Clinton approved CIA drone assassinations with her cellphone, report says

http://www.salon.com/2016/06/10/fbi_criminal_investigation_emails_clinton_approved_cia_drone_assassinations_with_her_cellphone_report_says/

by titzer • 10 years ago

151 119 10 years ago

salon.com

cyberferret• 10 years ago

She could have approved drone strikes using smoke signals or carrier pigeons... - it all boils down to the same thing - execution of human beings without a trial...

golergka6• 10 years ago

This description fits almost any action that you can perform when you're at war. So, either you advocate that war courts review cases of all the enemy soldiers before aithorizing an attack, or you have to come up with a more precise definition of what is exactly wrong here.

Clarification: I'm not a fan of CIA assasinations, far from it; but "execution without a trial" isn't logically justifiable complaint: we do it in a lot of situations no reasonable person would argue with.

Edit: my original comment was pointing out errors in someone's logic. Sadly, everybody seems to think that this means that I've taken a certain side in drone debate. This is not the case; please, read my comment and understand what exactly am I saying — and what I'm not — before reacting.

voidz• 10 years ago

no reasonable person would argue with.

By framing it like this, that's where you take a wrong turn.

x0x0• 10 years ago

It's one thing to shoot soldiers without a trial.

It's a far different thing to bomb random folks living their lives in Afghanistan, then retcon all male casualties to terrorists.

m_eiman• 10 years ago

Saying that the US is at war with various groups of people in the country side of Pakistan is a rather generous definition of the concept of war, isn't it?

It's more like "the US is blowing up people who may or may not be those intended, but it's kinda hard to tell since they're doing it all by remote control".

pjc50• 10 years ago

enemy soldiers

There is a legal obligation in the Geneva protocols 1949 to identify who you're targeting and refrain from targeting civilians.

https://www.icrc.org/applic/ihl/ihl.nsf/9ac284404d38ed2bc125...

"refrain from deciding to launch any attack which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated;"

Article 52 para 3:

"3. In case of doubt whether an object which is normally dedicated to civilian purposes, such as a place of worship, a house or other dwelling or a school, is being used to make an effective contribution to military action, it shall be presumed not to be so used."

The US has taken an extremely lax approach to this with the intelligence-based targeting. Air strikes in the course of combat are probably defensible - if you see someone running into a house carrying a weapon it becomes a military objective - but the intelligence-based targeting lacks that confirmation.

belorn• 10 years ago

Any action? Lets look at some specifics and ask which ones should count as murder. A reasonable person might see a different degree of justification in each case.

A person wielding a gun is running and firring their weapon towards a solider. The solider shoots back and kills them.

A boat full with military weapons enters an areas which marines are defending and refuse to turn back. The marines sinks the boat.

A tank drives into a town. The Solider defending the civilians attacks the tank and the tank driver dies in an explosion.

A bomb plane that drops bombs on military facility with tanks, airfield with bombers on them, and docks with military ships.

A bomb plane that dropping bombs on a factory that produce tanks and guns, killing workers.

A bomb plane that fire bombs on housing districts to demoralize the population.

A person is driving down the road in uninhabited area, and a solider sends a remote missile.

A person is celebrating a wedding in their own house, and a soldier sends a remote missile to kill everyone in the wedding.

thaumasiotes• 10 years ago

This description fits almost any action that you can perform when you're at war. So, either you advocate that war courts review cases of all the enemy soldiers before aithorizing an attack, or you have to come up with a more precise definition of what is exactly wrong here.

What everyone else said. What you can do to people you're at war with isn't relevant; there is not even a pretense of being at war here.

The description doesn't even match what happens in war; execution implies sentencing, which does happen here but doesn't in war, where there would be no point.

Natsu• 10 years ago

It's one thing to shoot back at people who are shooting at you, but we're talking about blowing up people in remote places who aren't currently attacking anyone or doing anything obviously bad, along with anyone near them at the time.

bootload• 10 years ago

"This description fits almost any action that you can perform when you're at war."

Except there is no man in the loop in the kill chain.

   "where the maimed survivors of a mistaken drone 
   strike on unarmed civilians in February 2010, 
   which killed 23 people, describe what happened 
   when they were attacked. The juxtaposition of 
   the appallingly gung-ho attitude of the drone 
   operatives, re-enacted from a transcript of 
   the event, and raw footage of the dead bodies" [0]

How do you confirm ground-truth? That truck you targeted with a high statistical chance of having X leader also is surrounded with non-combatants. Eyes on the ground will be responsible and wrestle with this and take responsibility. [1] Even if it's personal.

Death by algorythm, remote control, sanctioned higher up the command chain, does not.

[0] "National Bird review – chilling film reveals truths about drones" ~ https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/apr/17/national-bird-r...

