Homeless in Arizona

Arizona defense contractors branch out; develop more products for foreign markets

Defense contractors with operations in Arizona such as Raytheon Co., Honeywell International Inc. and the Boeing Co. are becoming less dependent on the U.S. military by branching out into new markets and inventing products for both defense and industry.

That includes seeking more foreign-military customers as well as developing technology with non-military applications such as mass-produced satellites, high-tech helicopter-maintenance systems and better thunderstorm detectors for commercial aircraft.

Unmanned drones and drone-based systems for both military and civilian use also play a prominent role in defense contractors’ diversification plans.

Innovation can carry a heavy cost, as Boeing learned in January when regulators grounded its revolutionary new commercial airliner, the fuel-efficient 787, over fire-safety concerns.

An investigation is under way into what caused a Jan. 7 fire inside an empty 787 “Dreamliner” parked on the tarmac at Boston’s Logan International Airport. The delay in rolling out new 787s ultimately could cost Boeing millions of dollars, aerospace-industry analysts said.

Still, officials at Boeing, Honeywell and Raytheon said constant innovation and diversification always have been essential to keeping their businesses viable.

“At some point, all programs go away,” said Randy Gricius, Space Applications Program manager for Raytheon Missile Systems in Tucson. “You’ve got to continue to look for growth.”

Raytheon has been working on two new products at its Tucson facility: a small guided missile for drones known as Pyros and a line of relatively inexpensive, mass-produced military imaging satellites called SeeMe.

Although both products are being developed for U.S. military use, company officials said Pyros is likely to appeal to foreign allies, and SeeMe could be used by Earth-mapping companies and global-warming researchers.

Pyros is unlike anything Raytheon Missile Systems ever has produced, said J.R. Smith, senior manager of advanced-missile-systems business development.

At 22 inches long and 12 pounds, it is by far the smallest laser-guided missile Raytheon has produced and the first missile designed specifically for drones.

SeeMe is an even greater departure for the company’s Tucson operation, Gricius said, but it made sense because of Raytheon Missile Systems’ mass-production experience.

SeeMe satellites will sell for $500,000 each, Gricius said, and an innovative system of launching them into low-Earth orbit from high-flying aircraft will cut the deployment cost to about $1million.

By comparison, launching a satellite with a Pegasus missile costs more than $30million, he said.

While Pyros missiles are expected to generate big revenue from foreign customers, SeeMe will be difficult to sell overseas because of prohibitive federal regulations governing satellite sales, Gricius said.

Still, the satellites could be used by non-military customers such as National Aeronautics and Space Administration, as well as U.S. companies that provide images to online mapping services like Google Earth.

Honeywell Aerospace in Phoenix also is tapping deeper into commercial markets with two recently developed products, Health and Usage Monitoring Systems, or HUMS, and the IntuVue 3-D Weather Radar.

HUMS is an onboard diagnostic tool for military and commercial helicopters that measures the health and performance of critical components and can detect mechanical faults before they become catastrophic failures, company officials said.

According to Honeywell, HUMS already is saving the military tens of millions of dollars and thousands of maintenance-related hours each year.

Company officials hope those figures will resonate with commercial customers looking to save time and money on helicopter maintenance.

IntuVue is an upgraded aerial radar system for commercial airliners that can detect potentially dangerous storm conditions more than 350 miles away.

It includes new capabilities to detect turbulence, hail and lightning up to 10 minutes in advance of storm cells in an aircraft’s flight path, a company official said.

“The IntuVue was designed from the ground up to provide pilots with superior information about the location of true weather threats, such as hail and lightning, relative to their aircraft,” said Ratan Khatwa, a senior chief engineer at Honeywell Aerospace.

The predictive hail and lightning system uses complex algorithms that analyze data captured from constant radar scanning from ground level to 60,000 feet and out to 320 nautical miles, equivalent to about 368 miles.

Carl Esposito, vice president of marketing and product management for Honeywell Aerospace, said the company has gotten its reliance on the U.S. military for revenue down to less than 25percent by expanding both commercial and foreign business.

“More than 50 percent of our business is in the commercial area, with customers like Boeing, Airbus, Embraer and Gulfstream,” Esposito said. “In defense, we are nearly evenly split between U.S. business and the rest of the world. We continue to expand in a variety of emerging regions throughout Asia-Pacific, Latin America, India and elsewhere.”

Foreign-military sales by defense contractors are limited by two key sets of regulations: the International Traffic in Arms Regulations and Export Administration Regulations.

The U.S. Directorate of Defense Trade Controls maintains an ever-changing list of trade policies and embargoes that dictates what kinds of products, if any, can be sold to a particular country.

Several countries — including North Korea, Cuba, Iran and China — are perennially restricted from purchasing weapons technology from U.S. companies.

Still, weapon sales to most countries in the world are possible, although they must be evaluated and approved by the U.S. government on a case-by-case basis.

Foreign sales of commercial products such as aircraft-guidance and diagnostic systems are far less restricted and represent a huge potential market for Arizona defense contractors, industry representatives said.

“As air-traffic-management needs greatly increase in markets like China, India and the Middle East, we are well-positioned to bring solutions to those markets that support infrastructure growth while providing the latest in technology and safety advancements,” Esposito said. “This is a core focus for Honeywell now and into the future.”

"Justice Dept justifies killing Americans if they pose ‘imminent threat

Of course you have to remember that MSNBC reports the news as objectively and unbiased as the FOX network reports it so you have to take that with a grain of salt.

Justice Dept. document justifies killing Americans overseas if they pose ‘imminent threat’

The United States can lawfully kill a U.S. citizen overseas if it determines the target is a “senior, operational leader” of al-Qaeda or an associated group and poses an imminent threat to the United States, according to a Justice Department document published late Monday by NBC News. [http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/msnbc/sections/news/020413_DOJ_White_Paper.pdf ]

The document defines “imminent threat” expansively, saying it does not have to be based on intelligence about a specific attack since such actions are being “continually” planned by al-Qaeda. “In this context,” it says, “imminence must incorporate considerations of the relevant window of opportunity” as well as possible collateral damage to civilians.

Guiding the evolving U.S. counterterrorism policies: White House counterterrorism adviser John O. Brennan is compiling a “playbook” that will lay out the administration’s evolving procedures for the targeted killings that have come to define its fight against al-Qaeda and its affiliates.

The memos outline the case for the targeted killing of U.S. citizens in counterterror operations overseas.

It says that such determinations can be made by an “informed, high-level official of the U.S. government.”

NBC said the document was provided by the Obama administration last summer to members of the Senate Intelligence and Judiciary committees as a summary of a classified memo on targeted killings of U.S. citizens prepared by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel.

The memo was written months prior to a September 2011 drone strike in Yemen that killed Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S.-born Muslim cleric accused of helping al-Qaeda’s Yemeni affiliate plan attacks against the United States. Three other Americans, including Awlaki’s 16-year-old son, have also been killed in U.S. strikes in Yemen.

The Obama administration, in decisions upheld in federal court rulings, has repeatedly denied demands by lawmakers, civil rights groups and the media to release the memo and other information on targeted killings — or even to acknowledge their existence. Senators are expected to closely question John O. Brennan, President Obama’s chief counterterrorism adviser, on drone strikes, the memo and the Awlaki killing during Brennan’s confirmation hearing Thursday on his nomination to become Obama’s new CIA director.

Justice officials could not be reached for comment on the document, which NBC posted on its Web site. The 16-page document is titled “Lawfulness of a Lethal Operation Directed Against a U.S. Citizen Who Is a Senior Operational Leader of al-Qaeda or An Associated Force.”

In announcing Awlaki’s death, Obama described him as the leader of “external affairs” of Yemen-based al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

The American Civil Liberties Union on Monday night called the document a “profoundly disturbing” summary of “a stunning overreach of executive authority — the claimed power to declare Americans a threat and kill them far from a recognized battlefield and without any judicial involvement before or after the fact.”

The ACLU sought the original Justice Department memo as part of a case dismissed last month by a federal judge in New York. Last Friday, the ACLU filed a notice of appeal in that case.

The U.S. Justice Department finds it legal to target American citizens with drone strikes under certain circumstances, according to a memo that just surfaced.

The undated memo, titled “Lawfulness of a Lethal Operation Directed Against a U.S. Citizen who is a Senior Operation Leader of al Qaeda or An Associated Force,” was obtained by NBC News. The memo defines as legal drone attacks on U.S. citizens who were involved in violent attacks, according to United Press International. [ The memo can be viewed here http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/msnbc/sections/news/020413_DOJ_White_Paper.pdf ]

Specifically, the memo states: “The condition that an operational leader present an ‘imminent’ threat of violent attack against the United States does not require the United States to have clear evidence that a specific attack on U.S. persons and interests will take place in the immediate future,” according to UPI. Citizens who present such “imminent threats” were defined as those who participated in violent acts — and maintained the views that led to their violent acts, according to UPI.

In those instances, a fatal drone attack would be considered a “legitimate act of national self-defense that would not violate the assassination ban,” according to the memo.

The memo was distributed to various members of Senate and House intelligence committees.

Drone strikes on Americans on U.S. soil are LEGAL, says confidential Justice Department memo

The U.S. government can order the killing of American citizens if they are believed to be ‘senior operational leaders’ of the Islamic terrorist organization Al Qaeda or ‘an associated force,’ according to a confidential Justice Department memo leaked on Monday.

The U.S. government can do so even if there is no clear evidence that the American targeted is engaged in an active plot to attack the U.S.

The news was first reported by NBC’s Open Channel, which obtained a copy of the 16-page document and released it to the public.

The undated memo, which is not an official legal document, sheds new light on the reasoning behind a reported increase in the number of drone strikes used against Al Qaeda suspects in recent years -- including those aimed at American citizens -- under the Obama administration.

The memo, ‘Lawfulness of a Lethal Operation Directed Against a U.S. Citizen who is a Senior Operational Leader of Al Qa’ida or An Associated Force,’ was reportedly provided to members of the Senate Intelligence and Judiciary committees in June by unnamed administration officials.

It was provided on the condition that authorities keep the memo confidential and not discuss its contents publicly, according to NBC.

‘The condition that an operational leader present an “imminent” threat of violent attack against the United States does not require the United States to have clear evidence that a specific attack on U.S. persons and interests will take place in the immediate future,’ the memo states.

Insight: The document sheds new light on the legal reasoning behind a reported increase in the number of drone strikes used against al-Qaida suspects in recent years, including those aimed at American citizens

The Obama administration has remained relatively hush about reports of increased drone strikes carried out since 2008.

