The Drone Papers • Hacker News Board

Re: The Drone Papers

#41

Post by rayiner » Thu, Oct 15, 2015, 4:46 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #30

rayiner wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Voting, by design, won't change something the majority of people want to keep happening: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/poll-support-drone-str... ("Fifty-eight percent of respondents expressed approval of U.S. drone strikes, while only 35 percent disapproved. This included nearly three-fourths of Republicans, slightly more than half of Democrats and 56 percent of independents."). "Insiders" and "corporate jugg…

Most of whom don't know anything or don't have time to care. The aggregate will of majority is bullshit - the votes are not boolean, but have a third, undefined state, which happens also to be default. This also means that if you make people care, turn the issue into a hot topic that people start tying to their identities, they'll eagerly vote your way.

What information do you think is missing? If you look at the poll, half of Americans are "very concerned" about civilian casualties from drone strikes, another 30% are "somewhat" concerned about them. Yet, 60% still support them. That doesn't strike me as ignorance, it strikes me as a broadly-shared value judgment.

Re: The Drone Papers

#42

Post by throwaway7767 » Thu, Oct 15, 2015, 4:47 PM UTC

nkw wrote: post #14

gortok wrote: post #5

There are lots of important points in this set of articles, but a few stand point: - Congress has not defined what "assassination" means; and since they haven't defined it, the Executive Order 12333 is effectively meaningless. https://theintercept.com/drone-papers/the-assassination-comp... - IMEIs are used to track targets. Can IMEIs be spoofed? - Military Aged Males are considered enemy combatants. Effectively that…

>- IMEIs are used to track targets. Can IMEIs be spoofed? Yes. Relatively trivially.

Off-topic, but do you know any phones that can be easily hacked to change the IMEI? I know technically it's possible, and I know the hacks exist because I've seen shady sites offering the service, but I'd like to get a phone where I could rotate the IMEI myself when I change SIMs, so it would not be quite so easy to map the SIM to a person by watching for common IMEIs.

I guess the best bet would be something that runs OsmocomBB, but AFAIK that's not really a good choice for a day-to-day phone.

Re: The Drone Papers

#43

Post by akiselev » Thu, Oct 15, 2015, 4:53 PM UTC

d23 wrote: post #40

I know it's a tangent, but I'm actually blown away by the quality of the website itself. They've managed to use modern techniques like header background video and fading in of navigation elements in a way that is classy and reserved. It doesn't lag up my browser; it doesn't make jarring movements that cause UI elements or content to jump out of line of the eye. The best part? It actually helps add to the point they'r…

I too was pleasantly surprise, especially since it actually works well on mobile Chrome with nice big text that is actually readable. As far as I can tell all of the graphics are responsive and there weren't any annoying ads that bumped the scroll position.

Only concern is that pinch to zoom is disabled but the typography makes up for that for probably >95% of readers.

Re: The Drone Papers

#44

Post by drzaiusapelord » Thu, Oct 15, 2015, 4:53 PM UTC

praptak wrote: post #12

Hm. So what stops US from targeted killings in China? Russia? Europe? Only the probable retaliation?

Those drone strikes are, mostly, done with the authorization and approval of the target country. They don't like their militants either. This issue is a lot more complex than "GUISE GUISE OBAMA KILLIN KIDS FOR FUN." The US cooperates with local intelligence, foreign governments, etc to find and eliminate these targets.

From a practical point of view, the alternative would be boots on the ground fighting that would guarantee vastly more innocents killed.

Re: The Drone Papers

#45

Post by dcre » Thu, Oct 15, 2015, 4:54 PM UTC

d23 wrote: post #40

I know it's a tangent, but I'm actually blown away by the quality of the website itself. They've managed to use modern techniques like header background video and fading in of navigation elements in a way that is classy and reserved. It doesn't lag up my browser; it doesn't make jarring movements that cause UI elements or content to jump out of line of the eye. The best part? It actually helps add to the point they'r…

And 0 trackers that Ghostery has to block. Though I guess it would be pretty ironic if there were any.

Re: The Drone Papers

#46

Post by TeMPOraL » Thu, Oct 15, 2015, 4:57 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #41

TeMPOraL wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of whom don't know anything or don't have time to care. The aggregate will of majority is bullshit - the votes are not boolean, but have a third, undefined state, which happens also to be default. This also means that if you make people care, turn the issue into a hot topic that people start tying to their identities, they'll eagerly vote your way.

What information do you think is missing? If you look at the poll, half of Americans are "very concerned" about civilian casualties from drone strikes, another 30% are "somewhat" concerned about them. Yet, 60% still support them. That doesn't strike me as ignorance, it strikes me as a broadly-shared value judgment.

Well, I know that there are children starving in Africa, and can say this is sad and I am "very concerned", but otherwise it has close to zero emotional impact on me. It's an abstract issue. I actually feel about drone strike victim stronger, because I've seen the pictures, read the stories, seen the math.

The point is, this issue is totally disconnected from the lives of most people. You need to get them invested emotionally. Make a blockbuster movie. Harry Potter and The HellFires of Voldemort. Or something. Invite the Pakistani that lost his arm, leg and half of the family to US drone strike. And then keep pounding at people with the topic.

