7 ms·

There are lots of important points in this set of articles, but a few stand point: - Congress has not defined what "assassination" means; and since they haven'

by gortok 11y ago

There are lots of important points in this set of articles, but a few stand point: - Congress has not defined what "assassination" means; and since they haven't defined it, the Executive Order 12333 is effectively meaningless. https://theintercept.com/drone-papers/the-assassination-complex/ https://theintercept.com/drone-papers/the-assassination-comp... - IMEIs are used to track targets. Can IMEIs be spoofed? - Military Aged Males are considered enemy combatants. Effectively that means all males ages 18-49 are considered enemy combatants. Since you're guilty by association, your age makes you a target.

grandalf 11y ago
> Military Aged Males are considered enemy combatants. Effectively that means all males ages 18-49 are considered enemy combatants. Since you're guilty by association, your age makes you a target. As an American citizen I'm so ashamed that we do this.
- whatafarce 11y ago
  Shame? How about anger, or rage, or wrath? How about an inflexible demand to stop war crimes. No one wants to conduct a meaningful opposition because the American system will destroy them. We are ruled by fear.
  - grandalf 11y ago
    Well yes, all that too. I agree with your statement about lack of opposition/dissent. It is horrible.
  - NN88 11y ago
    What would you do to stop the war crimes committed by these very targets?
    - grandalf 11y ago
      could you explain what your question means? Who do you mean by targets?
      - NN88 11y ago
        Why should I have a problem with taking out this guy? https://theintercept.com/drone-papers/the-life-and-death-of-objective-peckham/ https://theintercept.com/drone-papers/the-life-and-death-of-...
        grandalf 11y ago
        Arguably you wouldn't object to taking out nearly any random person on the other side of the world who you didn't know personally. That's not the point. It's a lot easier to just randomly assassinate people across the world than to come up with a sound policy that protects our interest while also obeying our values as a people. Historically, western culture has not condoned execution without trial. The notion of just lumping anyone within an age range into the category of combatants is so antithetical to what the US ought to stand for, that it's really quite shameful. It's only a small degree away from the ethos of so-called terrorists, who just try to kill anyone they can. What it boils down to is that the US is practicing terrorism abroad. I'm sure there would be circumstances where I'd approve of drastic measures, but at this point I'm very far from convinced that such tactics are remotely necessary or appropriate.
nkw 11y ago
>- IMEIs are used to track targets. Can IMEIs be spoofed? Yes. Relatively trivially.
- throwaway7767 11y ago
  Off-topic, but do you know any phones that can be easily hacked to change the IMEI? I know technically it's possible, and I know the hacks exist because I've seen shady sites offering the service, but I'd like to get a phone where I could rotate the IMEI myself when I change SIMs, so it would not be quite so easy to map the SIM to a person by watching for common IMEIs. I guess the best bet would be something that runs OsmocomBB, but AFAIK that's not really a good choice for a day-to-day phone.
- BuildTheRobots 11y ago
  I was going to say the exact opposite; that it's in no way trivial and that possessing the tools and information to do so is illegal in a number of European countries. More information would be greatly welcomed :) Edit: On reflection that sounds extremely dodgy... I got curious a few months ago and couldn't turn up much, so I'd certainly classify it as more difficult than trivial... but then I am still curious.
  - venomsnake 11y ago
    First result on search https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.vivek.imeichanger&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.vivek.imei... Imei changing is trivial. But you are still on the same number. Now - to change numbers on the fly requires telco assistance. And some very very interesting toys.
    - runjake 11y ago
      This only changes the apparent IMEI at the OS level to mask oneself from apps that pry. The hardware is still using the same old IMEI as far as the phone company and SIGINT is concerned. This is not readily, or trivially, changeable.
rhino369 11y ago
>Military Aged Males are considered enemy combatants. Effectively that means all males ages 18-49 are considered enemy combatants. Since you're guilty by association, your age makes you a target. You are conflating what the US considers enemies before targeting and after a strike. The US doesn't just bomb any random male 18-49. But when the US does target what it thinks is a legitimate target, it counts any unknown males killed in the strike as enemy. It doesn't use that assumption to do the strike. Only to count the enemy v. civilian kill total. And it's a pretty reasonable assumption, depending on the circumstance. If the US drone strikes a Taliban hide out, the unknown males there were very likely foot-soldiers of the Taliban. If you accidentally blow up a wedding, then counting all the men is essentially lying. But your sex and age don't make you a target. You being near a target doesn't really make you a target either. It makes you a tragic accident. Unless the Taliban want to line up like 18th century foot soldiers, there are going to be people killed who aren't involved. Sending in ground troops would only make it worse. And it's not like the Taliban aren't a real threat to Afghanistan. They just took over the 5th largest city in Afghanistan two weeks ago.
- gortok 11y ago
  > It makes you a tragic accident. "We're not going to apologize for this, because you hung out with someone who was on our list, who we think was in this area, and so clearly you deserved being bombed by a drone. What? You borrowed your friend's phone? Oh well. Jackpot." > And it's not like the Taliban aren't a real threat to Afghanistan. They just took over the 5th largest city in Afghanistan two weeks ago. Why are we concerned with Afghanistan? There are literally dozens of other countries that are an actual threat to our National Interests (note: I did not say national security), so if we're going to go after countries, there are lots of other countries that should be ahead of a country half a world away. One thing that sending in ground troops would do is hopefully reignite the debate as to whether we should be in that country at all. A major problem with drones is that it allows us to make enemies without having to actually commit to a war. These Drone strikes are essentially a line-item on our defense department budget, and the CIA drone strikes are part of a black-budget we don't even know what it contains, let alone able to debate it. If we're basing drone strikes on groups we're unfriendly with taking over countries, then we've got a lot of targets to go after. The problem with not minding our own business and starting wars around the globe is that we continually get blowback, but we don't learn from it. It was "to keep the world safe for Democracy", then "safe from Nazis", then "Safe from communism", and now "safe from international terrorism", yet there is no debate in our congress about how our policies fuel any of these things. When will there be a 'war' to keep the world safe from us?
PythonicAlpha 11y ago
> Military Aged Males are considered enemy combatants. Effectively that means all males ages 18-49 are considered enemy combatants. Since you're guilty by association, your age makes you a target. A German newspaper wrote, that males with an age of 12 years up are considered legit targets.

