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Comment by samstave | Hacker News Reader

Call me a skeptic, but I see a loophole in that answer:

"...not engaged in combat..."

Define Combat.

Would Christopher Dorner's circumstance been classified as "engaged in combat"?

I would suspect that, yes it would be. Thus Eric Holder's position would be that a weaponized drone strike against him would be authorized.

However, in congruence with his earlier statement, the Dorner case could be considered "extreme" - as such, we need a much more clear definition of both 'extreme' and of 'combat'.

Could anyone opposing any LEO/Fed/gov agent be considered to be "in combat"?

What if they (the civilian) are being shot at, have no weapons but are being attacked by an LEO (Like the ladies and gentleman in the two trucks that were shot at by LAPD)?

So, while the terse nature of this response is slightly amusing - it's also scary.

EDIT: heh - you noticed the same thing I did whilst I was typing this...

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The Administration cannot deploy military resources against Christopher Dorner because he is not a person, nation, or organization involved in the attacks on 9/11.

Once again: we are at war with al Qaeda brand terrorists and personal hygiene products. It is no doubt our stupidest war ever, but it is an actual war, unlike the war on drugs, and the authorization the Administration has to drone strike people comes from that war and nowhere else.

The road is being paved. What is to stop local law enforcement units from having weaponized drones within 5 years?

Honestly, what I beleive will happen is FLIR enabled drones assisting in all LEO efforts.

Take a look at my friends video he took this weekend.

This is a tri-copter with FPV goggles he uses to fly it. He built one that can hold several pounds and has a gymbal for holding a full size camera.

http://vimeo.com/61156472

Here is the setup:

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1718160&...

Weaponizing is the easy part - paving the multi-year path until its "authorized" is the tricky part which they are currently attempting.

The road you're talking about is technology. The road Rand Paul is talking about is endless power grabs from the legislative branch by the executive branch.

The road you're talking about is real; the road Paul is talking about is fanciful. The Senate voted to give Bush and his successors this authority 98-0.

Incidentally: as long as we're careful about ensuring that technology doesn't allow LEOs to gin up probable cause or introduce evidence that should be excluded, I'm not sure why I should on general principles oppose adoption of technology by LEOs.

The issue is that while it is subtle, the constant adoption of greater and greater technical capability by the LEOs is that its a slow, but constant stepping path toward enabling tyranny.

The reason being that 1) a extremely technically enabled LEO system is one that is completely abstracted from the reality of its citizenry. 2) it creates an institutionalized dependence and sense of superiority on and due to said technological capabilities. 3) create a propoensity to rely on the technology more-so than the human instincts and filters, thus, we see much more of a "system" which will victimize people more regularly. Any and all murders by police will continue to be classified as "unfortunate" yet nothing will be done.

Police are already far too poorly trained to deal with anything remotely stressful without shooting first.

I am fully opposed to any and all pushing of technology onto an already overly trigger happy, callous system in lieu of more, actual training.

This is a very good reason not to give the police armed drones, or, for that matter, new arms of any sort. I'm right with you there. The militarization of police forces is a real problem.

It is not a very good reason not to give the police better surveillance technology.

Crime victimizes more people than police forces in the US do. I'm not saying that means LEOs don't victimize people; they do. I'm not saying that means we should turn a blind eye to police abuse; we should not. But when we do risk/reward calculations, we need to keep in mind that the greater ambient threat is of crime, not police abuse. Sometimes, the police will ask for things that tip the scale the other direction. But we have to make a case for how; we can't just assume it.

Keep in mind: I'm one of the people laughing and cheering at the guy in the video saying "no thanks, no, I won't be pulling into secondary screening" at the CBP checkpoints; I've given to the ACLU. Surveillance is scary. It's just not intrinsically bad; it's bad in a context-dependent way.

Weaponizing is the easy part - paving the multi-year path until its "authorized" is the tricky part which they are currently attempting.

I don't think that's true. Can you document such attempts, by which I mean back your argument up with citations instead of hand-waving and anecdote?

The whole current debate about using drones on US soil, for recon or tactical means is the most relevant citation.

The fact that DHS just bought 2,700 MRAPS for domestic use is another.

We are actively militarizing the police forces in the US by giving them tactics, training, equipment weapons and capabilities of a veteran national military.

The fact that Holder and Paul are even having this discussion, with loosely defined terms such as "engaged in combat", I believe is the first few steps down this quickly steepening path.

Lets hope that I am wrong.

The militarization of US law enforcement is on orthogonal issue to the one Holder and Paul are debating.

DHS bought 2700 APCs because some company sold them. It's a travesty to be sure, and it will have knock-on effects of generating more "tactical teams" and thus more pointlessly aggressive raids, but it is not evidence of intent to put US law enforcement on a more martial footing. It's really more evidence of fiscal corruption than anything else.

