NSA’s Secret Role in U.S. Assassination Program (Former Drone Operator Speaks to Scahill, Greenwald)

[Hissyspit]

Source: First Look

NEWS

The NSA’s Secret Role in the U.S. Assassination Program

By Jeremy Scahill and Glenn Greenwald

10 Feb 2014, 12:03 AM EST 0

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.

According to a former drone operator for the military’s Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) who also worked with the NSA, the agency often identifies targets based on controversial metadata analysis and cell-phone tracking technologies. Rather than confirming a target’s identity with operatives or informants on the ground, the CIA or the U.S. military then orders a strike based on the activity and location of the mobile phone a person is believed to be using.

The drone operator, who agreed to discuss the top-secret programs on the condition of anonymity, was a member of JSOC’s High Value Targeting task force, which is charged with identifying, capturing or killing terrorist suspects in Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

- snip -

The former JSOC drone operator is adamant that the technology has been responsible for taking out terrorists and networks of people facilitating improvised explosive device attacks against U.S. forces in Afghanistan. But he also states that innocent people have “absolutely” been killed as a result of the NSA’s increasing reliance on the surveillance tactic.

One problem, he explains, is that targets are increasingly aware of the NSA’s reliance on geolocating, and have moved to thwart the tactic. Some have as many as 16 different SIM cards associated with their identity within the High Value Target system. Others, unaware that their mobile phone is being targeted, lend their phone, with the SIM card in it, to friends, children, spouses and family members.

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

[2naSalit]

1. Well if that's true

and I get the feeling it probably is, what I said about metadata is correct. You can plug that info in and find a point on a map, etc. Used it in simple ESRI cartographic programs... it can be used to answer numerous queries. "Hand-offs" can be a confounding elements and I'm not surprised it's been figured out.

Just goes to show ya, change has to be made and not in the direction of moar war and gunz.

[debunkthis]

2. Anyone who believes

that willfully killing innocent civilians is EVER justified, for any reason, needs to be committed for a psychiatric evaluation, imho.

[iamthebandfanman]

5. so the majority of the united states

during WW2?

back then they didn't have drones...

they just carpet bombed entire neighborhoods.

[truth2power]

7. The Lottery, by Shirley Jackson...

Let's just keep doing what we've always done, or tweak the process a little.

[blackspade]

19. That's your justification?

Because we carpet bombed in WWII it's ok?

[bobduca]

24. BEST DEFENSE OF DRONES EVAH!!!1111

because dresden.

[Ash_F]

3. This is how they take "every precaution" to spare innocent life? /nt

[silvershadow]

4. So, then, after they get tired of my sh*t here on DU they can just pick me off

at will as I am traveling? They wouldn't do it here (yet) for obvious reasons, but if I travel outside the US they could. Unless I shed the cell phone. I am not an enemy of any sort in whatever this state of perpetual war is now about. But I could be on anyone's whim, as could you. Sobering thought.

[red dog 1]

6. K&R...Thanks for posting

Jeremy Skahilll & Glenn Greenwald are excellent reporters,
They both are on Democracy Now often.

[Demeter]

8. It's the NSA's Incompetence that Is the Only Shield We the People Have in this Fiasco

Imagine if the NSA were 50% better at what it's trying to do....democracy wouldn't stand a chance, and neither would any human on this planet.

[GoneFishin]

9. But it's only METADATA!

"complex analysis ... to locate targets for lethal drone strikes ... based on controversial metadata analysis"

Gee. What could go wrong?

[Mnemosyne]

10. K&R nt

[jsr]

11. .

Last edited Mon Feb 10, 2014, 09:04 AM - Edit history (1)

[bemildred]

12. One problem ... is that targets are increasingly aware of the NSA’s reliance on geolocating"

And then they will use that to manipulate you. Right?

[G_j]

13. K&R

[Le Taz Hot]

14. And President Obama

condones this. How can ANYONE at this point, support this president?

[warrant46]

15. Various True Believers

A/K/A Sheep

[Demenace]

16. And a drone operator knows how the sauage is made?

Come now, people! Do you guys not at least give the NSA some credit that it will compartmentalize the gathering process from the execution process?

Furthermore, have some of you thought about the facts that there are places on this planet today, you cannot get a human asset into for geographical or time related reasons? Or that sometimes, the firing of a weapon is not as much as killing the exact people but a show of capacity to reach into the perceived enemy's sphere of influence?

Where is the smart analysis of this information? All I see is the Tea party like reaction. How about a comprehensive discussion of the merits and demerits of this issue for once?

