lulled their subjects under the yoke, that the stupefied peoples, fascinated by the pastimes and vain pleasures flashed before their eyes, learned subservience as naively, but not so creditably, as little children learn to read by looking at bright picture books.”

– French philosopher Etienne de La Boétie

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to be a convenient, traumatic, devastating distraction.

The American people, the permanent underclass in America, have allowed themselves to be so distracted and divided that they have failed to notice the building blocks of tyranny being laid down right under their noses by the architects of the Deep State.

Biden, Trump, Obama, Bush, Clinton: they have all been complicit in carrying out the Deep State’s agenda.

Frankly, it really doesn’t matter who occupies the White House, because it is a profit-driven, unelected bureaucracy—call it whatever you will: the Deep State, the Controllers, the masterminds, the shadow government, the corporate elite, the police state, the surveillance state, the military industrial complex—that is actually calling the shots

Our losses are mounting with every passing day, part of a calculated siege intended to ensure our defeat at the hands of a totalitarian regime.

Free speech, the right to protest, the right to challenge government wrongdoing, due process, a presumption of innocence, the right to self-defense, accountability and transparency in government, privacy, media, sovereignty, assembly, bodily integrity, representative government: all of these and more are casualties in the government’s war on the American people.

Set against a backdrop of government surveillance, militarized federal police, SWAT team raids, asset forfeiture, overcriminalization, armed surveillance drones, whole body scanners, stop and frisk searches, and the like—all of which have been sanctioned by Congress, the White House and the courts—our constitutional freedoms are being steadily chipped away at, undermined, eroded, whittled down, and generally discarded.

As a result, the American people continue to be treated like enemy combatants, to be spied on, tracked, scanned, frisked, searched, subjected to all manner of intrusions, intimidated, invaded, raided, manhandled, censored, silenced, shot at, locked up, and denied due process.

None of these dangers have dissipated in any way.

They have merely disappeared from our televised news streams.

Thus, in the interest of liberty and truth, here’s an A-to-Z primer that spells out the grim realities of life in the American Police State that no one seems to be talking about anymore.

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How an ex-intel official’s prison sentence exposes the folly of the Espionage Act

The District Court of Alexandria, Virginia on Tuesday sentenced former Air Force intelligence analyst Daniel Hale to nearly four years in prison. He was charged under the Espionage Act for leaking secret documents on the Obama administration’s clandestine drone strike operations in 2014 and 2015. 

The documents, which were published in October, 2015 by The Intercept, exposed the horrific details of U.S. drone warfare in Somalia, Yemen, and Afghanistan, as well as a rulebook on how the U.S. government adds individuals to its terror watchlists and locates them. In March, Hale pleaded guilty to one count of violating the Espionage Act. 

It’s frustrating to see that the Biden administration is continuing to use the Espionage Act to crack down on whistleblowers, especially at a time when government accountability and responsible national security policies are urgently needed. For the past two decades, the so-called “War on Terror” has undermined the rule of law and provided cover for the executive branch to wage secret, unconstitutional wars with impunity. Charging those who expose this injustice as spies is not the answer — the administration must pursue meaningful accountability and an overhaul of  U.S. counterterrorism policies. 

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Dubai makes its own RAIN to tackle 122F heat: Drones blast clouds with electrical charge to produce downpours

The United Arab Emirates is creating its own rain using drones that fly into clouds and unleash electrical charges to beat the sweltering 122 degrees Fahrenheit (50 degrees Celsius) heat. 

The rain is formed using drone technology that gives clouds an electric shock to ‘cajole them’ into clumping together and producing precipitation. 

The UAE is one of the most arid countries on Earth, and it hopes the technique could help to increase its meagre annual rainfall. 

And it is working. Video footage released by the UAE’s National Center of Meteorology shows monsoon-like downpours across the country which create a sheet of rain on the highways. 

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Israel Is Sending Robots With Machine Guns to the Gaza Border

Gaza is often described as the world’s largest open-air prison. Over two million people inhabit the tiny coastal strip, and they must endure a 70 percent unemployment rate; frequent shortages of medical supplies, fuel and clean water; constant power outages; and the fundamentalist governance of the extremist group Hamas. Add to that the Israeli air strikes that knocked down multiple high-rise residential buildings in a war last May—the third war since Hamas seized control of Gaza in 2007.

Gazans who’ve had enough will find it difficult to leave. There’s both a naval blockade and a 40-mile-long border fence barring entry into Israel, complemented by an additional nine miles of steel and concrete walls on the Gaza-Egyptian border. Only a lucky minority are granted permits to pass through checkpoints into Israel or Egypt for work or medical care. But the checkpoints are frequently closed at times of high tension.

And now, in a new dystopian twist out of RoboCop, people defying the border barrier may be confronted by a robotic six-wheeled car blaring warnings from a built-in public address system. And if non-compliant, the robot can address the infraction with a turret-mounted machine gun.

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New Air Force weapon can take out hundreds of drones instantly — and silently

The U.S. Air Force unveiled a weapon this month designed to take out hundreds of drones at once with barely a sound.

The Tactical High Power Operational Responder (THOR) uses a beam of energy to scramble the electronics inside hundreds of drones at once.

“This unique system allows base defense forces to stop [unmanned aerial system] attacks at long range before they threaten critical infrastructure,” the Air Force Research Lab said in a June 16 animated video.