[1] "Into the Fog of War" ~ http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2016-05-23/soldier's-story-exp...

superuser2• 10 years ago

Exactly 0 people have ever been in the category "enemy soldiers" since WWII because we haven't declared war.

huffmsa• 10 years ago

Cellphones are functionally equivalent to laptops and desktops-- they're computers.

Now, independent of that, if the regulations and law do not treat them equally, they are not legally equal.

dogma11385• 10 years ago

I think the issue here is she used her unsecure cellphone and presumably "private" email server to approve these strikes in which case it might have caused operational information to leak.

This isn't about someone using a cellphone or a laptop, this is about someone using any communication device that wasn't clear for the transmission of classified information to approve strikes which i would only presume to be classified if only due to operational reasons.

factorialboy3• 10 years ago

Question is are you in a state of war? Are these considered casualties of war? If yes, then execution without trial is a given.

chopin2• 10 years ago

Last I looked the US weren't at war with Pakistan.

mtgx2• 10 years ago

The US can declare it's at war with "bad behavior", and its executive would believe it's legally covered, no matter who they're killing over it.

coldtea3• 10 years ago

There are war laws too you know. And execution without a trial is a war crime.

Death in combat is another thing altogether.

raddad• 10 years ago

The US stopped having wars with nations and instead has gone onto wars against ideas and things. The war against terror and the war against drugs being two of them. This way they can pick and choose which country to war with those elements without warring with a nation.

carsongross• 10 years ago

It isn't 1918. That question is meaningless.

We are at war with drugs, terrorism, and poverty, among many other abstract entities. Anyone, any time, any place can be killed for national security.

tomjen3• 10 years ago

Using this results in a lot fewer civilian casualties compared to carpet bombing the area.

War will always have civilian casualties and it will always be with us.

coldtea3• 10 years ago

Easy to say when your side is the one causing them...

chriswarbo2• 10 years ago

Carpet bombing results in a lot fewer civilian casualties compared to nuking the population centres.

So does not performing drone strikes.

littletimmy• 10 years ago

Is this against the law, or just the way things are done now? My gut instinct would be there's more examination that goes into a drone strike but after the Snowden revelations I don't know what to believe.

bertil• 10 years ago

Outside of handling confidential information on non-secure channels, the issue could the authentication. You want to be sure it is actually her approving it.

Another issue could be about the quality of the briefing: if the phone call was all she got, it might mean that she wasn’t briefed enough to review the evidence and make an informed decision.

However, I think that this just goes to the line: she was reckless with confidential information — which, at this level, is against the law.

lawnchair_larry• 10 years ago

Read about "signature strikes". It's like Duck Typing, except with murdering.

elcapitan• 10 years ago

"There's an app for that!"™

rvense• 10 years ago

Droneder! Swipe left and you'll never hear from them again.

nmc• 10 years ago

Original source is the WSJ: http://www.wsj.com/articles/clinton-emails-in-probe-dealt-wi...

(may be paywalled, just google the headline to bypass)

Fuxy3• 10 years ago

Whenever I hear something about US drone Strikes I always think how long until the other side starts getting drones developed and and easy way to mass produce them and smuggle them into the US assemble them and start launching drone strikes from within the US on US persons of interest like politicians and CIA officials.

Drone parts are getting cheaper and cheaper and easier to get it's only a matter a time someone start using them as assassination tools.

Plus they don't really need to be as big or as powerful as what the CIA uses they can be small and weak and make it up in numbers. I certainly would hate to be on the receiving end of a swarm of assassination drones.

It's a slippery slope and the more they get used the more pissed off people with the know-how and the reason to do it are created like people who have lost family members in these strikes.

gonvaled9• 10 years ago

Which of course is the only bad thing about drone strikes, right? That they could ever hit the "right guys"?

Who cares that hundreds of innocent civilians are killed, if they are not american citizens?

Disgusting, really.

EDIT, for the downvoters

you'll have to justify what in my comment you do not like. The parent is making the case that what worries him/her is that drone strikes will eventually be used to attack american targets, and by implication suggesting that the current targets are not really something to worry about.

Or he/she is at least suggesting that is not as serious, since what he really is worried about are american targets. Which, if you ask me, is a very widespread opinion, thus my comment.

spacecowboy_lon4• 10 years ago

Compered to the previous method of carpet bombing?

Fuxy3• 10 years ago

No if that ever happens i would just think karma is a bitch.