I can't seem to reply to tptacek or anigrbrowl any deeper than this, so:

I am perfectly open to the possibility that I am overly paranoid on this matter, and I HOPE that you both are correct that this is less insidious than what I believe it to be, however, given the history of the US government since I have been alive, I will never drop my skepticism of the US' propensity for consolidation of power and profit.

In the early 70s a small group of people took over the CIA and advisory roles to the white house. Those folks, were all lead by GHW Bush. Their career paths, choices and actions over the last 40 years have been horrific.

If you look at the history of Dick Cheney alone, you can see that there is a proven track record for their optimizing for their own benefit.

I use 40 years of data-points from history I have followed very very closely to show me that this current early stage debate over domestic drone use is definitely NOT as innocent and unimportant as some would have you believe.

So, while I pray that I am wrong, I'll let the facts show for themselves in 5 years as to how well adopted drones ahve become - and if we will see weaponized drones in the hands of LEO, or any authorized use on US soil.

I really appreciate your perspectives on this.

(If anyone would like me to give the highlights of the last 40 years, I'd be happy to provide a little bit of a timeline)

And me yours; always happy to bat this stuff around with someone who won't call me a statist thug. :)

I have similar suspicions but have no real data to back them up. I'd love to see your timeline and any hard data.

So, having a debate on the limitations of government power means a creeping expansion of government power to you? I don't buy it.

Please do not link to the Wikipedia article on the Overton Window. The war on terror is a legislative fact and has been for ~12 years. If you're going to assert an expansion of the legal authority for weaponized drones beyond military theaters, then I need to see something from a third party, and by something I mean a link to a bill or advocacy of such expansion, not more hand-waving.

How would you have defined the enemy in that war?

Membership in al Qaeda or the Taliban.

"Thus Eric Holder's position would be that a weaponized drone strike against him would be authorized."

Considering police likely intentionally burned Dorner alive [1], a drone strike doesn't seem like that big of a stretch.

[1] http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/02/13/the-execution-of-chri...

What do you think of this article?

Christopher Dorner shot and killed an unarmed 28 year old woman, along with her unarmed fiancee. The woman was the daughter of an LAPD official.

Dorner was killed in that woodland cottage after he shot and killed a San Bernardino County sheriff's officer.

This is typical of responses I got when I posted about it before, and it misses the point.

* I'm not defending Dorner. The police have a right to kill someone who's actively trying to kill them. But what level of force is acceptable? Obviously guns are ok. Maybe setting fires is ok too? What about drone strikes?

* If it's acceptable, why would police deny it was intentional, and under what other circumstances would it be acceptable? Is it ok because he killed a cop?

* How certain were they no one else was in the building? As we saw earlier that week when they shot up two cars that resembled Dorner's they weren't exactly being careful to avoid collateral damage.

Although, there is a ton of missing context in your post. The way you posted it sterilizes the story.

* Dorner took a revenge killing on the daughter of the retired police-officer-turned-attorney who he felt was a plant in the hearing he had.

* The police were recorded conspiring to burn down the cabin in a pre-meditated attack against Dorner.

Both were outright murders. Both were wrong, however one presentation sways blame away from the "officials".

The cops who were recorded as saying "Burn it like we talked about" "Burner deployed, we have a fire" and "Copy; burner deployed, we have a fire" should all be tried for murder.

Do you care why Dorner deliberately targeted and shot to death an innocent unarmed woman and her fiance in a car? If so, I respectfully submit that you should spend a little less time on the Internet. Dorner was a monster.

The reason I brought this up was the Counterpunch article, which really does go out of its way to try to make Dorner more sympathetic.

First, why is of paramount importance. So, yes I do care why.

I never defended his murder of those two people. I am not saying he is not a monster.

What I am saying is that too many people, and it would seem yourself included, use that as justification for the state to murder people.

Do you care why the LAPD shot up the two newspaper delivery ladies? What about the ramming and injuring of hte white surfer guy?

DO you care why the LAPD was able to justify warrantless entry to ~400 homes in their manhunt?

What we are seeing is that the LEOs and the Fed would like to leave the structure of our system at the door whenever they have a threat to their power.

Context is critically important. Having both truthful facts and full context does not threaten the reality of the situation.

Obfuscating either, however, has far too much potential for abuse.

In this case, the LAPD pulled out all the stops in going after someone who pulled out all his own stops in his effort to fight against what he perceived as an insurmountable injustice against him.

I am not defending his actions - I am pointing out what the facts of the situation were.

I am not sympathetic to Dorner, nor am I sympathetic to the LAPD.

I am sympathetic to the fact that there were multiple people murdered, this is inclusive of Dorner himself. (because allowing the LAPD/Sheriff to murder people because they are 1) embarrassed 2) angry 3) scared 4) incompetent 5) arrogant with their power, is never OK.)

No, I don't think the killing of Dorner is comparable to his murder of Monica Quan. Quan was targeted, stalked, and deliberately killed while unarmed. The officers surrounding Dorner were in a confrontation with an armed suspect who had pledged to trade his life for the opportunity to kill police officers and who had just that day outside that exact cottage killed another police officer. He was not an inert submissive object inside the building; he was trying to kill them with more diligence and intent than they him.