The Long War Journal reports that the U.S. has been conducting a covert program to target and kill Al Qaeda and Taliban commanders in Pakistan's northwest region.

‘The US ramped up the number of strikes in July 2008, and has continued to regularly hit at Taliban and Al Qaeda targets inside Pakistan,’ the non-profit news outlet writes.

‘There have been 332 strikes total since the program began in 2004; 322 of those strikes have taken place since January 2008.’

The New York Times reported in November that the Obama administration had been mapping out a strategy weeks before the presidential election to develop definitive rules for the targeted killing of terrorists by drones, so that a new president would ‘inherit clear standards and procedures’ if Obama was not re-elected.

The secrecy surrounding such strikes may soon be unraveled, as indicated by the release of the 16-page Justice Department memo.

Proponent: John Brennan, Obama's pick for CIA director, has called drone strikes 'consistent with our inherent right of national self-defense'

John Brennan, a White House counter-terrorism adviser, one of the leading architects behind the government’s drone policy and Obama’s pick to become the country’s new CIA director, is expected to face tough questions about his involvement in Obama’s drone program during his Senate confirmation hearing on Thursday.

Brennan was the first administration official to formally acknowledge drone strikes in a speech he gave at the Woodrow Wilson Center in April 2012, calling drone strikes ‘consistent with our inherent right of national self-defense.’

A bipartisan group of 11 senators wrote a letter to Obama on Monday asking his administration to provide its legal justification for its use of drone strikes over the past four years.

‘We ask that you direct the Justice Department to provide Congress, specifically the Judiciary and Intelligence Committees, with any and all legal opinions that lay out the executive branch's official understanding of the President's authority to deliberately kill American citizens,’ the senators lead by Democrat Ron Wyden of Oregon wrote in their letter.

Political blogger Marcy Wheeler, who says she has closely tracked the group’s repeated requests, writes that it was at least the 12th time Congress had asked for those documents.

Among the overseas attacks that have killed U.S. citizens with terrorist ties on Obama's watch, a September 2011 missile strike in Yemen took out alleged Al Qaeda members Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan.

Both men were U.S. citizens who had never been indicted by the U.S. government or charged with any specific crimes.

Obama tries to convince Congress he can kill any American he feels like???

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama has directed the Justice Department to give Congress' intelligence committees access to classified legal advice providing the government's rationale for drone strikes against American citizens working with al-Qaida abroad, a senior administration official said Wednesday.

A drumbeat of demands to see the document has swelled on Capitol Hill in recent days as the Senate Intelligence Committee prepares to hold a confirmation hearing for John Brennan, who helped manage the drone program, to be CIA director.

Those demands were only intensified by the leak this week of an unclassified "white paper" on how decisions are made to target U.S. citizens abroad that the Justice Department confidentially sent to key lawmakers last year. The unclassified memo says it is legal for the government to kill U.S. citizens abroad if it believes they are senior al-Qaida leaders continually engaged in operations aimed at killing Americans, even if there is no evidence of a specific imminent attack.

The senior official said Obama decided to send lawmakers the classified rationale on Wednesday as part of his "commitment to consult with Congress on national security matters." Obama directed the Justice Department provide the Senate and House intelligence committees access to classified advice from its Office of Legal Counsel that the white paper is based on, the official said.

Legal opinions produced by the legal counsel's office are interpretations of federal law that are binding on all executive branch agencies.

The administration official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter by name.

Earlier Wednesday, White House spokesman Jay Carney said Obama was engaged in an internal process deliberation to determine how to balance the nation's security needs with its values. He said Obama was committed to providing more information to Congress, even as he refused to acknowledge whether the drone memo even existed.

"He thinks that it is legitimate to ask questions about how we prosecute the war against al-Qaida," Carney said. "These are questions that will be with us long after he is president and long after the people who are in the seats that they're in now have left the scene."

Eleven senators, including Democrat Ron Wyden of Oregon, called on Obama to provide lawmakers "any and all legal opinions" that outline the president's authority to use legal force against Americans.

Wyden, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told The Associated Press that Obama called him Wednesday evening to alert him to the decision to release the legal opinions. The president pledged to launch a "very extensive" public discussion on the government's ability to target Americans abroad, Wyden said.

"This is an encouraging first step," Wyden said. "There is now an opportunity to build on it."

The Oregon lawmaker said he expects members of the intelligence committees to be able to read the classified legal opinions before voting on Brennan's nomination to lead the CIA, but likely not before Thursday's hearing.

Justice's unclassified 16-page white paper says that it is lawful to target al-Qaida linked U.S. citizens if they pose an "imminent" threat of violent attack against Americans and that delaying action against such people would create an unacceptably high risk. Such circumstances may necessitate expanding the concept of imminent threat, the memo says.

"The threat posed by al-Qaida and its associated forces demands a broader concept of imminence in judging when a person continually planning terror attacks presents an imminent threat," the document added.

A September 2011 drone strike in Yemen killed Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan, both U.S. citizens. A separate drone strike two weeks later killed al-Awlaki's 16-year-old son, a Denver native. The strikes came after U.S. intelligence concluded that the elder al-Awlaki was senior operational leader of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula plotting attacks on the U.S., including the abortive Christmas Day bombing of an airplane landing in Detroit in 2009.

The memo does not require the U.S. to have information about a specific imminent attack against the U.S. But it does require that capture of a terrorist suspect not be feasible and that any such lethal operation by the United States targeting a person comply with fundamental law-of-war principles.

U.S. drone use could set dangerous example for rogue powers

Imagine if North Korea or Iran or Venezuela deployed thousands of unmanned surveillance aircraft in search of earthbound enemies, a swarm of robotic hunters armed with lethal weaponry and their governments’ go-ahead to exterminate targets.

It’s a frightening scenario but far from an unimaginable one, given that dozens of nations now build, program and deploy their own drones.

Newly disclosed U.S. guidelines on drone warfare appear to authorize a more permissive practice of targeted killings in the global fight against terrorism than previously articulated. And the Obama administration’s embrace of a right to strike those it has identified as threats to U.S. security has prompted warnings from rights advocates and international security experts that the White House is setting a dangerous precedent that rogue nations could follow.

The U.S. military and intelligence communities have increasingly turned to drones for precision strikes against terrorism suspects in Pakistan and Yemen, executing more than 300 remote-controlled attacks during President Obama’s first term. That is a sixfold increase from the Bush administration’s use of drones, according to the British nonprofit Bureau of Investigative Journalism.

Muting any serious debate on the morality and legality of targeted killings is the U.S. public’s positive response to the arm's-length attacks that eliminate terrorism suspects without putting troops at risk in a more conventional offensive. More than 80% of Americans expressed support for the administration’s drone policy in a Washington Post-ABC News poll a year ago. A Pew Research Center survey in June showed similarly high regard among Americans questioned but majority disapproval among respondents in 19 other countries surveyed.

Escalating U.S. drone use in counter-terrorism is both hurting the country’s image and raising the stakes in what promises to be a protracted war to defeat the global network of militants bent on doing America harm, security and legal experts argue.

“Technological capabilities are developing far faster than the laws and international frameworks to regulate their use,” said Amy Zegart, a senior fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution and former National Security Council staffer under President Clinton.

Drone use was a rare and almost exclusively U.S. military capability a decade ago, Zegart said, yet today at least 70 countries have unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, as drones are called in security parlance. Although most of that use is aimed at reducing the costs and risks of intelligence-gathering and search-and-rescue missions, the increasingly affordable and versatile aircraft can be programmed for combat as easily as for peaceful civilian uses.

Despite a credible threat of spreading drone warfare, there is little interest among the nations employing the devices to yield to any agreed rules of engagement, Zegart said.

“The question is, can the United States lead by example? Can we realistically put forward policies and ideas” that would establish permissible uses and prevent a perilous free-for-all, she said, intimating that such self-imposed restraint is unlikely.

Avner Cohen, a professor of nonproliferation policy at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, agrees there is little incentive for countries making the most aggressive use of drones -- the United States and Israel first among them -- to impose restrictions on themselves.

He points to what he sees as “seductive” elements of drone use as a danger for both international security and thoughtful decision-making.

Israeli drone surveillance pinpointed Hamas militia leader Ahmed Jabari in the Gaza Strip in November, encouraging the Israeli leadership to order a targeted killing in a likely streamlined analysis of potential consequences, Cohen recalled. Jabari’s death set off eight days of fighting between Israel and the Palestinian enclave that ended with a cease-fire seen as having strengthened Hamas and Palestinian cohesion.

“The temptation to use it is so high that it can obscure and overpower all kinds of other considerations,” Cohen said of drones’ offensive capabilities.

Human rights and international law advocates have expressed growing concern that Washington’s expanding use of targeted killings by drones violates its obligations to treaties guaranteeing protection of civilian life and prohibiting extrajudicial killings off the battlefield.

Ben Emmerson, the U.N. special rapporteur on counter-terrorism and human rights, announced two weeks ago that he was investigating U.S. strikes on suspected terrorists to evaluate their compliance with human rights treaties and the international law of armed conflict.

Rights groups contend the U.S. actions stray far beyond the limited circumstances under which international accords allow the use of preemptive lethal force.

“When the U.S. government violates international law, that sets a precedent and provides an excuse for the rest of the world to do the same,” said Zeke Johnson, director of Amnesty International USA’s Security with Human Rights Campaign.

“We have now seen, under two administrations, the emergence of a claimed global war framework in which the U.S. tries to treat the whole world as a battlefield, to the exclusion of human rights law,” Johnson said.

“I sincerely doubt most members of the U.S. government would be happy with China or Russia or North Korea using drones and lethal force the way the U.S. government is doing, which is outside the bounds of international law,” said Johnson.

“Everyone should be concerned by the idea that any government can basically deny its human rights obligations,” he warned. “That puts all of us at greater risk in the long run.”

Secret drone strikes simplify Obama Doctrine

For years, scholars and journalists have struggled without much success to define the Obama Doctrine — the president's foreign policy principles.

As a Democratic candidate, Barack Obama couldn't even define his own doctrine as he sought to succeed outgoing Republican President George W. Bush.

In a debate in 2007, back when he was Sen. Civil Liberties and the darling of the left that hated Bush for leading the war party into Afghanistan and Iraq, Mr. Obama said the world was too complicated for him to formalize his doctrine.

"Well, I think one of the things about the Obama Doctrine is it's not going to be as doctrinaire as the Bush Doctrine because the world is complicated," the senator from Chicago said. "And I think part of the problem we've had is that ideology has overridden facts and reality."

But now President Obama has finally stripped away those complications to define the Obama Doctrine this way:

He can assassinate American citizens abroad without trial if they're suspected terrorists.

