CIA seeks to expand drone fleet

The CIA is urging the White House to approve a significant expansion of the agency’s fleet of armed drones, a move that would extend the spy service’s decade-long transformation into a paramilitary force, U.S. officials said.

The proposal by CIA Director David H. Petraeus would bolster the agency’s ability to sustain its campaigns of lethal strikes in Pakistan and Yemen and enable it, if directed, to shift aircraft to emerging al-Qaeda threats in North Africa or other trouble spots, officials said.

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If approved, the CIA could add as many as 10 drones, the officials said, to an inventory that has ranged between 30 and 35 over the past few years.

Read more: Washington Post

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Drone strikes threaten 50 years of international law

The US policy of using aerial drones to carry out targeted killings presents a major challenge to the system of international law that has endured since the second world war, a United Nations investigator has said.

US Drone attack and largely innocent victims in Pakistan

Christof Heyns, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, summary or arbitrary executions, told a conference in Geneva that President Obama's attacks in Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere, carried out by the CIA, would encourage other states to flout long-established human rights standards.

In his strongest critique so far of drone strikes, Heyns suggested some may even constitute "war crimes". His comments come amid rising international unease over the surge in killings by remotely piloted unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

Read More (The Guardian)

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US advances in drone development

[ via BBC Technology ] 29 Dec

Private companies are developing smaller, more sophisticated unmanned military drones to be used for air strikes or reconnaissance missions.

The technology is big business in the US and California has become a hub for designing and building the devices.

And as Alastair Leithead reports, they could soon be used in the US as well as abroad.

Watch video at: BBC Technology 

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Overstretched drone pilots face stress risk

[ via Yahoo News ] 18 Dec

Flying drone aircraft over Afghanistan from the comfort of a military base in the United States is much more stressful than it might seem, even for pilots spared the sacrifice of overseas deployment and separation from family and friends.

US drone Predator firing Hellfire missile, leaving the operator in distress

America's insatiable demand for drone technology is taking a heavy toll on Air Force crews, with just under a third of active duty pilots of drones like the Predator reporting symptoms of burnout and 17 percent showing signs of "clinical distress."

That's when stress starts undermining their performance at work and their family lives.

Read more... 

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Putin points to U.S. role in Gadhafi's killing

[ via CNN ] 15 Dec

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin accused U.S. drones and special forces of involvement in the death of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi in comments Thursday.

Responding to a question about McCain purportedly predicting Putin would meet the same fate as Libya's leader, the Russian prime minister described the televised images of Gadhafi's final moments as "horrible, disgusting scenes" and pointed to U.S. involvement in his death.

It may be added that U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta acknowledged the day after Gadhafi's death that "it was a U.S. drone combined with the other NATO planes that fired on the convoy" in which the Libyan leader was traveling outside the city of Sirte. But the Pentagon has denied that any U.S. forces were on the ground in a combat role in Libya.

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Scotland Yard to use drones during Olympics 2012 for Surveillance

Full Story: The independent 25 Nov

Unmanned drones equipped with surveillance cameras will be flown across the skies of London during next year's Olympic Games, reports The Independent. And that Scotland Yard ready to use radio controlled 'eyes in the sky' to boost surveillance.

Next year's Olympics will be the largest security operation the Met has ever had to run, as tens of thousands of athletes and millions of spectators flock to the games in Stratford.

Read full story for more details

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