6 ms·

How does one get on a kill list? I could be wrong but I'd tend to believe it is because they are a clear threat and not because one has poor choice in friends

How does one get on a kill list? I could be wrong but I'd tend to believe it is because they are a clear threat and not because one has poor choice in friends or makes suspicious trips to unusual destinations.

Crito 12y ago
If that was their justification, why would they be so ashamed of it? Why would they hide this justification from us?
- clavalle 12y ago
  Because they are also hiding it from the enemy. If you know the rules, you can exploit the rules.
  - Crito 12y ago
    How would knowing that the rule is "We kill those who are a clear threat to others" help the enemy? I am pretty sure that they are already operating under the assumption that, because they want to kill others, America wants to kill them. If that is indeed our legal justification for killing them, publicizing it would not modify their behaviour in any way. This isn't about getting the list of people targeted for killing. This is about getting the legal justification for the killings at all. If the justification is as you suspect it is, then there is no value in hiding it. That they are fiercely protecting the justification itself strongly suggests that you are wrong.
    - clavalle 12y ago
      I am pretty sure everyone is aware of that particular rule. But the devil is in the details. How does the US define 'clear threat', exactly, I think would be useful for an enemy to know and possibly exploitable. And I don't think the US is hiding the overall justification which is "These are people who wish to use violence to act against the United States and its citizens to push their own political agenda. In short; terrorists." I mean, these are not people who are running for Mayor in their particular part of the world and we don't like their policy decisions. They are doing things like running training camps where they teach others how to make IEDs.
      - Crito 12y ago
        > "But the devil is in the details. How does the US define 'clear threat', exactly, I think would be useful for an enemy to know and possibly exploitable." Rest assured that anyone who could be considered a terrorist knows that, if they surface on the US's radar, they will be targeted. They take it for granted that they are targeted, because that is the safe assumption to make. > "And I don't think the US is hiding the overall justification which is..." I am not interested in the "PR justification", which is indeed "Turrusts!" I am interested in the legal justification. The only thing that they want us to know of that is that it is secret. If it were nothing out of the ordinary, it would not be so secret. (Also, normally I try to avoid doing this, but since you are being so persistent in using strong wording in your comments, I feel that I don't have any choice: These are not people running training camps or making IEDs; these are people accused of doing those things. The difference is important, because it is the reason we are having this discussion. It is particularly important because it is suspected that their legal justification extends beyond people who have actually allegedly done anything, and in fact also covers "people who have communicated with those who have allegedly done things" or "any 'military-aged' male in the family of anyone who has allegedly done things")
        clavalle 12y ago
        The legal justification is that we are at war and these people have been deemed combatants in that war. If these people are not terrorists, what would the US have to gain by killing them? I am all for oversight and checks and balances. We need to be sure that we are killing actual threats. But I also understand that, as a practical consideration, it might be counterproductive to make the oversight public. We don't have the luxury of doing full investigations and putting people on trial. It sounds nice, but it is impossible. For the record: I think it is unfair that you charge me with "Using strong language" and in the same breath deride my position as merely parroting PR "Turrist" propaganda. Cheap shot.
        insuffi 12y ago
        Please show me where the U.S. has officially declared war on these countries it continues to blow up civilians in e.g. Yemen.
    - webmaven 12y ago
      Obviously, knowing the rule would then allow them to say "La la la, I'm not a threat to you" and therefore avoid being put on the kill list. Hey, it worked for me as a kid.
gldalmaso 12y ago
"The National Security Agency is using complex analysis of electronic surveillance, rather than human intelligence, as the primary method to locate targets for lethal drone strikes – an unreliable tactic that results in the deaths of innocent or unidentified people." https://firstlook.org/theintercept/article/2014/02/10/the-nsas-secret-role/ https://firstlook.org/theintercept/article/2014/02/10/the-ns...
fixermark 12y ago
Well, we don't know, because the details are not public. Hence, the call for the disclosure of the memos.
mseebach 12y ago
> I could be wrong but I'd tend to believe it is because they are a clear threat and not because one has poor choice in friends or makes suspicious trips to unusual destinations. I'd love to be able to trust the governments ability to decide who and what is a 'clear threat', it'd make a lot of things a lot easier. But unfortunately history - including fairly recent US history - is chuck full of evidence to the contrary.
- sokoloff 12y ago
  Not to mention the difference between "clear threat to the country" and "clear threat to the government". To the extent that there is a difference, I'm much more concerned about the former, but worry that the government may (naturally) be more concerned about the latter.
shaneofalltrad 12y ago
It is an algorithm that pinpoints those who will be bad in the present and/or future. I believe the code-name is hydra, but I could be wrong.
- fixermark 12y ago
  At the risk to my karma, I must state: Please tell me the US government had the foresight to avoid choosing---as the name of a core algorithm employed by its covert services---a name shared by the fictional criminal organization for world domination in the Marvel Comics universe, which is itself opposed by that fiction's analog to America's covert services. Someone in the chain of command is either deeply ignorant of Marvel Comics (completely understandable) or deeply, deeply cynical about the state of the world (completely concerning).