Drones are politically antiseptic weapons of death, almost like a video game, except that real blood and tissue is blown against the walls. And it's all being done in secret. The White House won't publicly release the rationale explaining how the Obama administration has shredded the Constitution and taped the bits back together again.

Two things are astounding here: The lack of Democratic outrage over Obama's convoluted policy, and the ease with which Republicans and Democrats have brought us to this point.

Just think about what the president's assassination campaign means. Not for the terrorists, who deserve their fate. But for the rest of us. A president has put it in writing: He can kill you if he finds that you're a threat.

Many of us — and to my shame I include myself — bought into many Bush Republican policies after al-Qaida killed thousands of our countrymen on Sept. 11, 2001. And then came more cameras watching us, and more eavesdropping, and a steady erosion of American privacy.

It came in the name of efficiently thwarting the terrorists. Now the supreme efficiency is offered by a president who campaigned in opposition to waterboarding terrorists for information to find Osama bin Laden.

The president's drone strikes against American citizens overseas "are legal, they are ethical and they are wise," said White House press secretary Jay Carney. He added that such drone strikes are "fully consistent with our Constitution."

Carney must be talking about some other little booklet. He can't mean our American Constitution. If he actually believes that the Constitution allows the president to kill Americans without trial, someone should lead him by the nose to a loony bin.

Not all Republicans are for this. But many establishment Republicans just love it, like Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, an Obama critic and friend of defense contracts.

He stopped thwacking Obama for a day or so to support the president in the assassination doctrine.

"Every member of Congress needs to get on board," Graham said. "It's not fair to the president to let him, leave him out there alone quite frankly. He's getting hit from libertarians and from the left."

Some on the port side are angry, including the severe high priestess of the political left, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow. Unconfirmed reports had her hair smoldering the other evening.

But she's not an elected official. Where was Democratic outrage? You'd think Sen. Dick Durbin would scream. He made plenty of loud public demonstrations during the Bush years, and I almost expected him to start yanking his burning hair from the roots while referencing storm troopers and gulags and such.

Sadly, Durbin and other Democratic pols are rather church-mousian about Obama's drones. With their own guy on the throne, they're worried about damaging the dignity of the presidency.

To his credit, Durbin quietly signed his name to a letter from 11 senators of both parties asking Obama to make public the White House rationale allowing assassinations.

But they won't hound Obama. Expect them instead to shake their jowls angrily at John Brennan.

Brennan is the career CIA officer and supporter of drones and "enhanced interrogation techniques" who was nominated by Obama to run the CIA. He is scheduled to testify Thursday at a Senate confirmation hearing .

There is a big difference between intelligence officers and politicians. Obama seemed to understand this once, when the world was complicated for him. Intelligence officers do what's necessary, and once the work is done and the threat removed, they're often thrown under the bus by politicians.

But politicians? They change the rules to justify what they want to do. And in so doing, they make the future far more dangerous and far less free.

"Who'd we get today?" was the famous question asked repeatedly by Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, when he was the pro-drone Obama White House chief of staff, according to Bob Woodward's book "Obama's Wars."

Emanuel's was a gleeful question, full of bureaucratic malice, asked by a man with his loafers on safe White House carpets. Those same carpets still caress Obama's shoes.

The president once opposed "enhanced interrogation" of terrorism suspects. But now he claims constitutional protection to kill them without trial, if they're Americans overseas.

Drones will be coming to the "drug war" in Arizona???

Of course later on in the article it says there will be exceptions for cops in the "drug war".

When you consider that two thirds of the people in American prisons are their for victimless drug war crimes, that means the police will be allowed to use drones in two thirds of police work they do which is about drug war crimes.

I am a little bit more negative on this issue, and my question is when will the police begin using drones to murder suspected "drug war" criminals, like the American government uses drones to murder suspected "terrorists" in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and other countries throughout the world.

Arizona lawmakers are bidding to make the state a center for aerial-drone research, but they also want to make sure local police don’t use the unmanned surveillance aircraft to spy on Americans.

As the sophisticated eye-in-the-sky technology deployed by the military in the war on terror in Afghanistan and against drug cartels on the Mexican border becomes a Pentagon fixture, state lawmakers have introduced several bills this session to ensure that the state is part of the high-tech revolution, without turning Arizona into a “police state.”

The U.S. military has used drones around the world for more than a decade, patrolling hot spots, gathering evidence and launching airstrikes. The unmanned craft are nothing new to Arizona, either.

The federal government has used them within the state to help fight forest fires and patrol the border. The Fort Huachuca Army base in southern Arizona houses the largest unmanned-aircraft-system training center in the world, according to the Army, employing hundreds of private contractors and civilian instructors and training more than 1,300 students a year.

Arizona-based defense contractors are cashing in on what has become a $4 billion-a-year investment for the military alone, not to mention the growing private and foreign government uses.

And local universities are pushing to develop the necessary workforce. Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, the University of Arizona and Arizona State University offer programs related to drones.

Arizona lawmakers are doing their part via legislation to prepare for greater growth.

House Concurrent Resolution 2009, sponsored by Rep. Tom Forese, R-Chandler, reinforces Arizona’s push to be selected by the Federal Aviation Administration as one of six national drone- testing sites.

The National Defense Authorization Act, which President Barack Obama signed in 2011, authorized the establishment of sites where officials could test drones in civil airspace near commercial air traffic. The sites were scheduled to be chosen in December, but the FAA delayed a decision indefinitely, saying it needed to address safety and privacy concerns.

Arizona officials said they are hopeful the state will still be chosen. HCR 2009 has passed the House Public Safety, Military and Regulatory Affairs Committee with unanimous bipartisan support. It now awaits a vote of the full House.

Officials are also preparing for what they fear could be a worst-case scenario in the future of drone technology.

House Bill 2574, sponsored by Rep. Jeff Dial, R-Chandler, makes it illegal for state or local law-enforcement officials to use a drone to collect information unless they have a search warrant.

It also makes it illegal to monitor individuals inside their homes or places of worship. It has exceptions for law-enforcement officials investigating human trafficking or drug smuggling as long as they are doing so on public property or with permission on private property.

Dial said he is working on the bill and expects to make some changes. It has been assigned to the House public-safety committee but is not yet scheduled for a hearing.

Rep. Carl Seel, R-Phoenix, also introduced a bill that would forbid the state and local governments from assisting in any way with enforcing portions of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 that allows the military to detain a U.S. citizen. But Seel said he is putting his support behind Dial’s bill.

The bills come amid controversy surrounding a White House legal argument justifying drone-missile strikes against U.S. citizens who are part of terrorist groups overseas.

“We need to protect something called the Fourth Amendment,” Seel said, adding that he has heard “unverified” reports of drones being used to survey citizens in Arizona. The Fourth Amendment protects citizens from unreasonable searches.

He said the bills restricting drones are not intended to limit the federal government’s use of drones to protect the border.

“What I want to do is protect citizens’ rights,” he said. “We don’t want to live in a police state. We don’t want to have drones everywhere in society.”

Dial also supports the resolution seeking to make Arizona a test site and efforts to promote drone research and business opportunities in the state. “I want the jobs here, and there are definitely uses for drones,” he said. “But I don’t want civil liberties and privacy invaded.”

“The problem isn’t technology,” Dial said. “It’s how humans use the technology.”

Assistant House Minority Leader Ruben Gallego, D-Phoenix, a former Marine who serves on the House public-safety committee, said he wants to see the final details of Dial’s bill but supports the effort in general.

“Technology is always advancing, and we have to put safeguards in place to protect people’s civil liberties while still allowing drones to be used as a law-enforcement tool,” he said. “As long as we can find that balance, I don’t have any problem with the bill.”

Drones are taking to the skies in the U.S.

WASHINGTON — While a national debate has erupted over the Obama administration's lethal drone strikes overseas, federal authorities have stepped up efforts to license surveillance drones for law enforcement and other uses in U.S. airspace, spurring growing concern about violations of privacy.

The Federal Aviation Administration said Friday it had issued 1,428 permits to domestic drone operators since 2007, far more than were previously known. Some 327 permits are still listed as active.

Operators include police, universities, state transportation departments and at least seven federal agencies. The remotely controlled aircraft vary widely, from devices as small as model airplanes to large unarmed Predators.

The FAA, which has a September 2015 deadline from Congress to open the nation's airspace to drone traffic, has estimated 10,000 drones could be aloft five years later. The FAA this week solicited proposals to create six sites across the country to test drones, a crucial step before widespread government and commercial use is approved.

Local and state law enforcement agencies are expected to be among the largest customers.

Earlier this month, TV footage showed a midsized drone circling over the bunker in southeast Alabama where a 65-year-old gunman held a 5-year-old boy hostage. After a tense standoff, an FBI team stormed the bunker, rescued the boy and shot his captor. Authorities refused to say who was operating the AeroVironment drone, which has a 9-foot wingspan.

In Colorado, the Mesa County Sheriff's Office has used a fixed-wing drone to search for lost hikers in the mountains, and a helicopter drone to help crews battling fires. Flying manned planes or helicopters would cost at least $600 an hour, explained Ben Miller, who heads the program.

"We fly [drones] for less than $25 an hour," Miller said. "It's just a new way to put a camera up that's affordable." [I kind of doubt that. In Arizona most cops start at $50,000/yr which is about $25 an hour. So in Phoenix the minimum cost of operating a drone would be about $25/hr before you figure in the cost of the drone and related equipment.]

Big-city police departments, including Los Angeles, have tested drones but are holding back on buying them until the FAA issues clear guidelines about operating in congested airspace, among other issues.

"You've got to take baby steps with this," said Michael Downing, the LAPD deputy chief for counter-terrorism and special operations.

Los Angeles Police Department officials went to Simi Valley in December, he said, to watch a demonstration of a helicopter-like device that measured about 18 inches on each side and was powered by four propellers. It could fly about 90 minutes on its battery.

Downing said the LAPD was "pursuing the idea of purchasing" drones, but wouldn't do so unless the FAA granted permission to fly them, and until the department could draw up policies on how to keep within privacy laws.

If the LAPD bought drones, Downing said, it initially would use them at major public events such as the Oscars or large protests. In time, drones could be flown to track fleeing suspects and assist in investigations. Tiny drones could even be used to fly inside buildings to shoot video if a suspect has barricaded himself within.

In theory, drones can offer unblinking eye-in-the-sky coverage. They can carry high-resolution video cameras, infrared sensors, license plate readers, listening devices and other high-tech gear. Companies have marketed drones disguised as sea gulls and other birds to mask their use.

