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"Signature strikes" -- the target has a signature (movement, data, use of a satellite phone or specific cellular number, entourage, etc) that matches that of an
by mikece 4y ago
"Signature strikes" -- the target has a signature (movement, data, use of a satellite phone or specific cellular number, entourage, etc) that matches that of an HVT (high value taget) that is authorized for termination by drone strike. The CIA has killed lots of the wrong people because "signature strikes" don't require second source intelligence to verify who the target is (eg: is the person using the satellite phone really the HVT or is it a courier or even his kid?). As an American I'm ashamed that my government has done things like this and I fully support those responsible for these programs to be tried as war criminals.
- lupire 4y ago"Signatures" aren't necessarily better or worse than other sources. Other sources can be mistakes or intentional lies. What matters is the quality of the totality of the evidence, and how well convinced we are of what the accuracy based on past experience; and how much the deciders knew about last inaccuracies, when deciding to continue a practice. Statistical decision making is very slippery stuff.
- hammock 4y agoThis is assassination we are talking about, not ad serving
- nickff 4y agoUncertainty is (unfortunately) everywhere; for example, what probability is “beyond a reasonable doubt”? There are many who take issue with that question, but the answers I’ve seen range between 0.1% and 5%, with no general consensus.
- forgetfulness 4y agoWhat's the appeal process for being assassinated by the CIA like?
- darawk 4y agoPretty similar to the appeals process for being killed by the terrorist that the CIA chose not to assassinate.
- ivalm 4y agoHow many Americans died from terrorism? How many foreigners died from anti-terrorism drone strikes?
- devNoise 4y agoThe other question is how many terrorist did we create from drone strikes?
- darawk 4y agoThese are actually easy things to look up. 910-2,200 civilians killed by drone strikes[1]. More than that were killed on 9/11 alone [2]. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualties_from_U.S._drone_strikes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualties_from_U.S._... 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks
- idontpost 4y ago
- dwater 4y agoAnd if you exclude the black swan event of 9/11 which the US was unprepared for, the numbers get a lot smaller, e.g.: "According to the GTD, 80 Americans were killed in terrorist attacks from 2004 to 2013, including perpetrators and excluding deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq, the majority of which are combat-related. Of those 80 Americans killed, 36 were killed in attacks that occurred in the United States." https://www.start.umd.edu/pubs/START_AmericanTerrorismDeaths_FactSheet_Oct2015.pdf https://www.start.umd.edu/pubs/START_AmericanTerrorismDeaths...
- raxxorraxor 4y agoBut there are also people that acknowledge the existence of uncertainty and draw conclusions from that. Countries without a death penalty for example. Uncertainty being a fact is not a free ticket.
- devteambravo 4y agoIncredibly chilling for you to have to type this! But yes indeed.
- bombcar 4y agoAd serving probably has less false-positives, because those cost the ad companies money.
- salawat 4y agoYou think that false positives requiring the staging/deployment of a multi-million dollar weapon system don't cost money?
- Banana699 4y agoIt's not about how much absolute money is spent per each false positive, it's about how much you can get away with wasting. If a decision maker in the CIA is not punished for each brain fart, why would they avoid mistakes ? You get the behaviour that you reinforce and tolerate.
- micromacrofoot 4y agoNot really, the US military practically has a blank check. I can think of multiple decade-long government projects off of the top of my head (including from NASA) that had entire programs scrapped because they ran out of money. Overages from a single military program, like the F-35, have eclipsed the entire budget of those canceled projects.
- phkahler 4y ago>> "Signatures" aren't necessarily better or worse than other sources. Right, they are almost always worse than first-hand information, and they are almost always better than low-grade intelligence obtained under pressure/influence (like the WMDs in Iraq). That is no justification.