If we can't get people to care about this more than they care about "slut shaming" or Ferguson or Comcast, we truly have failed as a civilization.

Re: The Drone Papers

#47

Post by mladenkovacevic » Thu, Oct 15, 2015, 5:03 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #41

TeMPOraL wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of whom don't know anything or don't have time to care. The aggregate will of majority is bullshit - the votes are not boolean, but have a third, undefined state, which happens also to be default. This also means that if you make people care, turn the issue into a hot topic that people start tying to their identities, they'll eagerly vote your way.

What information do you think is missing? If you look at the poll, half of Americans are "very concerned" about civilian casualties from drone strikes, another 30% are "somewhat" concerned about them. Yet, 60% still support them. That doesn't strike me as ignorance, it strikes me as a broadly-shared value judgment.

The optimist in me likes to at least entertain the notion that the large scale effort to justify, sanitize and in some cases morbidly celebrate the failing of the long term US foreign policy has some part to play in shaping public opinion.

But if you are absolutely correct that those numbers represent the general values of the American people then can it be argued that once rewarded with enough material gain, an entire population can and will turn positively evil based on most people's moral compass in order to ensure their continued quality of life?

Re: The Drone Papers

#48

Post by bambax » Thu, Oct 15, 2015, 5:06 PM UTC

This phrasing is incorrect:

> [there are x persons] President Obama ha[s] authorized U.S. special operations forces to assassinate

US special ops are the President's weapon. It doesn't make sense to say "yesterday I authorized my gun to kill a man"; what you want to say is "yesterday I killed a man".

President Obama didn't "authorize targeted killings" or whatever you want to call those.

He (and Bush before him) assassinated people, assassinates them without trial or due process, while smiling and holding babies and making jokes at the White House correspondents dinner, and complaining about the gun culture and mass killings.

The same day of the Umpqua College shooting (10 dead), US drones in Afghanistan targeted a hospital and killed 22 people (12 staff, 10 patients including 3 children).

If Obama really wants Americans to get rid of their guns, maybe he should start with his own.

But of course he won't, so forgive me for not listening to whatever he has to say.

Re: The Drone Papers

#49

Post by poof131 » Thu, Oct 15, 2015, 5:11 PM UTC

gortok wrote: post #36

rhino369 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Military Aged Males are considered enemy combatants. Effectively that means all males ages 18-49 are considered enemy combatants. Since you're guilty by association, your age makes you a target. You are conflating what the US considers enemies before targeting and after a strike. The US doesn't just bomb any random male 18-49. But when the US does target what it thinks is a legitimate target, it counts any unknown m…

> It makes you a tragic accident. "We're not going to apologize for this, because you hung out with someone who was on our list, who we think was in this area, and so clearly you deserved being bombed by a drone. What? You borrowed your friend's phone? Oh well. Jackpot." > And it's not like the Taliban aren't a real threat to Afghanistan. They just took over the 5th largest city in Afghanistan two weeks ago. Why are…

> One thing that sending in ground troops would do is hopefully reignite the debate as to whether we should be in that country at all.

Agree, but you're only part way. We really need to bring back the draft. On the ground in Iraq in 2008, watching ‘drone’ feeds of SF soldiers on missions on one screen and the stock market crashing on the other screen, all I could think about was “Don’t people care? There are soldiers risking their lives in foreign countries, doing things in America’s name, and all the TV talks about is houses and stock prices.” The number of contractors in country was probably 3 to 1 or more compared to military - Kenyans providing internal security, Filipinos working in the commissary, Pakistanis working in the chow hall, and Americans driving F-350s all over doing maintenance or whatever. The SF guys hated their contractor counterparts who took none of the risk they did and made a $1,000 a day just to provide a little training for the Iraqis. Being a pilot on a ground job, I hated the contract pilots making $20k a month for a job I easily could have done.

Until we’re all in it together, we won’t see change. As long as Americans can get upset, then turn off the TV and forget about it, nothing will happen, the military and civilian worlds will continue to drift apart. And a private, separate military is not good for this country.

Re: The Drone Papers

#50

Post by ctdonath » Thu, Oct 15, 2015, 5:16 PM UTC

rhino369 wrote: post #26

gortok wrote: post #5

There are lots of important points in this set of articles, but a few stand point: - Congress has not defined what "assassination" means; and since they haven't defined it, the Executive Order 12333 is effectively meaningless. https://theintercept.com/drone-papers/the-assassination-comp... - IMEIs are used to track targets. Can IMEIs be spoofed? - Military Aged Males are considered enemy combatants. Effectively that…

>Military Aged Males are considered enemy combatants. Effectively that means all males ages 18-49 are considered enemy combatants. Since you're guilty by association, your age makes you a target. You are conflating what the US considers enemies before targeting and after a strike. The US doesn't just bomb any random male 18-49. But when the US does target what it thinks is a legitimate target, it counts any unknown m…

May want to review that stance in light of the fact that, like most countries, all male American citizens age 17-45 are legally part of the US Militia (and, until creation of the National Guard, were expected to be suitably armed & trained). When one country is at serious war with another, targets may not just be active combatants, but anyone officially positioned to become one. There are relevant & valid axioms, held to by warring parties, which do not differentiate between "combatants" and "non-combatants". In an existential crisis, fine distinctions are often discarded. Ugly memes, yes.