That's the problem, according to civil liberties groups. The technology is evolving faster than the law. Congress and courts haven't determined whether drone surveillance would violate privacy laws more than manned planes or helicopters, or whether drone operators may be held liable for criminal trespassing, stalking or harassment.

"Americans have the right to know if and how the government is using drones to spy on them," said Catherine Crump, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, which has called for updating laws to protect privacy.

In Congress, Reps. Ted Poe (R-Texas) and Zoe Lofgren (D-San Jose) introduced privacy legislation Thursday that would require police to get a warrant or a court order before operating a drone to collect information on individuals.

"We need to protect against obtrusive search and surveillance by government and civilian use," Poe said in a telephone interview. A similar bill failed last year.

Legislatures in 15 states are considering proposals to limit drone use. The City Council in Charlottesville, Va., passed a resolution on Feb. 4 barring local police from using drones — which they don't yet have — to collect evidence in criminal cases.

In Seattle, Mayor Mike McGinn ordered police to return two Draganflyer X6 helicopter drones earlier this month after privacy advocates and others protested. The police said they had hoped to use them for search-and-rescue operations.

Federal agencies fly drones to assist in disasters, check flood damage, do crop surveys and more. U.S. Customs and Border Protection flies the largest fleet, 10 unarmed Predators, along the northern and southern borders to help track smugglers and illegal immigrants.

Although flying drones might appear as easy as playing a video game, pilots and crews require extensive training.

In 2004 and 2005, the U.S. Marshals Service tested two small drones in remote areas to help them track fugitives, according to law enforcement officials and documents released to the ACLU under the Freedom of Information Act. The Marshals Service abandoned the program after both drones crashed.

Except in rare cases, the military is barred from using drones in U.S. airspace to conduct surveillance or pursue individuals. No state or federal agency has proposed arming domestic drones with weapons, but the prospect has raised alarms in Congress and elsewhere.

In response to a question during an online Google chat Thursday, President Obama said drones had never been used to kill "an American citizen on American soil."

"The rules outside of the United States are going to be different than the rules inside the United States, in part because our capacity, for example, to capture terrorists in the United States are very different than in the foothills or mountains of Afghanistan or Pakistan," Obama said.

No drone was sent up to help find suspected killer Christopher Dorner after his truck was found burning near Big Bear Lake on Feb. 7, said Al Daniel, an officer in the aviation division of the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department. But Customs and Border Protection transmitted secure video from a Pilatus PC-12 plane to police commanders on the ground.

Despite a massive manhunt, Dorner vanished and authorities speculated he had escaped to Mexico. Five days later, however, he was found in a snowbound cabin near his truck and died after a shootout and fire.

The long delay, and the embarrassing fact that Dorner was hiding close by the police command post, sparked sharp criticism of police tactics and abilities.

Steve Whitmore, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, said an aerial drone might have helped find Dorner more quickly.

"The search would have been much wider and quicker because you'd have an unmanned aircraft looking," he said. "You can cover more ground."

Bennett reported from Washington and Rubin from Los Angeles. Times staff writer Robert Faturechi in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

China to use drones to murder suspected drug war criminals????

BEIJING — China considered using a drone strike in a mountainous region of Southeast Asia to kill a Myanmar drug lord wanted in the killings of 13 Chinese sailors, but decided instead to capture him alive, according to an influential state-run newspaper.

The plan to use a drone, described to the Global Times newspaper by a senior public security official, highlights China’s increasing capacity in unmanned aerial warfare, a technology dominated by the United States and used widely by the Obama administration for the targeted killing of terrorists.

Liu Yuejin, the director of the public security ministry’s antidrug bureau, told the newspaper that the plan called for using a drone carrying explosives to bomb the outlaw’s hide-out in the opium-growing area of Myanmar in the Golden Triangle at the intersection of Laos, Thailand and Vietnam.

China’s law enforcement officials were under pressure from an outraged public to take action after 13 Chinese sailors on two cargo ships laden with narcotics were killed in October 2011 on the Mekong River. Photos of the dead sailors, their bodies gagged and blindfolded and some with head wounds suggesting execution-style killings, circulated on China’s Internet.

It was one of the most brutal assaults on Chinese citizens abroad in recent years. Naw Kham, a member of Myanmar’s ethnic Shan minority and a major drug trafficker, was suspected in the killings.

A manhunt by the Chinese police in the jungles of the Golden Triangle produced no results, and security officials turned to a drone strike as a possible solution.

China’s global navigation system, Beidou, would have been used to guide the drones to the target, Mr. Liu said. China’s goal is for the Beidou system to compete with the United States’ Global Positioning System, Russia’s Glonass and the European Union’s Galileo, Chinese experts say.

Mr. Liu’s comments on the use of the Beidou system with the drones reflects the rapid advancement in that navigation system from its humble beginnings more than a decade ago.

The experimental navigation system was started in 2000 and has since expanded to 16 navigation satellites over Asia and the Pacific Ocean, according to an article in Wednesday’s China Daily, an English-language state-run newspaper. The Chinese military, particularly the navy, is now conducting patrols and training exercises using Beidou, the newspaper said.

As an example, China Daily quoted the information chief at the headquarters of the North Sea Fleet, Lei Xiwei, saying a fleet with the missile destroyer Qingdao, along with the missile frigates Yantai and Yancheng, entered the South China Sea on Feb. 1 using the Beidou navigation system to provide positioning, security and protection for the fleet.

As China has been vastly improving its navigation system, it is also making fast progress with drones, and many manufacturers for the Chinese military have research centers devoted to unmanned aerial vehicles, according to a report last year by the Defense Science Board of the Pentagon.

Two Chinese drones, apparently modeled on the American Reaper and Predator unmanned aerial vehicles, were unveiled at the Zhuhai air show in November. A larger drone that Western experts say is akin to the American RQ-4 Global Hawk is also known to be in the Chinese arsenal.

One of the Chinese drones, the CH-4, had a range of about 2,200 miles and was ideal for surveillance missions over islands in the East China Sea that are the subject of a dispute between China and Japan, an official with the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation said at the Zhuhai air show.

China has acknowledged a pilot program that uses drones as part of its stepped-up surveillance of its coastal areas, as well as in the South China Sea and the East China Sea.

By 2015, the State Oceanic Administration has said it plans to use drones along China’s coastline on a permanent basis and would establish monitoring bases in provinces along the coastline for drones.

As for Naw Kham, the fugitive, he was captured by Lao authorities at the Mekong River port of Mong Mo after a six-month hunt in the jungles of the Golden Triangle by the combined police forces of China, Myanmar, Thailand and Laos. After his extradition to China, Naw Kham received a death sentence from a Chinese court in Yunnan Province and awaits execution, according to Chinese press reports.

“We didn’t use China’s military, and we didn’t harm a single foreign citizen,” Mr. Liu bragged after the arrest in April 2012.

The full text of the white paper on the killing of U.S. citizens abroad

This week, NBC News published a confidential Justice Department memo presenting the Obama administration's case for the lawful killing of U.S. citizens abroad who are involved with al-Qaida, reigniting a debate over presidential power that raged during much of the George W. Bush administration. NBC released a PDF of the 16-page white paper liberally embossed with watermarks of the outlet's logo on each page.

Given the extreme gravity of the subject, Yahoo News retyped the portions of the documents that could not be digitized automatically due to the watermarks, presented below. Information for how to contribute corrections is included at the bottom of the article.

DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE WHITE PAPER

This white paper sets forth a legal framework for considering the circumstances in which the U.S. government could use lethal force in a foreign country outside the area of active hostilities against a U.S. citizen who is a senior operational leader of al-Qa'ida or an associated force of al-Qa'ida—that is, an al-Qa'ida leader actively engaged in planning operations to kill Americans. The paper does not attempt to determine the minimum requirements necessary to render such an operation lawful; nor does it assess what might be required to render a lethal operation against a U.S. citizen lawful in other circumstances, including an operation against enemy forces on a traditional battlefield or an operation against a U.S. citizen who is not a senior operational leader of such forces. Here the Department of Justice concludes only that where the following three conditions are met, a U.S. operation using lethal force in a foreign country against a U.S. citizen who is a senior operational leader of al-Qa'ida or an associated force would be lawful:

an informed, high-level official of the U.S. government has determined that the targeted individual poses an imminent threat of violent attack against the United States;
capture is infeasible, and the United States continues to monitor whether capture becomes feasible; and
the operation would be conducted in a manner consistent with applicable law of war principles.

This conclusion is reached with recognition of the extraordinary seriousness of a lethal operation by the United States against a U.S. citizen, and also of the extraordinary seriousness of the threat posed by senior operational al- Qa'ida members and the loss of life that would result were their operations successful.

The President has authority to respond to the imminent threat posed by al-Qa'ida and its associated forces, arising from his constitutional responsibility to protect the country, the inherent right of the United States to national self defense under international law, Congress's authorization of the use of all necessary and appropriate military force against this enemy, and the existence of an armed conflict with al-Qa'ida under international law. Based on these authorities, the President may use force against al-Qa'ida and its associated forces. As detailed in this white paper, in defined circumstances, a targeted killing of a U.S. citizen who has joined al-Qa'ida or its associated forces would be lawful under U.S. and international law. Targeting a member of an enemy force who poses an imminent threat of violent attack to the United States is not unlawful. It is a lawful act of national self defense. Nor would it violate otherwise applicable federal laws barring unlawful killings in Title 18 or the assassination ban in Executive Order No. 12333. Moreover, a lethal operation in a foreign nation would be consistent with international legal principles of sovereignty and neutrality if it were conducted, for example, with the consent of the host nation's government or after a determination that the host nation is unable or unwilling to suppress the threat posed by the individual targeted.

Were the target of a lethal operation a U.S. citizen who may have rights under the Due Process Clause and the Fourth Amendment, that individual's citizenship would not immunize him from a lethal operation. Under the traditional due process balancing analysis of Mathews v. Eldridge, we recognize that there is no private interest more weighty than a person's interest in his life. But that interest must be balanced against the United States' interest in forestalling the threat of violence and death to other Americans that arises from an individual who is a senior operational leader of al-Qa'ida or an associated force of al-Qa'ida and who is engaged in plotting against the United States.