by gortok 11y ago

grandalf 11y ago

whatafarce 11y ago
Shame? How about anger, or rage, or wrath? How about an inflexible demand to stop war crimes. No one wants to conduct a meaningful opposition because the American system will destroy them. We are ruled by fear.
- grandalf 11y ago
  Well yes, all that too. I agree with your statement about lack of opposition/dissent. It is horrible.
- NN88 11y ago
  What would you do to stop the war crimes committed by these very targets?
  - grandalf 11y ago
    could you explain what your question means? Who do you mean by targets?
    - NN88 11y ago
      Why should I have a problem with taking out this guy? https://theintercept.com/drone-papers/the-life-and-death-of-objective-peckham/ https://theintercept.com/drone-papers/the-life-and-death-of-...
      - grandalf 11y ago
        Arguably you wouldn't object to taking out nearly any random person on the other side of the world who you didn't know personally. That's not the point. It's a lot easier to just randomly assassinate people across the world than to come up with a sound policy that protects our interest while also obeying our values as a people. Historically, western culture has not condoned execution without trial. The notion of just lumping anyone within an age range into the category of combatants is so antithetical to what the US ought to stand for, that it's really quite shameful. It's only a small degree away from the ethos of so-called terrorists, who just try to kill anyone they can. What it boils down to is that the US is practicing terrorism abroad. I'm sure there would be circumstances where I'd approve of drastic measures, but at this point I'm very far from convinced that such tactics are remotely necessary or appropriate.