I'm not a US citizen and I don't agree with the use of drones if even one civilian get hurt by it. What's the point of precision strikes if you're still get innocent people involved.

rottyguy3• 10 years ago

Black and white decisions are a luxury that not all people are afforded. Yes it's terrible that innocent lives are lost but it's at least equally terrible, many would argue even more so, that innocent lives of your clan are lost. For many decisions outside the obvious, it is often the case that you're selecting from a pool of bad choices.

kristiandupont• 10 years ago

and by implication suggesting that the current targets are not really something to worry about

I didn't downvote you, but this is your extrapolation and doesn't necessarily imply what you suggest it does. And I am guessing that some people downvoted you because they dislike the idea that you have to add disclaimers to every statement in order not to expose yourself to judgements like yours.

imgabe2• 10 years ago

Showing concern for one group of people does not imply a lack of concern for another group. You're drawing conclusions that are not supported by the original comment and being needlessly antagonistic. That's why you're getting downvoted.

return02• 10 years ago

you'll have to justify what in my comment you do not like.

<rant> Off topic, but i see this line over and over all the time lately. Nobody has to justify anything. I get downvoted all the time, and would never dream to complain about it. We can disagree without being confrontational/preachy. </rant>

spacecowboy_lon4• 10 years ago

Well Deash and Al Queda don't seem to have much ability to get the good explosives required for that - Compare them to the PIRA and UDF during the troubles.

I am surprised that they haven't tried the sort of improvised mortars the the IRA used an almost hit the Cabinet at no 10

kkarakk• 10 years ago

just make a heavy enuff drone and stick glass/shrapnel on it with lighter fluid in it. fly it into the person you want dead and ignite. being near drones freaks me out

dogma11385• 10 years ago

They don't need to improvise mortars, ISIS is riding on captured M1A1's and has access to pretty decent soviet and western arms including ATGM's and AA.

Both AQ and ISIS and virtually any other terrorist organization in the world has access to pretty much "state of the art" arms the limit is usually lies in logistical operation not inaccessibility, look at the arm shipments that the Israelis have captures at sea over the years those included radar guided anti-ship missiles, terminally guided rockets, and Strela GTAM's.

Compared to that getting good explosive is easy, you can buy military grade explosive on the civilian market for demolition C4, PETN and RDX are commonly used for suicide vests and IEDs nothing ever stopped anyone from stuffing an RC plane with them and run it into the white house other than intelligence and perimeter security.

mseebach• 10 years ago

For the improvised mortars, I think it's more of a question of strategic priorities (carpet bombing Belfast was never on the table in a way ditto for Raqqa probably is) than capabilities (although the PIRA and UDF did benefit from having a nearby staging area).

That said, it's not like they're lacking in creativity: http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/2169909...

ape4• 10 years ago

By then we'll have anti-drone drones.

return02• 10 years ago

easy way to mass produce them and smuggle them into the US assemble them and start launching drone strikes from within the US on US persons of interest like politicians and CIA officials

Terrorists are a form of those drones.

tremon• 10 years ago

it's only a matter a time someone start using them as assassination tools

Then how would you say they're used now?

wslh• 10 years ago

Drones are already being used by Hamas [1] and Hezbollah [2] and intelligence companies the problem is how to smuggle advanced UAV on US territory.

[1] http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.605...

[2] http://www.haaretz.com/report-iran-admits-supplying-hezbolla...

curiousgal• 10 years ago

I finished watching "13 Hours" last night, a movie about the Benghazi events. The use of drones to kill indirect threats is ubiquitous and yet when it came to saving Americans citizens, drones suddenly weren't in use? dafuq.

dogma11385• 10 years ago

Drone strikes are arranged and approved weeks and even months in advance it's not like the US has an army of drones waiting to strike at targets of opportunity. Also allot of the "drone strikes" that happen over pakistan aren't actually drone strikes it's just more convenient to both Pakistan and the US to claim that no manned aircraft are used but quite a few released/leaked BDA images show craters that are way too big for AGM-114's and even the GBU-12's which is the biggest thing that US drones can currently carry. While some of the craters might be caused due to secondaries many of them don't show the tell signs of being secondary explosions.

But onto Benghazi drones wouldn't really help, drones won't stop mobs of 100's of people with AK47's storming a compound, even full on CAS with gunships could had very little effect on the end result as far as US casualties go, the people storming the both the embassy and the secondary "support compound" were doing it knowing that they will most likely die in the process. These aren't regular armies that when they suffer even high single digit %'s force depletion sound the retreat because it would be foolish to stay otherwise.

mtgx2• 10 years ago

What's scary is that most still don't seem to realize how much worse this will be made by autonomous killer robots.

They're already killing people essentially based on an algorithm, that may have only a 51% chance of identifying the "right target" (that's the logic they use to spy on Americans, too). They've already admitted to targeting people with drone strikes based on the phone SIM alone, which is not much better than targeting someone based on their IP address.

But now they would be able to just build that into an autonomous drone, and allow it to kill anyone it meets that has a 51%+ chance of being a "bad guy".

Truly scary stuff, which many still seem to excuse with nonsense such as "yeah, but they would've killed those guys just the same with Apache helicopters!".