The paper begins with a brief summary of the authority for the use of force in the situation described here, including the authority to target a U.S. citizen having the characteristics described above with lethal force outside the area of active hostilities. It continues with the constitutional questions, considering first whether a lethal operation against such a U.S. citizen would be consistent with the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause, U.S. Const. amend. V. As part of the due process analysis, the paper explains the concepts of "imminence," feasibility of capture, and compliance with applicable law of war principles. The paper then discusses whether such an operation would be consistent with the Fourth Amendment's prohibition on unreasonable seizures, U.S. Const. amend. IV. It concludes that where certain conditions are met, a lethal operation against a U.S. citizen who is a senior operational leader of al-Qa'ida or its associated forces—a terrorist organization engaged in constant plotting against the United States, as well as an enemy force with which the United States is in a congressionally authorized armed conflict—and who himself poses an imminent threat of violent attack against the United States, would not violate the Constitution. The paper also includes an analysis concluding that such an operation would not violate certain criminal provisions prohibiting the killing of U.S. nationals outside the United States; nor would it constitute either the commission of a war crime or an assassination prohibited by Executive Order 12333.

The United States is in an armed conflict with al-Qa'ida and its associated forces, and Congress has authorized the President to use all necessary and appropriate force against those entities. See Authorization for Use of Military Force ("AUMF"), Pub. L. No. 107-40, S 2(a), 115 Stat. 224, 224 (2001). In addition to the authority arising from the AUMF, the President's use of force against al-Qa'ida and associated forces is lawful under other principles of U.S. and international law, including the President's constitutional responsibility to protect the nation and the inherent right to national self defense recognized in international law (see, e.g., U.N. Charter art. 51). It was on these bases that the United States responded to the attacks of September 11, 2001, and "[t]hese domestic and international legal authorities continue to this day." Harold Hongju Koh, Legal Adviser, U.S. Department of State, Address to the Annual Meeting of the American Society of International Law: The Obama Administration and International Law (Mar. 25, 2010) ("2010 Koh ASIL Speech").

Any operation of the sort discussed here would be conducted in a foreign country against a senior operational leader of al-Qa'ida or its associated forces who poses an imminent threat of violent attack against the United States. A use of force under such circumstances would be justified as an act of national self-defense. In addition, such a person would be within the core of individuals against whom Congress has authorized the use of necessary and appropriate force. The fact that such a person would also be a U.S. citizen would not alter this conclusion. The Supreme Court has held that the military may constitutionally use force against a U.S. citizen who is a part of enemy forces. See Hamdi, 542 U.S. 507, 518 (2004) (plurality opinion); id. at 58?, 59? (Thomas, J., dissenting); Ex Parte Quirin, 317 U.S. at 37-38. Like the imposition of military detention, the use of lethal force against such enemy forces is an "important incident of war." Hamdi, 542 U.S. at 518 (2004) (plurality opinion) (quotation omitted). See, e.g., General Orders No. 100: Instructions for the Government of Armies of the United States in the Field P 15 (Apr. 24, 1863) ("[m]ilitary necessity admits of all direct destruction of life or limb of armed enemies") (emphasis omitted); International Committee of the Red Cross, Commentary on the Additional Protocols of 8 June 1977 on the Geneva Conventions of 12 Aug. 1949 and Relating to the Protection of Victims of Non-International Armed Conflicts (Additional Protocol II) S 4789 (1987) ("Those who belong to armed forces or armed groups may be attacked at any time."); Yoram Dinstein, The Conduct of Hostilities Under the Law of International Armed Conflict 94 (2004) ("When a person takes up arms or merely dons a uniform as a member of the armed forces, he automatically exposes himself to enemy attack.") Accordingly, the Department does not believe that U.S. citizenship would immunize a senior operational leader of al-Qa'ida or its associated forces from a use of force abroad authorized by the AUMF or in national self-defense.

In addition, the United States retains its authority to use force against al-Qa'ida and associated forces outside the area of active hostilities when it targets a senior operational leader of the enemy forces who is actively engaged in planning operations to kill Americans. The United States is currently in a non-international armed conflict with al-Qa'ida and its associated forces. See Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 548 U.S. 557, 628-31 (2006) (holding that a conflict between a nation and a transnational non-state actor, occurring outside the nation's territory, is an armed conflict "not of an international character" (quoting Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions) because it is not a "clash between nations"). Any U.S. operation would be part of this non-international armed conflict, even if it were to take place away from the zone of active hostilities. See John O. Brennan, Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, Remarks at the Program on Law and Security, Harvard Law School: Strengthening Our Security by Adhering to Our Values and Laws (Sept. 16, 2011) ("The United States does not view our authority to use military force against Al-Qa'ida as being restricted solely to 'hot' battlefields like Afghanistan."). For example, the AUMF itself does not set forth an express geographic limitation on the use of force it authorizes. See Hamdan, 548 U.S. at 631 (Kennedy, J., concurring) (what makes a non-international armed conflict distinct from an international armed conflict is "the legal status of the entities opposing each other"). None of the three branches of the U.S. Government has identified a strict geographical limit on the permissible scope of the AUMP's authorization. See, e.g., Letter for the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate from the President (June 15, 2010) (reporting that the armed forces, with the assistance of numerous international partners, continue to conduct operations "against al- Qa'ida terrorists," and that the United States has "deployed combat-equipped forces to a number of locations in the U.S. Central ... Command area[] of operation in support of those [overseas counterterrorist] operations"); Bensayah v. Obama, 610 F.3d 718, 720, 724-25, 727 (D.C. Cir. 2010) (concluding that an individual turned over to the United States in Bosnia could be detained if the government demonstrates he was part of al- Qa'ida); al-Adahi v. Obama, 613 F.3d 1102, 1003, 1111 (D.C. Cir. 2010) (noting authority under AUMF to detain individual apprehended by Pakistani authorities in Pakistan and then transferred to U.S. custody).

Claiming that for purposes of international law, an armed conflict generally exists only when there is "protracted armed violence between governmental authorities and organized armed groups," Prosecutor v. Tadic, Case No. IT-94-1 AR72, Decision on the Defence Motion for Interlocutory Appeal on Jurisdiction, P 70 (Int'l Crim. Trib. for the Former Yugoslavia, App. Chamber Oct. 2, 1995), some commenters have suggested that the conflict between the United States and al-Qa'ida cannot lawfully extend to nations outside Afghanistan in which the level of hostilities is less intense or prolonged than in Afghanistan itself. See, e.g., Mary Ellen O'Connell, Combatants and the Combat Zone, 43 U. Rich. L. Rev. 845, 857-59 (2009). There is little judicial or other authoritative precedent that speaks directly to the question of the geographic scope of a non- international armed conflict in which one of the parties is a transnational, non-state actor and where the principal theater of operations is not within the territory of the nation that is a party to the conflict. Thus, in considering this potential issue, the Department looks to principles and statements from analogous contexts.

The Department has not found any authority for the proposition that when one of the parties to an armed conflict plans and executes operations from a base in a new nation, an operation to engage the enemy in that location cannot be part of the original armed conflict, and thus the subject to the laws of war governing that conflict, unless the hostilities become sufficiently intense and protracted in the new location. That does not appear to be the rule of the historical practice, for instance, even in a traditional international conflict, See John R. Stevenson, Legal Adviser, Department of State, United States Military Action in Cambodia: Questions of International Law, Address before the Hammarskjold Forum of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York (May 28, 1970), in 3 The Vietnam War and International Law: The Widening Context 23, 28-30 (Richard A. Falk, ed. 1972) (arguing that in an international armed conflict, if a neutral state has been unable for any reason to prevent violations of its neutrality by the troops of one belligerent using its territory as a base of operations, the other belligerent has historically been justified in attacking those enemy forces in that state). Particularly in a non-international armed conflict, where terrorist organizations may move their base of operations from one country to another, the determination of whether a particular operation would be part of an ongoing armed conflict would require consideration of the particular facts and circumstances in each case, including the fact that transnational non- state organizations such as al-Qa'ida may have no single site serving as their base of operations. See also, e.g., Geoffrey S. Corn & Eric Albot Jensen, Untying the Gordian Knot: A Proposal for Determining Applicability of the Laws of War to the War on Terror, 81 Temp. L. Rev. 787, 799 (2008) ("If ... the ultimate purpose of the drafters of the Geneva Conventions was to prevent 'law avoidance' by developing de facto law triggers—a purpose consistent with the humanitarian foundation of the treaties— then the myopic focus on the geographic nature of an armed conflict in the context of transnational counterterrorist combat operations serves to frustrate that purpose.") [2]

If an operation of the kind discussed in this paper were to occur in a location where al-Qa'ida or an associated force has a significant and organized presence and from which al-Qa'ida or an associated force, including its senior operational leaders, plan attacks against U.S. persons and and interests, the operation would be part of the non-international armed conflict between the United States and al-Qa'ida that the Supreme Court recognized in Hamdan. Moreover, such an operation would be consistent with international legal principles of sovereignty and neutrality if it were conducted, for example, with the consent of the host nation's government or after a determination that the host nation is unable or unwilling to suppress the threat posed by the individual targeted. In such circumstances, targeting a U.S. citizen of the kind described in this paper would be authorized under the AUMF and the inherent right to national self-defense. Given this authority, the question becomes whether and what further restrictions may limit its exercise.

II.

The Department assumes that the rights afforded by Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause, as well as the Fourth Amendment, attach to a U.S. citizen even while he is abroad. See Reid v. Covert, 354 U.S. 1, 5-6 (1957) (plurality opinion); United States v. Verdugo-Urquidez, 494 U.S. 259, 269-70 (1990); see also In re Terrorist Bombings of U.S. Embassies in East Africa, 552 F.3d 157, 170 n.7 (2d Cir. 2008). The U.S. citizenship of a leader of al-Qa'ida or its associated forces, however, does not give that person constitutional immunity from attack. This paper next considers whether and in what circumstances a lethal operation would violate any possible constitutional protections of a U.S. citizen.

The Due Process Clause would not prohibit a lethal operation of the sort contemplated here. In Hamdi, a plurality of the Supreme Court used the Mathews v. Eldridge balancing test to analyze the Fifth Amendment due process rights of a U.S. citizen who had been captured on the battlefield in Afghanistan and detained in the United States, and who wished to challenge the government's assertion that he was part of enemy forces. The Court explained that the "process due in any given instance is determined by weighing 'the private interest that will be affected by the official action' against the Government's asserted interest, 'including the function involved' and the burdens the Government would face in providing great process." Hamdi, 542 U.S. at 529 (plurality opinion) (quoting Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319, 335 (1976)). The due process balancing analysis applied to determine the Fifth Amendment rights of a U.S. citizen with respect to law-of-war detention supplies the framework for assessing the process due a U.S. citizen who is a senior operational leader of an enemy force planning violent attacks against Americans before he is subjected to lethal targeting.