  - Crito 12y ago
    If the name was chosen deliberately, and not randomly by a computer, then it was probably chosen with the mythical beast in mind, not the comics. Hydras were snakes with many heads, and the problem with decentralized terrorist organizations has often been compared to the problem of killing a hydra; every time you cut off a head there seems to be another.
  - TeMPOraL 12y ago
    I'm not sure if there is an algorithm named Hydra; I guess GP is misremembering "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" a little bit (the right names would be Project Insight and/or Zola's Algorithm).
    - smsm42 12y ago
      You are correct, in Marvel universe Hydra is the crypto-nazi org, not the algorithm. The algorithm was developed by a nazi scientist Zola, and Project Insight is the tool of its execution, namely flying carriers with tons of guns (it's pretty hard to imagine more vulnerable technology for world domination but whatever, they crash spectacularly and that's pretty much the point :)
ChrisBland 12y ago
Its the same issue as the 'no-fly' list, you don't know if you are on it, so you can't provide a defense for yourself. There is no way to challenge you name on the list (short of years of trials). The recent case of the woman proved that they can mess these things up and get them wrong, so imagine them getting it wrong due to a similar name or misunderstanding and you end up on a kill list. So the worry is that a kill list becomes like a no fly list, you don't know you're on it until you hear a drone's missile coming at you.
njharman 12y ago
> How does one get on a kill list? Meta-data. And no, that is not a snarky joke. Reference: recent ex-NSA's (chief?) quoted revelation.
- clavalle 12y ago
  Meta data does not mean 'lesser data'. Meta data could paint a very clear picture.
  - Karunamon 12y ago
    Indeed - what's funny (or would be funny if it wasn't so depressing) is how the NSA spokespeople try to spin it as such. "Oh, we're not monitoring your calls, that would be bad! Just simple meta-data, nothing to worry about at all..."
    - Terr_ 12y ago
      "Metadata -- It's so vague that we're not actually invading your privacy, while being so revealing that we could murder you because of what we saw."
  - njharman 12y ago
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumstantial_evidence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumstantial_evidence
usefulcat 12y ago
A recent Radiolab episode, "60 Words", investigates exactly this question, among other things. There is a kill list, and decisions about who is or is not on that list are made by non-elected officials. Worse still, the Congressional oversight committee whose job is ostensibly to oversee this sort of thing apparently did not even know about the existence of the list until 2013, at which point the list had probably existed for around a dozen years.
mfisher87 12y ago
Does it matter how they got on a kill list or what the criteria is (in determining whether there's a difference between these two scenarios. Yes, it matters overall)? You're comparing killing an armed hostage taker and saving a person whose life is in imminent danger to bombing someone halfway across the world when we have no idea what they're doing or what they will be doing; all we know is what we think they have done and what we think they will do. If there's a hostage taker pointing a gun at someone's face, I can see what we're trying to do: step in at the last minute and prevent someone who is already visibly committing a crime (brandishing a weapon, threat of lethal force) from killing a person. Some unarmed guy outdoors, though? From a mile away? Because a committee put him on a list? What was he about to do that we stopped?
orbifold 12y ago
I'm sure the 16 year old son of Anwar Awl Alaki, who was also killed in a drone strike, was not only guilty by association.
Fuxy 12y ago
The same way you get on the no fly list either put there by well informed individuals with a lot of proof or by accident by a police officer. The point is there is no oversight the president can just kill whoever he want not to mention it shouldn't be legal to begin with. There's a reason for a trial and part of it is weeding out procedural mistakes or abuses of power.
TallGuyShort 12y ago
If it's because of a clear threat, perhaps they should make that legal case.
Shivetya 12y ago
The concern being that we don't know is what makes this matter such a grave concern. Something of this nature, if decided as legal, needs to be enshrined in law so there can be no question of its use, lest we find ourselves facing the death penalty for traffic tickets.
zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 12y ago
One question: why do we have a judicial system and public laws and all that at all? Could the same kind of people that can be relied upon to only put people on those kill lists that are a clear threat not also take care of determining all other punishments and stuff? I fail to see what all of that complexity is needed for in other cases when it's apparently unnecessary for putting people on kill lists!?
bcoates 12y ago
Well, in the case we're discussing, saying mean things about America and Obama on YouTube was the guys major claim to fame. There may have been credible intelligence that he was going to start putting al-Qaeda associated .gifs on Tumblr but of course something that sensitive is still Top Secret.
- pessimizer 12y ago
  This is important: I don't even think that the administration ever claimed that that Al-Awlaki has had any known direct connection to a terrorist attack. He was targeted because he publicly advocated and supported them. His speech was enough for a death sentence for him and his 16 year old son, two Americans. And the government doesn't feel like it's obligated to make a public case for what they've done.
Zigurd 12y ago
"We kill people based on metadata" Great. A lot of new followers for my books are from Pakistan.
fleitz 12y ago
Obama takes out a pen and writes your name on a piece of paper with kill list at the top.