I am not comparing the two. Both are murders. Burning down a house and being recorded on tape as having "talked about" it (i.e. planned it) is not ok.

I was not saying he was inert or submissive - but sorry LEOs are supposedly trained to take on all situations. They are extremely well armed and equipped.

Burning down random property to get their guy is not an OK tactic.

Agreed -- I think while you were writing that response I'd updated my answer because I feel the same way. definitions are key here, and while I'm encouraged by his sentiment, I'm discouraged by the lack of definition.

Additionally, what about US citizens that aren't on US soil (like me, or 16 year old Abdulrahman al-Awlaki)?

Don't we deserve the right to trial?

In-theater military targets have never had a right to trial. When airstrikes are used to kill al Qaeda members, the Administration is not exercising its criminal justice authority.

"In-theater military target" is a lazy set of adjectives and nouns for addressing this situation.

The "theater" in the Global War on Terror is the entire globe. The United States is not at war with Yemen.

Abdulrahman was not even alleged to have engaged in "military" conduct, merely being a propagandist.

He was not a "target", he was collateral damage of a strike on someone else.

This is not a heated battlefield death. The nature of war is shifting and using aggressive global militarism as an excuse to handwave around the denied due process of a 16 year old US citizen is disturbing.

The entire globe is not on the Department of State's travel advisory list. Different countries are on it for different reasons, but it shouldn't take an international relations expert to figure out that traveling to certain parts of the Middle East or Africa puts you at risk, not only due to native conflict but also due to U.S.-launched drone strikes, if you happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, or associating with the wrong people.

Is there any place the U.S. is conducting drone strikes that's not on the list?

http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/tw/tw_1764.html

Abdulrahman wasn't targeted. He was traveling with someone who was very much targeted: his father, who pulled his son out of safety in the US to live in a war zone under the threat of airstrikes.

His father was killed several days prior. Yemen is not a war zone; the US is not at war with Yemen. Sins of the father do not pass to the son.

You're right; it was Ibrahim al-Banna that was targeted.

> When airstrikes are used to kill al Qaeda members

Who decides who's an al Qaeda member and who isn't?

Is "s/he's a member of al Qaeda" the magic words the admin has to say to not have to provide someone with due process?

Who decided who was fighting for the Nazis and who wasn't? The Allies engaged and killed US citizens fighting for Germany during WW2.

There is no due process that protects you at war. This is why we don't want to be at war, and why we especially don't want to be at war with a brand name.

16 year old Abdulrahman Al-Awlaki was killed because he happened to be in the company of Ibrahim al-Banna, who was the actual target of the drone strike. Even the best cameras cannot currently tell the age and citizenship of every person in the vicinity of the target. The US views him as an innocent casualty. I find it strange that nobody bothers to condemn his father for bringing him out of the US to live in a community run by Al Qaeda, which seems pretty irresponsible to me.

I think I would be more inclined to condemn the drone program that almost always comes with collateral damage. The fact that we can't positively identify those who we are attacking should be reason enough to be critical.

You think this because drones are new and alien. But airstrikes are not new. Airstrikes in World War 2 killed more innocent people than any drone will ever kill. Tokyo was made of paper and we firebombed it.

Drone combat is surgical compared with practically every other way in which we've fought wars. Drone operators are in no personal danger and don't need to act while under the cortisol and epinephrine loads of bullets whizzing by their heads. Drone operators are well-rested (in-theater combat troops are never well-rested). They're more mature than combat infantry. Drone resources are comparatively inexpensive and so missions don't have to be crafted that sacrifice risk of civilian casualties to minimize risks of military casualties.

I agree for the most part, but one of the objections to drone strikes is the vague nature of target selection. The U.S. doesn't want to say flat-out that Yemen, for instance, is a hostile country and a warzone; yet it still wants the ability to kill whoever it wants in that country, for reasons that will never be transparent due to sensitive sources and methods.

Your problem is with AUMF then. not with drones as such. We could have undertaken identical actions with a fighter jet or a sniper under the legislation, it's just easier with a drone.

Drone strikes come with a lot less collateral damage than traditional airstrikes, and less again than carpet bombing. My in-laws are from North Vietnam and I've heard some fairly horrific stories about what the latter is like. Realistically, if you're traveling around or having dinner with someone who's a military target, such as an Al Qaeda commander, then your life is also in danger.

Could anyone opposing any LEO/Fed/gov agent be considered to be "in combat"?

No. Even being a 'terrorist' does not count; under the terms of the AUMF you would have to be specifically affiliated with Al Qaeda in some fashion to be considered a military target.

Well, technically, any organization the Administration could claim was involved in Al Qaeda. The Taliban, for instance, is probably fair game under the AUMF.

Absolutely, that's why I used 'affiliated'. To be honest I am just tired of pasting the relevant paragraph from the aUMF over and over again because some people seem incapable of reading it :-/

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