In the circumstances considered here, the interests on both sides would be weighty. See Hamdi, 542 U.S. at 529 (plurality opinion) ("It is beyond question that substantial interests lie on both sides of the scale in this case."). An individual's interest in avoiding erroneous deprivation of his life is "uniquely compelling." See Ake v. Oklahoma, 470 U.S. 68, 178 (1985) ("The private interest in the accuracy of a criminal proceeding that places an individual's life or liberty at risk is almost uniquely compelling."). No private interest is more substantial. At the same time, the government's interest in waging war, protecting its citizens, and removing the threat posed by members of enemy forces is also compelling. Cf. Hamdi, 543 U.S. at 531 (plurality opinion) ("On the other side of the scale are the weighty and sensitive governmental interests in ensuring that those who have in fact fought with the enemy during a war do not return to battle against the United States."). As the Hamdi plurality observed, in the "circumstances of war," "the risk of erroneous deprivation of a citizen's liberty in the absence of sufficient process . . . is very real," id. at 530 (plurality opinion), and, of course, the risk of an erroneous deprivation of a citizen's life is even more significant. But, "the realities of combat" render certain uses of force "necessary and appropriate," including force against U.S. citizens who have joined enemy forces in the armed conflict against the United States and whose activities pose an imminent threat of violent attack against the United States—and "due process analysis need not blink at those realities." Id. at 531 (plurality opinion). These same realities must also be considered in assessing "the burdens the Government would face in providing greater process" to a member of enemy forces. Id. at 529, 531 (plurality opinion).

In view of these interests and practical considerations, the United States would be able to use lethal force against a U.S. citizen, who is located outside the United States and is an operational leader continually planning attacks against U.S. persons and interests, in at least the following circumstances:

where an informed, high-level official of the U.S. government has determined that the targeted individual poses an imminent threat of violent attack against the United States;
where a capture operation would be infeasible—and where those conducting the operation continue to monitor whether capture becomes feasible; and
where such an operation would be conducted consistent with applicable law of war principles.

In these circumstances, the "realities" of the conflict and the weight of the government's interest in protecting its citizens from an imminent attack are such that the Constitution would not require the government to provide further process to such a U.S. citizen before using lethal force. Cf Hamdi, 542 U.S. at 535 (plurality opinion) (noting that the Court "accord[s] the greatest respect and consideration to the judgments of military authorities in matters relating to the actual prosecution of war, and . . . the scope of that discretion necessarily is wide"); id. at 534 (plurality opinion) ("The parties agree that initial captures on the battlefield need not receive the process we have discussed here; that process is due only when the determination is made to continue to hold those who have been seized.") (emphasis omitted).

Certain aspects of this legal framework require additional explication. First, the condition that an operational leader present an "imminent" threat of violent attack against the United States does not require the United States to have clear evidence that a specific attack on U.S. persons and interests will take place in the immediate future. Given the nature of, for example, the terrorist attacks on September 11, in which civilian airliners were hijacked to strike the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, this definition of imminence, which would require the United States to refrain from action until preparations for an attack are concluded, would not allow the United States sufficient time to defend itself. The defensive options available to the United States may be reduced or eliminated if al-Qa'ida operatives disappear and cannot be found when the time of their attack approaches. Consequently, with respect to al-Qa'ida leaders who are continually planning attacks, the United States is likely to have only a limited window of opportunity within which to defend Americans in a manner that has both a high likelihood of success and sufficiently reduces the probabilities of civilian causalities. See Michael N. Schmitt, State Sponsored Assassination in International and Domestic Law, l7 Yale J. Int'l L. 609, 648 (l992). Furthermore, a "terrorist 'war' does not consist of a massive attack across an international border, nor does it consist of one isolated incident that occurs and is then past. It is a drawn out, patient, sporadic pattern of attacks. It is very difficult to know when or where the next incident will occur." Gregory M. Travalio, Terrorism, International Law, and the Use of Military Force, 18 Wis. Int'l L.J. 145, 173 (2000); see also Testimony of Attorney-General Lord Goldsmith, 660 Hansard. H.L. (April 21. 2004) 370 (U.K.), (what constitutes an imminent threat "Will develop to meet new circumstances and new threats . . . . It must be right that states are able to act in self-defense in circumstances Where there is evidence of further imminent attacks by terrorist groups, even if there is no specific evidence of where such an attack will take place or of the precise nature of the attack."). Delaying action against individuals continually planning to kill Americans until some theoretical end stage of the planning for a particular plot would create an unacceptably high risk that the action would fail and that American casualties would result.

By its nature, therefore, the threat posed by al-Qa'ida and its associated forces demands a broader concept of imminence in judging when a person continually planning terror attacks presents an imminent threat, making the use of force appropriate. In this context, imminence must incorporate considerations of the relevant window of opportunity, the possibility of reducing collateral damage to civilians, and the likelihood of heading off future disastrous attacks on Americans. Thus, a decision maker determining whether an al-Qa'ida operational leader presents an imminent threat of violent attack against the United States must take into account that certain members of al- Qa'ida (including any potential target of lethal force) are continually plotting attacks against the United States; that al-Qa'ida would engage in such attacks regularly to the extent it were able to do so; that the U.S, government may not be aware of all al-Qa'ida plots as they are developing and thus cannot be confident that none is about to occur; and that, in light of these predicates, the nation may have a limited window of opportunity within which to strike in a manner that both has a high likelihood of success and reduces the probability of American casualties.

With this understanding, a high-level official could conclude, for example, that an individual poses an "imminent threat" of violent attack against the United States where he is an operational leader of al-Qa'ida or an associated force and is personally and continually involved in planning terrorist attacks against the United States. Moreover, where the al-Qa'ida member in question has recently been involved in activities posing an imminent threat of violent attack against the United States, and there is no evidence suggesting that he has renounced or abandoned such activities, that member's involvement in al-Qa'ida's continuing terrorist campaign against the United States would support the conclusion that the member poses an imminent threat.

Second, regarding the feasibility of capture, capture would not be feasible if it could not be physically effectuated during the relevant window of opportunity or if the relevant country were to decline to consent to a capture operation. Other factors such as undue risk to U.S. personnel conducting a potential capture operation also could be relevant. Feasibility would be a highly fact-specific and potentially time-sensitive inquiry.

Third, it is a premise here that any such lethal operation by the United States would comply with the four fundamental law-of-war principles governing the use of force: necessity, distinction, proportionality, and humanity (the avoidance of unnecessary suffering). See, e.g., United States Air Force, Targeting, Air Force Doctrine Document 2-1.9, at 88 (June 3, 2006); Dinstein, Conduct of Hostilities at 16-20, l 15-16, l 19-23; see also 2010 Koh ASIL Speech. For example, it would not be consistent with those principles to continue an operation if anticipated civilian casualties would be excessive in relation to the anticipated military advantage. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Instruction 5810.01D, Implementation of the DoD Law of War Program P 4.a, at 1 (Apr. 30, 2010). An operation consistent with the laws of war could not violate the prohibitions against treachery and perfidy, which address a breach of confidence by the assailant. See, e.g., Hague Convention IB, Annex, art. 23(b), Oct. 18, 1907, 36 Stat. 2277, 2301-02 ("[I]t is especially forbidden .... [t]o kill or wound treacherously individuals belonging to the hostile nation or army . . . ."). These prohibitions do not, however, categorically forbid the use of stealth or surprise, nor forbid attacks on identified individual soldiers or officers. See U.S. Army Field Manual 2?-10, The Law of Land Warfare, 31 (1956) (article 23(b) of the Annex to the Hague Convention IV does not "preclude attacks on individual soldiers or officers of the enemy whether in the zone of hostilities, occupied territory, or elsewhere"). And the Department is not aware of any other law-of-war grounds precluding use of such tactics. See Dinstein, Conduct of Hosrilfries at 94-95, 199; Abraham D. Sofaer, Terrorism, the Law, and the National Defense, 126 Mil. L. Rev. 89, 120-21 (1989). Relatedly, "there is no prohibition under the laws of war on the use of technologically advanced weapons systems in armed conflict—such as pilotless aircraft or so-called smart bombs—so long as they are employed in conformity with applicable laws of war." 2010 Koh ASIL Speech. Further, under this framework, the United States would also be required to accept a surrender if it were feasible to do so.

In sum, an operation in the circumstances and under the constraints described above would not result in a violation of any due process rights.

Similarly, assuming that a lethal operation targeting a U.S. citizen abroad who is planning attacks against the United States would result in a "seizure" under the Fourth Amendment, such an operation would not violate that Amendment in the circumstances posited here. The Supreme Court has made clear that the constitutionality of a seizure is determined by "balanc[ing] the nature and quality of the intrusion on the individual's Fourth Amendment interests against the importance of the governmental interest alleged to justify the intrusion." Tennessee v. Garner, 471 US. 1, 8 (1985) (internal quotation marks omitted); accord Scott v. Harris, 550 U.S. 372, 383 (2007). Even in domestic law enforcement operations, the Court has noted that "[w]here the officer has probable cause to believe that the suspect poses a threat of serious physical harm, either to the officer or to others, it is not constitutionally unreasonable to prevent escape by using deadly force." Garner, 471 U.S. at 11. Thus, "if the suspect threatens the officer with a weapon or there is probable cause to believe that he has committed a crime involving the infliction or threatened infliction of serious physical harm, deadly force may be used if necessary to prevent escape, and if, where feasible, some warning has been given." Id. at 11-12.

The Fourth Amendment "reasonableness" test is situation dependent. Cf. Scott, 550 U.S. at 382 ("Garner did not establish a magical on/off switch that triggers rigid preconditions whenever an officer's actions constitute 'deadly force.'"). What would constitute a reasonable use of lethal force for purposes of domestic law enforcement operations differs substantially from what would be reasonable in the situation and circumstances discussed in this white paper. But at least in circumstances where the targeted person is an operational leader of an enemy force and an informed, high-level government official has determined that he poses an imminent threat of violent attack against the United States, and those conducting the operation would carry out the operation only if capture were infeasible, the use of lethal force would not violate the Fourth Amendment. Under such circumstances, the intrusion on any Fourth Amendment interests would be outweighed by the "importance of the governmental interests [that] justify the intrusion," Garner, 471 U.S. at Sr»-the interests in protecting the lives of Americans.

Finally, the Department notes that under the circumstances described in this paper, there exists no appropriate judicial forum to evaluate these constitutional considerations. It is well-established that "[m]atters intimately related to foreign policy and national security are rarely proper subjects for judicial intervention," Haig v. Agee, 453 U.S. 280, 292 (1931), because such matters "frequently turn on standards that defy judicial application," or "involve the exercise of a discretion demonstrably committed to the executive or legislature," Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186, 211 (1962). Were a court to intervene here, it might be required inappropriately to issue an ex ante command to the President and officials responsible for operations with respect to their specific tactical judgment to mount a potential lethal operation against a senior operational leader of al- Qa'ida or its associated forces. And judicial enforcement of such orders would require the Court to supervise inherently predictive judgments by the President and his national security advisors as to when and how to use force against a member of an enemy force against which Congress has authorized the use of force.