Crito 12y ago

If that was their justification, why would they be so ashamed of it? Why would they hide this justification from us?

clavalle 12y ago
Because they are also hiding it from the enemy. If you know the rules, you can exploit the rules.
- Crito 12y ago
  How would knowing that the rule is "We kill those who are a clear threat to others" help the enemy? I am pretty sure that they are already operating under the assumption that, because they want to kill others, America wants to kill them. If that is indeed our legal justification for killing them, publicizing it would not modify their behaviour in any way. This isn't about getting the list of people targeted for killing. This is about getting the legal justification for the killings at all. If the justification is as you suspect it is, then there is no value in hiding it. That they are fiercely protecting the justification itself strongly suggests that you are wrong.
  - clavalle 12y ago
    I am pretty sure everyone is aware of that particular rule. But the devil is in the details. How does the US define 'clear threat', exactly, I think would be useful for an enemy to know and possibly exploitable. And I don't think the US is hiding the overall justification which is "These are people who wish to use violence to act against the United States and its citizens to push their own political agenda. In short; terrorists." I mean, these are not people who are running for Mayor in their particular part of the world and we don't like their policy decisions. They are doing things like running training camps where they teach others how to make IEDs.
    - Crito 12y ago
      > "But the devil is in the details. How does the US define 'clear threat', exactly, I think would be useful for an enemy to know and possibly exploitable." Rest assured that anyone who could be considered a terrorist knows that, if they surface on the US's radar, they will be targeted. They take it for granted that they are targeted, because that is the safe assumption to make. > "And I don't think the US is hiding the overall justification which is..." I am not interested in the "PR justification", which is indeed "Turrusts!" I am interested in the legal justification. The only thing that they want us to know of that is that it is secret. If it were nothing out of the ordinary, it would not be so secret. (Also, normally I try to avoid doing this, but since you are being so persistent in using strong wording in your comments, I feel that I don't have any choice: These are not people running training camps or making IEDs; these are people accused of doing those things. The difference is important, because it is the reason we are having this discussion. It is particularly important because it is suspected that their legal justification extends beyond people who have actually allegedly done anything, and in fact also covers "people who have communicated with those who have allegedly done things" or "any 'military-aged' male in the family of anyone who has allegedly done things")
      - clavalle 12y ago
        The legal justification is that we are at war and these people have been deemed combatants in that war. If these people are not terrorists, what would the US have to gain by killing them? I am all for oversight and checks and balances. We need to be sure that we are killing actual threats. But I also understand that, as a practical consideration, it might be counterproductive to make the oversight public. We don't have the luxury of doing full investigations and putting people on trial. It sounds nice, but it is impossible. For the record: I think it is unfair that you charge me with "Using strong language" and in the same breath deride my position as merely parroting PR "Turrist" propaganda. Cheap shot.
        insuffi 12y ago
        Please show me where the U.S. has officially declared war on these countries it continues to blow up civilians in e.g. Yemen.
  - webmaven 12y ago
    Obviously, knowing the rule would then allow them to say "La la la, I'm not a threat to you" and therefore avoid being put on the kill list. Hey, it worked for me as a kid.

