"The//INTERCEPT" --We Track ’Em, You Whack ’Em--Death by Sim Card & Joy Stick

[KoKo]

(Good to see "The Intercept" launch-- and the whole article is well worth the read. Plus, the comments. I pulled out one comment that raised questions that I personally have about the Drone Program/NSA Tracking)

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The NSA’s Secret Role in the U.S. Assassination Program
By Jeremy Scahill and Glenn Greenwald

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

In July, the Washington Post relied exclusively on former senior U.S. intelligence officials and anonymous sources to herald the NSA’s claims about its effectiveness at geolocating terror suspects.

Within the NSA, the paper reported, “A motto quickly caught on at Geo Cell: ‘We Track ’Em, You Whack ’Em.’”

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But the Post article included virtually no skepticism about the NSA’s claims, and no discussion at all about how the unreliability of the agency’s targeting methods results in the killing of innocents.

In fact, as the former JSOC drone operator recounts, tracking people by metadata and then killing them by SIM card is inherently flawed. The NSA “will develop a pattern,” he says, “where they understand that this is what this person’s voice sounds like, this is who his friends are, this is who his commander is, this is who his subordinates are. And they put them into a matrix. But it’s not always correct. There’s a lot of human error in that.”

The JSOC operator’s account is supported by another insider who was directly involved in the drone program. Brandon Bryant spent six years as a “stick monkey” – a drone sensor operator who controls the “eyes” of the U.S. military’s unmanned aerial vehicles. By the time he left the Air Force in 2011, Bryant’s squadron, which included a small crew of veteran drone operators, had been credited with killing 1,626 “enemies” in action.

Bryant says he has come forward because he is tormented by the loss of civilian life he believes that he and his squadron may have caused. Today he is committed to informing the public about lethal flaws in the U.S. drone program.

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While drones are not the only method used to kill targets, they have become so prolific that they are now a standard part of U.S. military culture. Remotely piloted Reaper and Predator vehicles are often given nicknames. Among those used in Afghanistan, says the former JSOC drone operator, were “Lightning” and “Sky Raider.”

The latter drone, he adds, was also referred to as “Sky Raper,” for a simple reason – “because it killed a lot of people.” When operators were assigned to “Sky Raper,” he adds, it meant that “somebody was going to die. It was always set to the most high-priority missions.”


--------------COMMENT----------------
J. Balzer 10 Feb 2014 at 7:07 am

Worrying developments… Why do I get the ugly feeling that this is a sign of things to come…?
If this is an indication as to how future wars may be conducted (not just the ‘remote-controlled Drone’ – bit, but also the ‘mobile phone’ – bit…) – then future wars of conquest will be oh-so-much easier to conduct.
There would be few witnesses on the ground, with far less danger of soldiers speaking out – while civilian deaths would be attributed to ‘technical errors’, and it would be possible to target certain individuals – including journalists and individuals linked to facilities like power-stations or water-works without people immediately using the expression ‘war-crime’… How could anyone readily identify the person whose phone was actually used for targeting? They could always claim to have targeted military personnel…
And how long will it be before the use of drones will be extended to the kind of private companies following in the footsteps of ‘Blackwater’…?
Makes me shudder…

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

[zeemike]

1. We Track ’Em, You Whack ’Em

That is a great slogan...chilling and true.

[cantbeserious]

2. The Empire Of Death Marches On

eom