III.

Section 1119(b) of title 18 provides that a "person who, being a national of the United States, kills or attempts to kill a national of the United States while such national is outside the United States but within the jurisdiction of another country shall be punished as provided under sections 1111, 1112, and 1113." 18 U.S.C. § 1119(b) (2006).[3] Because the person who would be the target of the kind of operation discussed here would be a U.S. citizen, it might be suggested that section 1119(b) would prohibit such an operation. Section 1119, however, incorporates the federal murder and manslaughter statutes, and thus its prohibition extends only to "unlawful killing[s]," 18 U.S.C. 1111(a), 1112(a) (2006). Section 1119 is best construed to incorporate the "public authority" justification, which renders lethal action carried out by a government official lawful in some circumstances. As this paper explains below, a lethal operation of the kind discussed here would fall within the public authority exception under the circumstances and conditions posited because it would be conducted in a manner consistent with applicable law of war principles governing the non-international conflict between the United States and al-Qa'ida and its associated forces. It therefore would not result in an unlawful killing.[4]

Although section 1119(b) refers only to the "punish[ments]" provided under sections 1111, 1112, and 1113, courts have geld that section 1119(b) incorporates the substantive elements of those cross-referenced provisions of title 18. See, e.g., United States v. Wharton, 320 F.3d 526, 533 (5th Cir. 2003); United States v. White, 51 F. Supp. 2d 1008, 1013-14 (E.D. Cal. 1997). Section 1111 of title 18 sets forth criminal penalties for "murder", and provides that "[m]urder is the unlawful killing of a human being with malice aforethought." 18 U.S.C. S 1111(a). Section 1112 similarly provides criminal sanctions for "[m]anslaughter," and states that "[m]anslaughter is the unlawful killing of a human being without malice." Id. S 1112(a). Section 1113 provides criminal penalties for "attempts to commit murder or manslaughter." Id. S. 1113. It is therefore clear that section 11119(b) bars only "unlawful killing."

Guidance as to the meaning of the phrase "unlawful killing" in sections 1111 and 1112—and thus for purposes of section 1119(b)—be found in the historical understandings of murder and manslaughter. That history shows that states have long recognized justifications and excuses to statutes criminalizing "unlawful" killings.[5] One state court, for example, in construing that state's murder statute, explained that "the word 'unlawful' is a term of art" that "connotes a homicide with the absence of factors of excuse or justification." People v. Frye, 10 Cal. Rptr. 2d 217, 221 (Cal. Ct. App. 1992). That court further explained that the factors of excuse or justification in question include those that have traditionally been recognized. Id. at 221 n.2. Other authorities support the same conclusion. See, e.g., Mullaney v. Wilbur, 421 U.S. 684, 685 (1975) (requirement of "unlawful" killing in Maine murder statute meant that killing was "neither justifiable nor excusable"); cf also Rollin M. Perkins & Ronald N. Boyce, Criminal Law 56 (3d ed. 1982) ("Innocent homicide is of two kinds, (l) justifiable and (2) excusable."). Accordingly, section 1119 does not proscribe killings covered by a justification traditionally recognized under the common law or state and federal murder statutes. "Congress did not intend [section 1119] to criminalize justifiable or excusable killings." White, 51 F. Supp. 2d at 1013.

The public authority justification is well-accepted, and it may be available even in cases where the particular criminal statute at issue does not expressly refer to a public authority justification. Prosecutions where such a "public authority" justification is invoked are understandably rare, see American Law Institute Model Penal Code and Commentaries S 3.03 Comment 1, at 23-24 (1985); cf Visa Fraud Investigation, 8 Op. O.L.C. 284, 285 n.2, 286 (1984), and thus there is little case law in which courts have analyzed the scope of the justification with respect to the conduct of government officials. Nonetheless, discussions in the leading treatises and in the Model Panel Code demonstrate its legitimacy. See 2 Wayne R. LaFave, Substantive Criminal Law S 10.2(b), at 135 (2d ed. 2003); Perkins & Boyce, Criminal Law at 1093 ("Deeds which otherwise would be criminal, such as taking or destroying property, taking hold of a person by force and against his will, placing him in confinement, or even taking his life, are not crimes if done with proper public authority."); see also Model Penal Code S 3.03(1)(a), (d), (e) at 22023 (proposing codification of justification where conduct is "required or authorized by," inter alia, "the law defining the duties or functions of a public officer," "the law governing the armed services or the lawful conduct of war," or "any other provision of law imposing a public duty"); National Commission on Reform of Federal Criminal Laws, A Proposed New Federal Criminal Code S 602(1) (1971) ("Conduct engaged in by a public servant in the course of his official duties is justified when it is required or authorized by law."). And the Department's Office of Legal Counsel ("OLC") has invoked analogous rationales when it has analyzed whether Congress intended a particular criminal statute to prohibit specific conduct that otherwise falls within a government agency's authorities. See, e.g., Visa Fraud Investigation, 8 Op. O.L.C. at 287-88 (concluding that a civil statute prohibiting issuance of visa to an alien known to be ineligible did not prohibit State Department from issuing such a visa where "necessary" to facilitate an important Immigration and Naturalization Service undercover operation carried out in a "reasonable" fashion).

The public authority justification would not excuse all conduct of public officials from all criminal prohibitions. Or the legislature may design some criminal prohibitions to place bounds on the kinds of governmental conduct that can be authorized by the Executive. Or the legislature may enact a criminal prohibition in order to limit the scope of the conduct that the legislature has otherwise authorized the Executive to undertake pursuant to another statute. See, e.g., Nardone v. United States, 302 U.S. 379, 384 (1937) (federal statute proscribed government wiretapping). But the generally recognized public authority justification reflects that it would not make sense to attribute to Congress the intent to criminalize all covered activities undertaken by public officials in the legitimate exercise of their otherwise lawful authorities, even if Congress clearly intends to make those same actions a crime when committed by persons not acting pursuant to public authority. In some instances, therefore, the best interpretation of a criminal prohibition is that Congress intended to distinguish persons who are acting pursuant to public authority from those who are not, even if the statute does not make that distinction express. Cf. id. at 384 (federal criminal statutes should be construed to exclude authorized conduct of public officers where such a reading "would work obvious absurdity as, for example, the application of a speed law to a policeman pursuing a criminal or the driver of a fire engine responding to an alarm"). [6]

The touchstone for the analysis whether section 1119 incorporates not only justifications generally, but also the public authority justification in particular, is the legislative intent underlying this statute. Here, the statute should be read to exclude from its prohibitory scope killings that are encompassed by traditional justification, which include the public authority justification. The statutory incorporation of two other criminal statutes expressly referencing "unlawful" killings is one indication. See supra at 10-11. Moreover, there are no indications that Congress had a contrary intention. Nothing in the text or legislative history of sections 1111-1113 of title 18 suggests that Congress intended to exclude the established public authority justification from those justifications that Congress otherwise must be understood to have imported through the use of the modifier "unlawful" in those statutes. Nor is there anything in the text or legislative history of section 1119 itself to suggest that Congress intended to abrogate or otherwise affect the availability of this traditional justification for killings. On the contrary, the relevant legislative materials indicate that, in enacting section 1119, Congress was merely closing a gap in a field dealing with entirely different kinds of conduct from that at issue here.[7]

The Department thus concludes that section 1119 incorporates the public authority justification.[8] This paper turns next to the question whether a lethal operation could be encompassed by that justification and, in particular, whether that justification would apply when the target is a U.S. citizen. The analysis here leads to the conclusion that it would.

A lethal operation against an enemy leader undertaken in national self-defense or during an armed conflict that is authorized by an informed, high-level official and carried out in a manner that accords with applicable law of war principles would fall within a well established variant of the public authority justification and therefore would not be murder. See, e.g., 2 Paul H. Robinson, Criminal Law Defenses S 148(a), at 208 (1984) (conduct that would violate a criminal statute is justified and thus not unlawful "[w]here the exercise of military authority relies upon the law governing the armed forces or upon the conduct of war"); 2 LaFave, Substantive Criminal Law S 10.2(c) at 136 ("another aspect of the public duty defense is where the conduct was required or authorized by 'the law governing the armed services or the lawful conduct of war); Perkins & Boyce, Criminal Law at 1093 (noting that a "typical instance[] in which even the extreme act of taking human life is done by public authority" involves "the killing of an enemy as an act of war and within the rules of war").[9]

The United States is currently in the midst of a congressionally authorized armed conflict with al-Qa'ida and associated forces, and may act in national self-defense to protect U.S. persons and interests who are under continual threat of violent attack by certain al-Q'aida operatives planning operations against them. The public authority justification would apply to a lethal operation of the kind discussed in this paper if it were conducted in accord with applicable law of war principles. As one legal commentator has explained, "if a soldier intentionally kills an enemy combatant in time of war and within the rules of warfare, he is not guilty of murder," whereas, for example, if that soldier intentionally kills a prisoner of war—a violation of the laws of war—"then he commits murder." 2 LaFave, Substantive Criminal Laws S 10.2(c), at 136; see also State v. Gut, 13 Minn. 341, 357 (1868) ("That it is legal to kill an alien enemy in the heat and exercise of war, is undeniable; but to kill such an enemy after he has laid down his arms, and especially when he is confined in prison, is murder."); Perkins & Boyce, Criminal Law at 1093 ("Even in time of War an alien enemy may not be killed needlessly after he has been disarmed and securely imprisoned."). Moreover, without invoking the public authority justification by its terms, this Department's OLC has relied on the same notion in an opinion addressing the intended scope of a federal criminal statute that concerned the use of potentially lethal force. See United States Assistance to Countries that Shoot Down Civil Aircraft Involved in Drug Trafficking, 18 Op. O.L.C. 148, 164 (1994) (concluding that the Aircraft Sabotage Act of 1984, 18 U.S.C. § 32(1))(2) (2006), which prohibits the willful destruction of a civil aircraft: and otherwise applies to U.S. government conduct, should not be construed to have "the surprising and almost certainly unintended effect of criminalizing actions by military personnel that are lawful under international law and the laws of almed conflict").