gldalmaso 12y ago

"The National Security Agency is using complex analysis of electronic surveillance, rather than human intelligence, as the primary method to locate targets for lethal drone strikes – an unreliable tactic that results in the deaths of innocent or unidentified people." https://firstlook.org/theintercept/article/2014/02/10/the-nsas-secret-role/ https://firstlook.org/theintercept/article/2014/02/10/the-ns...

fixermark 12y ago

Well, we don't know, because the details are not public. Hence, the call for the disclosure of the memos.

mseebach 12y ago

> I could be wrong but I'd tend to believe it is because they are a clear threat and not because one has poor choice in friends or makes suspicious trips to unusual destinations. I'd love to be able to trust the governments ability to decide who and what is a 'clear threat', it'd make a lot of things a lot easier. But unfortunately history - including fairly recent US history - is chuck full of evidence to the contrary.

sokoloff 12y ago
Not to mention the difference between "clear threat to the country" and "clear threat to the government". To the extent that there is a difference, I'm much more concerned about the former, but worry that the government may (naturally) be more concerned about the latter.

shaneofalltrad 12y ago

It is an algorithm that pinpoints those who will be bad in the present and/or future. I believe the code-name is hydra, but I could be wrong.

fixermark 12y ago
At the risk to my karma, I must state: Please tell me the US government had the foresight to avoid choosing---as the name of a core algorithm employed by its covert services---a name shared by the fictional criminal organization for world domination in the Marvel Comics universe, which is itself opposed by that fiction's analog to America's covert services. Someone in the chain of command is either deeply ignorant of Marvel Comics (completely understandable) or deeply, deeply cynical about the state of the world (completely concerning).
- Crito 12y ago
  If the name was chosen deliberately, and not randomly by a computer, then it was probably chosen with the mythical beast in mind, not the comics. Hydras were snakes with many heads, and the problem with decentralized terrorist organizations has often been compared to the problem of killing a hydra; every time you cut off a head there seems to be another.
- TeMPOraL 12y ago
  I'm not sure if there is an algorithm named Hydra; I guess GP is misremembering "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" a little bit (the right names would be Project Insight and/or Zola's Algorithm).
  - smsm42 12y ago
    You are correct, in Marvel universe Hydra is the crypto-nazi org, not the algorithm. The algorithm was developed by a nazi scientist Zola, and Project Insight is the tool of its execution, namely flying carriers with tons of guns (it's pretty hard to imagine more vulnerable technology for world domination but whatever, they crash spectacularly and that's pretty much the point :)