- engineer_22 4y ago>> Right, they are almost always worse than first-hand information, You're probably right about this, in a sense, but it beckons a pretty interesting question: provide an example when "signatures" are better than first-hand information. Counter example: If your job is to find enemy subs, then sonar feedback off the hull of a Akula Class nuclear attack sub may be better than direct visual observation of the sub
- raxxorraxor 4y agoNobody complains too loudly if you fire a torpedo at a blue whale, but there would be dire consequences if you hit the wrong sub. I wouldn't call sonar contacts statistical evidence though, even if it is partially correct. The counter example doesn't fit. In you example the sub is hostile because it is Russian. Here the people are convicted to death by circumstantial evidence. Very, very bad circumstantial evidence. It is just "worth" it because there are little consequences for the murderers.
- ImHereToVote 4y agoI would prefer to be tried in a court of law, you?
- the_lonely_road 4y agoThat's a false equivalence though and not what the alternative option is here. The government was killing its enemies 100 years before the word digital was invented and will continue to do so as long as government exist. They will use every technology invented in the pursuit of doing so. Blaming metadata signature based approaches is no different than blaming their use of satellites, metallurgy, hell the wheel is a big part of their war machine. It has always been this way and it will continue to always be this way.
- pclmulqdq 4y agoIn 2010, an American citizen was killed in a drone strike by the US military, without a trial or any attempt to make an arrest. This was the first time in history that a US civilian was killed by the US military. Before 2010, we were doing just fine without executing citizens on suspect legal grounds. Edit: Edited to state that this was not fire of combatants in a combat zone.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- westmeal 4y agoWhich citizen was it? I've never heard about this before but I wouldn't put it past those war mongering fucks.
- mikece 4y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32583164 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32583164
- ALittleLight 4y ago
- gffrd 4y agoThis is an excellent summary of how to make decisions, and to continually get better at making them. > and how well convinced we are of what the accuracy based on past experience; and how much the deciders knew about last inaccuracies, when deciding to continue a practice. This in particular. How did proceeding this way do in the past? What did we get when we decided to continue with a discrepancy? If the discrepancy did not result in an issue, why? was the information bad, our handling of it, or just chance? If it was an issue, can we avoid overriding it again, can we get better info, can we discard it altogether from consideration? (note: this comment doesn't relate to the content of the article at all, but about the decision-making process outlined above)
- raxxorraxor 4y agoIf you use the same statistic model to estimate how likely it is for people to be a danger to others for political reasons, also called terrorism in some cases, you very likely would need to shoot those that implemented these decisions.
- kibwen 4y ago> As an American I'm ashamed that my government has done things like this and I fully support those responsible for these programs to be tried as war criminals. Same and seconded. That includes presidents too; take every living president and have them stand for these crimes. There's no reason that being president should be carte blanche for murder.
- the_only_law 4y agoThe has CIA tortured US citizens, destroyed the evidence and got away with it, I doubt anything will happen.
- phkahler 4y ago>> I doubt anything will happen. Well not with that attitude. ;-)
- skyyler 4y agoHow do you propose to change this attitude in a time when people who organise groups to change this attitude always end up mysteriously killing themselves?
- sha256sum 4y ago>I doubt anything will happen The last president who seemingly took issue with these powers was conveniently assassinated. His successor (and the successor's allies) wasted no time in appeasing those powers by beginning lots of wars that killed and destroyed the lives of many people. I too doubt anything will happen. At the risk of starting a Chomsky flame war and for anyone curious about what happened in those wars, and why nothing will happen: read "Manufacturing Consent".
- stjohnswarts 4y agoYeah I don't believe these "the CIA killed JFK" conspiracy theories. Y'all have had decades and decades to prove it.
- achow 4y ago> "signature strikes" don't require second source intelligence to verify who the target is.. Read that Osama bin Laden was verified by people on ground masquerading as health workers.
- chasd00 4y agoDon’t forget American citizens are on the table too, no due process required! EDIT: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-Awlaki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-Awlaki Thank you Jaywalk for the correct link
- googlryas 4y agoFrom the article, it seems like he was collateral damage and not the intended target - the drone strike was targeting Ibrahim al-Banna. That sucks, very much a wrong place wrong time, but I would say that a fairly effective strategy for not being collateral damage is to not hang out with internationally wanted terrorists.