nkw 11y ago

>- IMEIs are used to track targets. Can IMEIs be spoofed? Yes. Relatively trivially.

throwaway7767 11y ago
Off-topic, but do you know any phones that can be easily hacked to change the IMEI? I know technically it's possible, and I know the hacks exist because I've seen shady sites offering the service, but I'd like to get a phone where I could rotate the IMEI myself when I change SIMs, so it would not be quite so easy to map the SIM to a person by watching for common IMEIs. I guess the best bet would be something that runs OsmocomBB, but AFAIK that's not really a good choice for a day-to-day phone.
BuildTheRobots 11y ago
I was going to say the exact opposite; that it's in no way trivial and that possessing the tools and information to do so is illegal in a number of European countries. More information would be greatly welcomed :) Edit: On reflection that sounds extremely dodgy... I got curious a few months ago and couldn't turn up much, so I'd certainly classify it as more difficult than trivial... but then I am still curious.
- venomsnake 11y ago
  First result on search https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.vivek.imeichanger&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.vivek.imei... Imei changing is trivial. But you are still on the same number. Now - to change numbers on the fly requires telco assistance. And some very very interesting toys.
  - runjake 11y ago
    This only changes the apparent IMEI at the OS level to mask oneself from apps that pry. The hardware is still using the same old IMEI as far as the phone company and SIGINT is concerned. This is not readily, or trivially, changeable.

rhino369 11y ago

>Military Aged Males are considered enemy combatants. Effectively that means all males ages 18-49 are considered enemy combatants. Since you're guilty by association, your age makes you a target. You are conflating what the US considers enemies before targeting and after a strike. The US doesn't just bomb any random male 18-49. But when the US does target what it thinks is a legitimate target, it counts any unknown males killed in the strike as enemy. It doesn't use that assumption to do the strike. Only to count the enemy v. civilian kill total. And it's a pretty reasonable assumption, depending on the circumstance. If the US drone strikes a Taliban hide out, the unknown males there were very likely foot-soldiers of the Taliban. If you accidentally blow up a wedding, then counting all the men is essentially lying. But your sex and age don't make you a target. You being near a target doesn't really make you a target either. It makes you a tragic accident. Unless the Taliban want to line up like 18th century foot soldiers, there are going to be people killed who aren't involved. Sending in ground troops would only make it worse. And it's not like the Taliban aren't a real threat to Afghanistan. They just took over the 5th largest city in Afghanistan two weeks ago.

gortok 11y ago
> It makes you a tragic accident. "We're not going to apologize for this, because you hung out with someone who was on our list, who we think was in this area, and so clearly you deserved being bombed by a drone. What? You borrowed your friend's phone? Oh well. Jackpot." > And it's not like the Taliban aren't a real threat to Afghanistan. They just took over the 5th largest city in Afghanistan two weeks ago. Why are we concerned with Afghanistan? There are literally dozens of other countries that are an actual threat to our National Interests (note: I did not say national security), so if we're going to go after countries, there are lots of other countries that should be ahead of a country half a world away. One thing that sending in ground troops would do is hopefully reignite the debate as to whether we should be in that country at all. A major problem with drones is that it allows us to make enemies without having to actually commit to a war. These Drone strikes are essentially a line-item on our defense department budget, and the CIA drone strikes are part of a black-budget we don't even know what it contains, let alone able to debate it. If we're basing drone strikes on groups we're unfriendly with taking over countries, then we've got a lot of targets to go after. The problem with not minding our own business and starting wars around the globe is that we continually get blowback, but we don't learn from it. It was "to keep the world safe for Democracy", then "safe from Nazis", then "Safe from communism", and now "safe from international terrorism", yet there is no debate in our congress about how our policies fuel any of these things. When will there be a 'war' to keep the world safe from us?

PythonicAlpha 11y ago