The fact that an operation may target a U.S. citizen does not alter this conclusion. As explained above, see supra at 3, the Supreme Court has held that the military may constitutionally use force against a U.S. citizen who is part of enemy forces. See Hamdi, 542 U.S. at 518 (plurality opinion); id. at 587, 597 (Thomas, J., dissenting); Ex parte Quirin, 317 U.S. at 37-38 ("Citizens who associate themselves with the military arm of the enemy government, and with its aid, guidance and direction enter [the United States] bent on hostile acts," may be treated as "enemy belligerents" under the law of war). Similarly, under the Constitution and the inherent right to national self-defense recognized in international law, the President may authorize the use of force against a U.S. citizen who is a member of al-Qa'ida or its associated forces and who poses an imminent threat of violent attack against the United States.

In light of these precedents, the Department believes that the use of lethal force addressed in this white paper would constitute a lawful killing under the public authority doctrine if conducted in a manner consistent with the fundamental law of war principles governing the use of force in a non-international armed conflict. Such an operation would not violate the assassination ban in Executive Order No. 12333. Section 2.11 of Executive Order No. 12333 provides that "[n]o person employed by or acting on behalf of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, assassination." 46 Fed. Reg. 59,941, 59, 952 (Dec. 4, 1981). A lawful killing in self-defense is not an assassination. In the Department's view, a lethal operation conducted against a U.S. citizen whose conduct poses an imminent threat of violent attack against the United States would be a legitimate act of national self-defense that would not violate the assassination ban. Similarly, the use of lethal force, consistent with the laws of war, against an individual who is a legitimate military target would be lawful and would not violate the assassination ban.

We are grateful for any and all corrections to this transcription. Please email errors to cewilson@yahoo-inc.com with the approximate location of the fix.

Drones have murdered 4,700 - U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham

Just how many people have America’s drones killed? Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham has put the death toll at 4,700 — the first time an American official has publicly put a precise figure on the impact of strikes by unmanned aerial vehicles. The South Carolina lawmaker's office said he was citing an estimate already discussed on cable television.

Graham, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, used the figure during a question and answer session on Tuesday with the Rotary Club of Easley in his home state of South Carolina. His remarks were first reported by the Easley Patch.

“We've killed 4,700,” the lawmaker said. “Sometimes you hit innocent people, [like 4,700 innocent people] and I hate that, but we're at war, and we've taken out some very senior members of al-Qaida.”

Drone strikes, President Barack Obama’s signature tactic for killing suspected al-Qaida and other extremist fighters, have been “very effective,” said Graham. “It's a weapon that needs to be used.”

Amid a controversy sparked by Obama’s targeted assassination of American citizens overseas suspected of consorting with terrorists, Graham came down sharply against any judicial oversight of the drone war, calling the idea “crazy.” [Hey, I'm a Senator and have a God given right to murder anybody I want to???]

“I can't imagine, in World War [II] for Roosevelt to have gone to a bunch of judges and said, 'I need your permission before we can attack the enemy,'” Graham said.

Drone war expert Micah Zenko of the Council on Foreign Relations noted on his blog that Graham’s figure lined up with the high-end estimate by The Bureau of Investigative Journalism.

“Either Graham is a big fan of TBIJ’s work, or perhaps he inadvertently revealed the U.S. government’s body count for nonbattlefield targeted killings,” Zenko said.

Asked about the disclosure, Graham's office forwarded a clip from MSNBC in which the anchor cites the figure of 4,700 killed. Asked whether the Obama Administration harbored any concerns about Graham's comments, National Security Council Spokesman Tommy Vietor sent along a blog post including the same clip.

Graham's remarks, as reported, did not specify whether he was discussing CIA drone strikes or military drone strikes.

Obama's expanded drone war has broad popular support in the U.S., according to a poll released earlier this month by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center. That survey found 56 percent support such strikes and 26 percent oppose them. At the same time, 53 percent worry about potential civilian casualties. But overseas it faces majority opposition, Pew found last year.

U.S. drone strikes up sharply in Afghanistan

Let's face it, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are not about American security, but rather are jobs programs for Generals and a corporate welfare program for the corporations in the military industrial complex.

KABUL, Afghanistan — One morning recently, a teenager named Bacha Zarina was collecting firewood on her family's small farm in eastern Afghanistan. About 30 yards away, as family members recall, two Taliban commanders stood outside a house.

A missile screamed down from the sky, killing the two men instantly. Two chunks of shrapnel flew at Bacha Zarina and lodged in her left side.

Her family raced her to the nearest hospital, a half-hour's drive away, but she died en route, an accidental victim of the rapidly escalating U.S.-led campaign of drone strikes in Afghanistan. She was 14 or 15 years old.

The U.S. military launched 506 strikes from unmanned aircraft in Afghanistan last year, according to Pentagon data, a 72% increase from 2011 and a sign that American commanders may begin to rely more heavily on remote-controlled air power to kill Taliban insurgents as they reduce the number of troops on the ground.

Though drone strikes represented a fraction of all U.S. air attacks in Afghanistan last year, their use is on the rise even as American troops have pulled back from ground and air operations and pushed Afghan soldiers and police into the lead. In 2011, drone strikes accounted for 5% of U.S. air attacks in Afghanistan; in 2012, the figure rose to 12%.

Military spokesmen in Kabul and at the Pentagon declined to explain the increase. But officers familiar with the operation said it was due in part to the growing number of armed Reaper and Predator drones in Afghanistan and better availability of live video feeds beamed directly to troops on the ground.

The increase has coincided with a shift by the Obama administration toward a new strategy in Afghanistan that relies on a smaller military footprint to go after the Taliban and remaining Al Qaeda fighters.

The use of armed drones is likely to accelerate as most of the 66,000 U.S. troops in the country are due to withdraw by the end of 2014. The remotely piloted long-range aircraft, which kill targets with virtually no risk to American lives, carry an unmistakable attraction for military commanders.

"With fewer troops, and even with fewer manned aircraft flying overhead, it's harder to get traditional support in combat missions," said Joshua Foust, a Washington-based analyst who has advised the U.S. military in Afghanistan. "Drones provide a good way to do that without importing a bunch of pilots and the support infrastructure they'd need to remain based there."

The strategy isn't without risk: Drone strikes can kill civilians, as underscored by the Sept. 23 incident that claimed Bacha Zarina's life.

After Marine Gen. John R. Allen, the former coalition commander, issued an order limiting airstrikes in populated areas last year, U.S. and NATO forces reduced civilian casualties in air attacks by 42% in 2012, according to United Nations figures.

But after an airstrike this month that reportedly killed 10 civilians in addition to four Taliban leaders, Afghan President Hamid Karzai banned his forces from requesting coalition airstrikes in residential areas, a decree that also would apply to drones.

Defenders of drones say they are more accurate and less prone to causing civilian casualties than manned aircraft, because they can watch a potential target longer and often use smaller munitions.

When civilians are inadvertently killed, it is sometimes because they are close to a location where an airstrike is carried out, one U.S. officer said. But there also are instances when troops on the ground mistakenly call for an airstrike against a target where only civilians are present.

The U.S. military has acknowledged multiple times that it has accidentally killed civilians in drone strikes, including in 2010 when 24 Afghans were killed in Oruzgan province after being mistaken for insurgents, based on drone camera images. They were later determined to be noncombatants.

Last year, five coalition drone strikes killed 16 civilians and injured three, according to the U.N. mission in Afghanistan, which documented just one such incident in 2011. It wasn't immediately clear whether those were strikes from U.S. drones; Britain's Royal Air Force also flies armed Reaper drones in Afghanistan, although the vast majority of the coalition's unmanned aircraft belong to the U.S.

Many of the recent strikes have hit eastern Afghanistan, where Taliban insurgents retain control of many villages. In Marawara district of Kunar province, where Bacha Zarina lived, the two Taliban commanders killed in the Sept. 23 strike led a group of hard-line fighters who had banned cigarettes and shaving for men, littered the area with roadside bombs, and threatened to kill Afghans who worked for the U.S. military at an outpost an hour's drive away, villagers said.

Bacha Zarina's older brother Saidaa, who, like many Afghans, has just one name, said in a telephone interview that the U.S. military at first denied that the airstrike had killed a civilian, citing the accuracy of drones. After Afghan officials vouched for the family's story, the Americans paid Bacha Zarina's father about $2,000 in compensation.

"Do mistakes happen? Yes," said the U.S. officer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss drone operations. "But they also happen with an F-16, maybe more so."

Cmdr. Bill Speaks, a Pentagon spokesman, said, "We have always made safeguarding civilians a top priority in all operations. These strict guidelines apply to all of our weapons platforms."

The Obama administration has come under increasing pressure this month from Congress to disclose details and legal underpinnings for drone strikes, especially a 2011 attack that killed Anwar Awlaki, an American citizen and a leader of the group Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

On Tuesday, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said U.S. drone strikes worldwide had killed 4,700 people, the first public estimate of the death toll by a U.S. official since the attacks began early in the George W. Bush administration.

"Sometimes you hit innocent people, and I hate that, but we're at war, and we've taken out some very senior members of Al Qaeda," Graham told the Easley Rotary Club in South Carolina, according to news reports.

The increase in Afghan drone strikes also has coincided with a greater U.S. military focus in the region on deterring Iran, which has put more demands on the Navy fighters flying off two U.S. aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea. In the past, one of the carriers had focused on air operations over Afghanistan.

The U.S. military drone strikes in Afghanistan are separate from the CIA drone campaigns against suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda targets in Pakistan and Yemen. In Afghanistan, analysts say, drones often are used to back up ground forces or for killing insurgents who are spotted trying to plant roadside bombs.

But another strike last year demonstrated that U.S. forces are also using drones for targeted killings, much as the CIA is in Pakistan and Yemen.

In late July, according to officials in the eastern province of Nuristan, a teacher and another Afghan civilian were traveling in a sport utility vehicle along a rocky road toward the Taliban-held village of Waygal. Three senior Taliban leaders and a junior operative stopped the car and demanded a ride, said Shamsuddin Aselzai, the head of the provincial council, who is from that village.

Minutes later, Aselzai said, a drone strike destroyed the SUV, killing the three Taliban leaders and the teacher, Abdul Qayum, a 48-year-old father of four. The other civilian and the junior Talib were injured but survived.

Since then, Taliban leaders in Waygal have gone almost into hiding, Aselzai said, fearful of the next drone attack.

"They are afraid, otherwise they wouldn't hide even for a second," Aselzai said by phone. He called Qayum's death a tragedy and a mistake, but said the drone strikes were "very useful."

"The Taliban are destroying our country," he said, "and we need to take some serious steps."

Bengali reported from Kabul and Cloud from Washington. Special correspondent Hashmat Baktash in Kabul contributed to this report.

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The full text of the white paper on the killing of U.S. citizens abroad

The full text of the white paper on the killing of U.S. citizens abroad

DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE WHITE PAPER

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