Increasingly sophisticated drones are becoming more threatening in the hands of enemy militaries as attack and surveillance capabilities grow, the Air Force said in the video. THOR is more effective than small arms and more efficient than heavy arms, which are currently used against drones.

When THOR identifies a target, it shoots a beam of microwaves in less than a second, providing an instant effect on the drones.

The system is different from a laser, which shoots a beam capable of destroying one drone, according to the Air Force. Instead, THOR’s utilization of high-powered microwaves allows it to scuttle swarms of unmanned aerial systems.

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The U.S. Marines Are Getting Suicide Drones — Lots Of Them

In the near future, the United States Marine Corps will begin fielding a so-called suicide drone, essentially a quickly deployable — and expendable — flying bomb. Based on the UVision Hero-120, the loitering munition is the largest of the company’s short-range systems.

What It Can Do

Don’t let “short-range” fool you, however. Powered by an electric motor and controlled by a “man-in-the-loop” the Hero-120 has a maximum range of 40 kilometers, or nearly 25 miles, and can stay aloft for an hour. The canister launched drone has 8 pop-out fins and is remarkably lightweight.

The entire drone weighs just 12.5 kilos and packs a 4.5-kilo explosive warhead, presumably in its nose. Packed into multiple canister launcher-type pods, it is not hard to imagine large numbers of the Hero-120 sent aloft at once — and in fact, that is exactly what the Marine Corps wants to do.

The Marine Corps contracted with Mistral, an American weapon system company, to integrate the Hero-120 onto the LAV and JLTV land vehicles, as well as onto the LRUSV, a long-range remotely operated drone boat. When mated to a vehicle, multiple Heros could be stacked together, not unlike a multiple rocket launcher system.

The Marine’s new suicide drone will differ slightly from the Hero-120 however, though it is not exactly clear what this difference will be exactly. 

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Killer drone ‘hunted down a human target’ without being told to

After a United Nations commission to block killer robots was shut down in 2018, a new report from the international body now says the Terminator-like drones are now here.

Last year “an autonomous weaponized drone hunted down a human target last year” and attacked them without being specifically ordered to, according to a report from the UN Security Council’s Panel of Experts on Libya, published in March 2021 that was published in the New Scientist magazine and the Star.

The March 2020 attack was in Libya and perpetrated by a Kargu-2 quadcopter drone produced by Turkish military tech company STM “during a conflict between Libyan government forces and a breakaway military faction led by Khalifa Haftar, commander of the Libyan National Army,” the Star reports, adding: “The Kargu-2 is fitted with an explosive charge and the drone can be directed at a target in a kamikaze attack, detonating on impact.”

The drones were operating in a “highly effective” autonomous mode that required no human controller and the report notes:

“The lethal autonomous weapons systems were programmed to attack targets without requiring data connectivity between the operator and the munition: in effect, a true ‘fire, forget and find’ capability” – suggesting the drones attacked on their own.

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We’re All Targets of the Biden Administration’s New Pre-Crime Surveillance Program

Recently, the Biden Administration announced the establishment of what is essentially a pre-crime surveillance program. This program comes as no surprise to those of us with any concern for our civil rights as we saw this coming a thousand miles away. 

Of course, the program will combat “violent domestic extremism” and “violent white supremacy.” (Because all those years of blaming Muslims was just to get silly white people to give up their rights so the surveillance and police state could be turned back on them.) 

Who is running this pre-crime surveillance program?

The new office of pre-crime is called the Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships. (CP3) is run by the Department of Homeland Security. However, John W. Whitehead has pointed out the DHS is “notorious for:

  • militarizing the police and SWAT teams
  • spying on activists
  • dissidents and veterans
  • stockpiling ammunition
  • distributing license plate readers
  • contracting to build detention camps
  • tracking cell phones with Stingray devices
  • carrying out military drills and lockdowns in American cities
  • using the TSA as an advance guard
  • conducting virtual strip searches with full-body scanners
  • carrying out soft target checkpoints
  • directing government workers to spy on Americans
  • conducting widespread spying networks using fusion centers
  • carrying out Constitution-free border control searches
  • funding city-wide surveillance cameras
  • utilizing drones and other spybots

Sounds very “Minority Report,” right?

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Chicago Cops Use Asset Forfeiture Funds to Buy Drones “Off the Books”

Asset forfeiture funds help build the ever-growing national surveillance state.

Civil asset forfeiture is a pernicious policy in its own right. It is nothing more than legalized, institutionalized, government-sanctioned theft. Forfeiture laws flip due process on its head and create perverse “policing for profit” incentives.

On top of that, we have long suspected that police departments use forfeiture money to secretly purchase surveillance technology. Recent Chicago Police Department emails obtained from a trove of hacked documents prove this happens, revealing that cops used asset forfeiture money to buy drones off the books with no oversight or accountability.

According to reporting by the Chicago Sun-Times, details of the CPD drone program were revealed in an email sent by the director of police research and development. In the email exchange, Karen Conway told other high-ranking police officials that the department’s counterterrorism bureau “utilized 1505 funds for a pilot Drone program that operates within the parameters of current laws.”

Conway wrote that drones “have been purchased and the Electronic & Technical Support Unit (Counter-terrorism) is in the process of creating a training to start a pilot. Some of the Drone uses will be for missing persons, crime scene photos, and terrorist-related issues.”

The city refused to answer specific questions about the drone program, saying the city would not answer questions relating to hacked emails.

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