[countryjake]

26. And you just gave a definition of terrorism...

the firing of a weapon is not as much as killing the exact people but a show of capacity to reach into the perceived enemy's sphere of influence?

What say you? Would drone activity such as you've described be a merit?

It doesn't take any smart analysis to figure out that making people on the ground feel as tho they cannot run, they cannot hide, no place is safe, creates more enemies for the one controlling those buttons.

I give the NSA credit for absolutely nothing and I'll do whatever it takes to confound their fucking "gathering process" as much as I can. Our government has no right, Patriot Act be damned, to treat harmless citizens as tho they're criminals!

[Demenace]

29. Dude, I gave you food for thought which is sorely lacking here.

There is a yeah, yeah mentality around here that does not further deep discussion. There are lots of reasons why things happen, we need to seek to understand those angles before going with the 'yeah, yeah' reactions!

[countryjake]

33. But you didn't make any attempt to discuss what I asked, either...

So, from your response, I might say just as you see nothing but a "rah! rah!" in mine, I could hear the booing contained in yours. It's really very simple, if drones were flying over the heads of people in our own country, capable of taking any single one of us out for suspect behavior, would you consider that as a reasonable or acceptable condition of life?

I understand that the USA believes that they can discreetly continue with their war mongering thru the release of drones upon the rest of the world, thus supposedly reducing the loss of military forces they formerly had to put on the ground in risky environments and precarious terrain. That is still waging war and ultimately, whatever "enemy" it is they seek to put down, will logically multiply, due to the terror tactic of drone striking innocent populations who had absolutely no bone to pick with Americans in the first place. Creating enemies, murdering civilians.

[Demenace]

34. I am not arguing the point of making more enemies with you...

In fact, I agree with your assessment but that does not invalidate the risk/benefit analysis of those making those decisions.

[Demenace]

30. Good luck with your mission of 'confounding' whatever it is you are confounding with the NSA...

My goodness!

[Ichingcarpenter]

18. Terrorism

Terrorism. It is quite literally "the use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims."



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism

makes one think.

[woo me with science]

17. K&R

[reddread]

20. air to surface missile targeting is a freebie with your cel phone plan

god, people bitch about everything.

[Demenace]

31. I know.. This site has become like the Free Republic sites where people just agree to bitch...

without attempting to understand what it is they are bitching about!

[blkmusclmachine]

21. Tell me the story about 9/11, again.

Operation Northwoods

http://abcnews.go.com/US/Story?id=92662&page=1

In the early 1960s, America's top military leaders reportedly drafted plans to kill innocent people and commit acts of terrorism in U.S. cities to create public support for a war against Cuba.

Code named Operation Northwoods, the plans reportedly included the possible assassination of Cuban émigrés, sinking boats of Cuban refugees on the high seas, hijacking planes, blowing up a U.S. ship, and even orchestrating violent terrorism in U.S. cities.

[wildbilln864]

27. here's that story, different though...

[Nihil]

28. Only one significant difference between those two operations ...

One operation only made it as far as the planning stage.
The other went all the way through to delivery & fruition.

The result was summed up in the slogan "Mission Accomplished!" but most
people were completely distracted over what the accomplished "mission"
actually was.

[Blue_Tires]

22. I'm not holding my breath that Congress will want to do anything about this...

[Amonester]

23. Haha!! They're busy passing blank checks for their geneRous 0.0001% CEOs...

Bidness as usual. Like it's been for more than a couple Centuries.

Only increasing in the amounts of zeros following the non-zeros b4 them since the beginning.

[alp227]

25. The Guardian: Obama pressured over drone policy amid reports US citizen targeted

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/10/obama-pressure-disclose-drone-details-citizen-targeted

The Obama administration came under renewed pressure to disclose the legal grounds for its drone programme on Monday, amid reports that another US citizen accused of plotting attacks against Americans for al-Qaida overseas is to be assassinated.

Legal experts and civil liberties campaigners urged the White House to explain the basis for a potential strike against the suspect, alleged to be an active “facilitator” for the terrorist network and already responsible for deadly attacks on Americans.

Senior US officials were reported by the Associated Press to be weighing the benefits of killing the man against the likelihood of international condemnation and domestic criticism for targeting an American who has not been not charged with a crime. The Washington Post said it had confirmed the story.

Hina Shamsi, the director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s (ACLU) National Security Project, said the Obama administration “continues to fight against even basic transparency” about how it justifies the executions of thousands of people under the programme.

[wildbilln864]

32. and a kick! n/t