No, they wouldn't. They would only target the most important targets and the ones they are most sure it's who they think they are. With autonomous killer drones they can just launch 1,000 of them upon a country and allow them to kill anyone on sight that has whatever chance of being a target is implemented into their code.

It's also the same BS excuse people used post-Snowden revelations: "But NSA has always spied on a few dictators and rival countries - surely that's just the same as them now spying on everything billions of people are doing every day, storing everything for decades, and from all ally countries as well? Right?!"

And that's without even discussing the possibility of these machines being hacked, or having software bugs (which they'll probably use as an excuse everytime they get caught killing innocent people by the media - "Whoopsie, a software bug just killed 20 innocent people - What ya gonna do? - What's important is that nobody takes responsibility and gets punished for it now..."

barneygumble742• 10 years ago

How would drone strikes have saved the americans inside the compound? How can drones be deployed so quickly at a moments notice, let alone get near their target in a reasonable time?

You're thinking of Iron Man. We're not there...yet.

whbk• 10 years ago

The US had some "bad luck" with drone strikes during her tenure. There's been no evidence released to prove it (and it may well not exist), but for people still questioning why this email setup matters: Given that it's abundantly clear any state-sponsored hacker would have no difficulty hacking her server, it isn't exactly a stretch for our enemies to move the targets of drone strikes and put innocent civilians in their place to win the propaganda war. A former State Department aide attached his name to claims that her sloppy comms may have foiled multiple counterterrorism operations. [1]

That said, this isn't "just what it is that the FBI is looking to" as this article says. The FBI director originally said they expected to wrap this up by October 2015. If we were talking about a few emails sent over the holidays, this would've been wrapped up a long time ago. In a separate civil suit, the FBI filed a motion to prevent the release of documents, or even the number of documents, for which a FOIA request had been issued. [2] Even the number of documents would tip their hand? The only explanation that really makes sense there is that they're building a RICO case against the Clinton Foundation - and thus a ton more documents than would otherwise be relevant are in play. The fact that they started investigating VA governor McAuliffe's time at the Clinton Foundation shortly after receiving the backups of Clinton's server from their third-party data backup service makes this kind of obvious. Yes, the backups that Clinton's associates attempted to have destroyed even after the State Department asked them to turn over her emails. [3]

[1] http://www.newsweek.com/hillary-clinton-email-terrorism-slop...

[2] "disclosure of these records [his immunity agreement] could reasonably be expected to reveal the nature, scope, and focus of the FBI’s activities in the investigation.” http://lawnewz.com/high-profile/new-fbi-filings-reveal-pendi...

[3]Despite Boian’s statement that Platte River set up a 30-day revolving retention policy for Clinton’s emails, Johnson’s letter noted that Platte River employees were directed to reduce the amount of email data being stored with each backup. Late this summer, Johnson wrote, a Platte River employee took note of this change and inquired whether the company could search its archives for an email from Clinton Executive Service Corp. directing such a reduction in October or November 2014 and then again around February, advising Platte River to save only emails sent during the most recent 30 days.

Those reductions would have occurred after the State Department requested that Clinton turn over her emails.

It was here that a Platte River employee voiced suspicions about a cover-up and sought to protect the company. “If we have it in writing that they told us to cut the backups,” the employee wrote, “and that we can go public with our statement saying we have had backups since day one, then we were told to trim to 30 days, it would make us look a WHOLE LOT better,” according to the email cited by Johnson. http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/articl...

Patient0• 10 years ago

This is exactly the sort of political crap I'd rather not see on the Hacker News front page.

rando444• 10 years ago

It's political, but if you think about it, it's really technology/security.

I mean not only about this information falling into the wrong hands, but also the fact that using unsecured channels for these things could lead to hackers approving or even ordering drone strikes themselves.

JoBrad• 10 years ago

Everything could be about technology/security. That doesn't mean it should be on Hacker News.

gloves• 10 years ago

I stopped reading at "An explosive new report reveals..."

Just give me the actual news, not your opinion of it.

kogus• 10 years ago

Maybe I'm being nitpicky, but this line really bothers me:

Under Sec. Clinton, State Department officials approved almost every single proposed CIA drone assassination. They only objected to one or two attacks.

One or two? Which one is it? If they have actually gone through a list of requests and vetted which ones were approved by the State Department, then they know the actual number. A hand-wavy figure indicates that someone sat down, skimmed through the list, found "a couple, I think" and wrote the article. Something of this importance deserves rigor.

okoksowhatis• 10 years ago

The problem is that we kill at all. This is self-evident.

dragonwriter3• 10 years ago

My bigger problem is with the Secretary of State approving drone strikes than with the "with her cell phone" part. The Secretary of State isn't the Director of the CIA, nor in any chain of command above the Director of the CIA, nor anywhere in the military chain of command.

Clinton approved CIA drone assassinations with her cellphone, report says

Related Stories