- jaywalk 4y agoI don't know why the parent poster linked to his son, but this is probably who he was thinking of: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-Awlaki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-Awlaki A US citizen who was executed by a drone strike ordered by Obama himself.
- googlryas 4y agoI don't really see the problem with this either. It seems like they would have liked to capture him, but it was infeasible. The guy essentially declared war on the US with his actions. What special steps should they take because he is an American citizen? A little different, but imagine if an American decided to go fight for Germany during WWII. Should he receive any special consideration above what native-born German soldiers got, before Americans start shooting towards him?
- daniel-cussen 4y agoYeah that analysis of if he could be captured alive feasibly was his crappy version of due process. Not enough for my taste, but it at least caused a hiccup in the meat grinder. And it diminishes Obama's legacy in an objective way that can be repeated ad nauseam, legitimately. He lives on past the bullets as a bullet-point in presentations, discussions, debates and speeches. Salutations, fellow United States citizen Mr. Al-Awlaki.
- kshacker 4y agoI am reading "a peoples history of United States" by Howard zinn. It highlights US in a very negative light so with that caveat out of the way, it appears we are continuously ashamed of things we did just a century back. Always. Maybe in a hundred years we will also talk about the current era as dark times (as long as we are the top dog or maybe number 2). But at that point we will have something else to be ashamed of (but that will not be talked of at that time). If we spiral out of control or break up, then the story (in hindsight) will be even more amazing. But then I look at other countries and apart from some good European socialism which is quite recent, there ain't much to be proud of, when you look at any country, of any era.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago> when you look at any country This is true of any group of people, particularly a tolerant one, because actions deemed necessary by some will always be abhorrent to others.
- doubled112 4y ago> are continuously ashamed of things we did Maybe "ashamed" is too strong a word, but thinking smaller scale, if you look back at the way you handled things when you were younger, don't you think you could have done anything better? Isn't this how we learn and progress as a person? Seems likely to be true for a society as well.
- kshacker 4y agoI just riffed off the word "ashamed" from the parent comment. I probably could have described it differently if I wrote it without that context.
- doubled112 4y agoI was just playing it safe. Didn't want anybody to think they should be ashamed of themselves for all their previous mistakes.
- 4y ago
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago> The CIA has killed lots of the wrong people because "signature strikes" Please cite a source for this claim.
- mandmandam 4y agoYou can find this yourself so easily that your question qualifies as sealioning. But here you go anyway: https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/04/05/obamas-most-dangerous-drone-tactic-is-here-to-stay/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/04/05/obamas-most-dangerous-d... > “Signature strikes have resulted in large numbers of bystander casualties in Pakistan and Yemen,” Jameel Jaffer, a deputy legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union, told Foreign Policy.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago> The numbers are impossible to pin down, given the lack of clear reporting on the ground in places like Pakistan and Yemen.
- mandmandam 4y agoHa, it almost seems like you're saying that since the US doesn't keep good track of how many civilians they've murdered with "signature strikes", no one can claim that "lots of innocent people are dying". Even when many reports and groups say that lots of innocent people are dying, including the article you're quoting. That would by psychotic though, so I'm surely misinterpreting what your actual point is. Care to clarify?
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y agoQuantify how many "lots" are. The parent said the CIA killed "lots" of the wrong people. That is really the only word I take issue with.
- mike00632 4y ago"uncountably high"
- pdonis 4y ago> As an American I'm ashamed that my government has done things like this Have you voted against all of your elected representatives that authorized it? The only way things like this will change is if the people force them to change by making it clear to politicians that they will not be elected or re-elected if they support them.
- GoldenRacer 4y agoHow do you suggest voting against the representatives that do this when both the Democrats and Republicans do it?
- pdonis 4y agoPoliticians currently in office of both parties do it, yes. That doesn't mean politicians of both parties who will be running for office in the future will necessarily do it. There are many ways for voters to communicate preferences prior to elections in order to influence the policy positions of candidates. Of course it won't change drastically in just one election; we didn't get to where we are now with just one election. It took many decades. But change has to start somewhere.
- stjohnswarts 4y agoYou think only America does this? All countries do it if they have the spy capabilities of doing it.