Hugh Gusterson at Five Books on Drones

I've left this blog in the shade for quite awhile. There's really no reason for it, as the role of drones in our world hasn't diminished. But I am inspired to post here again thanks to an email from a great website called Five Books, which periodically asks some author or teacher about a subject they have special knowledge on. Today's featured guest was Hugh Gusterson a professor of anthropology and an expert on nuclear security. His interest in drones developed out of that background. He discusses five books on the subject with interviewer Alec Ash HERE.

Another local use for drones

A local blogger here in Santa Cruz and former County Supervisor here as put up a blog post that has finally galvanized me to make another entry here. It's entitled Drones Against the Homeless about a local effort to buy a drone to find illegal camping spots here. Homelessness is a big and divisive issue in Santa Cruz.

To paraphrase the famous Martin Niemöller speech: First they sent drones against the homeless, and I did not speak out...
 

Close Encounters of the First Kind

I've been putting an infrequent post or two about drones for a couple of years now, but last Monday was the first time I actually had an up close and personal encounter with one. A friend and I were walking along the lovely West Cliff Drive here in Santa Cruz and had stopped to sit down on a bench, when one came hovering by. I don't if it was the same guy who shot this video, admittedly quite beautiful, but I think we basically had the same kind of reaction that Rambro had in a recent post here--annoyance. Frankly, they are rackety, and the idea that they're filming you doesn't help anything. Although I'm not actually a violent person, there is kind of a visceral reaction that makes you want to pick up a rock and see if you can knock it out of the sky.


Obviously, I didn't. Good thing too, because according to this Slate article, I would not have been within my rights.

When 3-D printing and drones come together

Come on, you knew it had to happen. Advances in both 3-D and drone technology have now collided, or so says this interesting piece at Wired Magazine's Danger Room. Jordan Golson who wrote the piece says:


"The design can be modified—and reprinted—easily, to be bigger or smaller, carry a sensor or a camera, or fly slower or faster. The plane can be made in 31 hours, with materials that cost $800. Electronics (like the tablet-based ground station) push the price to about $2,500. That’s so cheap, it’s effectively disposable, especially since you can make another one anywhere you can put a 3-D printer. If one version is flawed or destroyed, you can just crank out another."


O brave new world.

NYT piece on drones and democracy

Very interesting piece in the New York Times yesterday entitled Drones and the Democracy Disconnect by Firmin Debrabander. Connects the dots in many ways on our current war policy.


"How do drones affect the nation that endorses them — overtly, or, as is more often the case, tacitly? Are drones compatible with patriotism? With democracy? Honor? Glory? Or do they, as I fear, represent — and exacerbate — a troubling, even obscene disconnect between the American people and the wars waged in our name?"

Sotomayor weighs in on drones and privacy

A short piece at Slate by Lily Hay Newman talks about Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor's concerns about what I guess you'd call our naiveté about drones in the private sphere. It's not just government surveillance we should worry about--it's anybody's surveillance. And some of those anybodies have our best interest at heart a lot less than government does, though I admit that that can be a low threshold. Check it out HERE

Rambro

I found an article at Slate a few days ago about the encounter between a drone and an angry ram. I could put the YouTube up here, but I think I'll just send you to the piece by Lily Hay Newman. It's probably worth noting that the ram in question is owned by the drone operator, and in fact is a 'rescue ram'.

Still, you can kind of see the future, can't you? Kids with time--and drones--on their hands. Innocent hikers out to enjoy the beauty of nature when suddenly they hear an annoying whirring sound over their heads. If that scenario plays out, just remember that you don't have to be a ram to take action...I predict a new vogue for sling shots.

homes, farms, runways, highways, waterways

Slate has a piece up on how more than 400 drones "costing millions of dollars each"  have crashed since 2001. My title comes from the kinds of places Slate says they have crashed into. Read all about it HERE

Drone wars at Tom Dispatch

Here's a piece that just went up on Tom Dispatch by Pratap Chatterjee called "The True Costs of Remote Control War". It follows a few paragraphs by Nick Turse on the NSA. The article focuses in particular on the long term effect of being a remote control drone pilot. 

PTSD, Drone style

I've been a bit remiss about posting here lately, though it's not for want of material. However, I just read this short piece by Vivian Salama at The Investigative Fund,  which succinctly captures the reasons for my own animus towards this form of warfare. The situation in Yemen sounds like a form of psychological torture for many innocent civilians.

Medea Benjamin on "The Dangerous Seduction of Drones"

Check out Medea Benjamin's article on the slow creep of drone warfare over at Nation of Change

Metadata and you--or maybe someone else

This  piece on Chris Hayes' All In featuring an interview with Jeremy Scahill was the scariest piece on the intersection of drone warfare and metadata that I've seen yet.

Drone warfare--a drabble

Just saw this one over on Rob Kitchin's blog, which I usually read for his thoughtful reviews on crime fiction, rather than his fiction about drone warfare. A drabble is a story of exactly one hundred words. With no further ado, This Isn't a Video Game.

Double Feature

Mother Jones gives us a two for one today. First, we have a Mark Fiore animation about armies of consumer drones that will flock through the sky and more!

And then you can read about zombie drones that will take those armies out...

Gary Patton on the logical consequence of drone warfare

There have been plenty of interesting articles about drones lately, but I haven't had time to comment here. In the meantime, here's a good piece about drones with links to other articles, over on Gary Patton's Two Worlds blog. It's a blog you'll be happy to know about anyway, I think.

The Drone Strike Transparency Bill--a petition

The Just Foreign Policy website has a petition up asking the President and Congress to pass a bill that has already passed through the Senate Intelligence Committee, which would require the Administration to publicly report on civilian deaths from drone strikes.

You can find it HERE.

The "Mult-modal vehicle" has come a long way from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

This just in from Danger Room "The future of military drones isn’t surveillance and dropping bombs. It’s transformation: a single unmanned vehicle that can fly, swim, drive, and even hop like a frog across a variety of terrains and obstacles." The YouTube from Sandia Labs is not to be missed,although it may well freak you out.

Unmanned: America's Drone Wars--a new film from Robert Greenwald

A new film about the human costs of drone warfare hopes to reach the hearts and minds of all of us average Americans. Read the article by George Zornick at The Nation. You will also find a link there that takes you to the Brave New Films website where, for a limited time, you will be able to live stream the film for free, starting on October 30.

There are definitely pluses and minuses to our brave new technological world. The opportunity to watch this film is definitely on the plus side.

Yeah, this isn't good...

According to Danger Room, both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have come out with damning reports on recent drone activity in Pakistan and Yemen, suggesting that some drone strikes may be war crimes.. I had received an email myself from Amnesty about the sad case of the 68 year old grandmother who was blown to pieces while working in the fields in Waziristan, all within sight of her grandchildren. Sorry to be so graphic, but sometimes, needs must.   

"Robotic flying bull's-eye"

The U.S. Air Force has found another use for aging jet fighters, reports Danger Room. Instead of sending them to the Air Force "Boneyard" in Arizona, they are being re-outfitted as one-manned drones, to be used for military target practice. Six F-16's have already been transmuted into QF-16s. I don't know what the Q stands for...