ChrisBland 12y ago

Its the same issue as the 'no-fly' list, you don't know if you are on it, so you can't provide a defense for yourself. There is no way to challenge you name on the list (short of years of trials). The recent case of the woman proved that they can mess these things up and get them wrong, so imagine them getting it wrong due to a similar name or misunderstanding and you end up on a kill list. So the worry is that a kill list becomes like a no fly list, you don't know you're on it until you hear a drone's missile coming at you.

njharman 12y ago

> How does one get on a kill list? Meta-data. And no, that is not a snarky joke. Reference: recent ex-NSA's (chief?) quoted revelation.

clavalle 12y ago
Meta data does not mean 'lesser data'. Meta data could paint a very clear picture.
- Karunamon 12y ago
  Indeed - what's funny (or would be funny if it wasn't so depressing) is how the NSA spokespeople try to spin it as such. "Oh, we're not monitoring your calls, that would be bad! Just simple meta-data, nothing to worry about at all..."
  - Terr_ 12y ago
    "Metadata -- It's so vague that we're not actually invading your privacy, while being so revealing that we could murder you because of what we saw."
- njharman 12y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumstantial_evidence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumstantial_evidence

usefulcat 12y ago

A recent Radiolab episode, "60 Words", investigates exactly this question, among other things. There is a kill list, and decisions about who is or is not on that list are made by non-elected officials. Worse still, the Congressional oversight committee whose job is ostensibly to oversee this sort of thing apparently did not even know about the existence of the list until 2013, at which point the list had probably existed for around a dozen years.

mfisher87 12y ago

Does it matter how they got on a kill list or what the criteria is (in determining whether there's a difference between these two scenarios. Yes, it matters overall)? You're comparing killing an armed hostage taker and saving a person whose life is in imminent danger to bombing someone halfway across the world when we have no idea what they're doing or what they will be doing; all we know is what we think they have done and what we think they will do. If there's a hostage taker pointing a gun at someone's face, I can see what we're trying to do: step in at the last minute and prevent someone who is already visibly committing a crime (brandishing a weapon, threat of lethal force) from killing a person. Some unarmed guy outdoors, though? From a mile away? Because a committee put him on a list? What was he about to do that we stopped?

orbifold 12y ago

I'm sure the 16 year old son of Anwar Awl Alaki, who was also killed in a drone strike, was not only guilty by association.

Fuxy 12y ago

The same way you get on the no fly list either put there by well informed individuals with a lot of proof or by accident by a police officer. The point is there is no oversight the president can just kill whoever he want not to mention it shouldn't be legal to begin with. There's a reason for a trial and part of it is weeding out procedural mistakes or abuses of power.

TallGuyShort 12y ago

If it's because of a clear threat, perhaps they should make that legal case.

Shivetya 12y ago

The concern being that we don't know is what makes this matter such a grave concern. Something of this nature, if decided as legal, needs to be enshrined in law so there can be no question of its use, lest we find ourselves facing the death penalty for traffic tickets.

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 12y ago

One question: why do we have a judicial system and public laws and all that at all? Could the same kind of people that can be relied upon to only put people on those kill lists that are a clear threat not also take care of determining all other punishments and stuff? I fail to see what all of that complexity is needed for in other cases when it's apparently unnecessary for putting people on kill lists!?

bcoates 12y ago

Well, in the case we're discussing, saying mean things about America and Obama on YouTube was the guys major claim to fame. There may have been credible intelligence that he was going to start putting al-Qaeda associated .gifs on Tumblr but of course something that sensitive is still Top Secret.

pessimizer 12y ago
This is important: I don't even think that the administration ever claimed that that Al-Awlaki has had any known direct connection to a terrorist attack. He was targeted because he publicly advocated and supported them. His speech was enough for a death sentence for him and his 16 year old son, two Americans. And the government doesn't feel like it's obligated to make a public case for what they've done.

Zigurd 12y ago

"We kill people based on metadata" Great. A lot of new followers for my books are from Pakistan.

fleitz 12y ago

Obama takes out a pen and writes your name on a piece of paper with kill list at the top.