Posted on 02/07/2013 6:33:34 PM PST by Olog-hai
CIA Director-designate John Brennan strongly defended anti-terror attacks by unmanned drones Thursday under close questioning at a protest-disrupted confirmation hearing. On a second controversial topic, he said that after years of reading classified intelligence reports he still does not know if waterboarding has yielded useful information.
Despite what he called a public misimpression, Brennan told the Senate Intelligence Committee that drone strikes are used only against targets planning to carry out attacks against the United States, never as retribution for an earlier one. Nothing could be further from the truth, he declared.
Referring to one American citizen killed by a drone in Yemen in 2011, he said the man, Anwar al-Alawki, had ties to at least three attacks planned or carried out on U.S. soil. They included the Fort Hood, Texas, shooting that claimed 13 lives in 2009, a failed attempt to down a Detroit-bound airliner the same year and a thwarted plot to bomb cargo planes in 2010.
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What is the current state of anti-drone technology? Just curious, that’s all.
In the dictionary under the word “controversy” it says see the Obama administration.
He says water boarding is reprehensible and never should be done again, but death lists and drone strikes are just fine.
Bizzarro world.
Ft. Hood? I thought that was workplace violence.
Brennan is a crypto Muzzie. Heck, forget the crypto. (He may actually be a convert, or if he isn’t, he sure sounds like one.)
George Orwell would recognize this corrupt, lying Administration.
Secure communications using a constellation of satellites, frequency-hopping and encryption is not necessarily easily overcome, even by a knowledgeable ham operator.
These aren’t line-of-sight drones. They can be flying in the middle east, under control in-theater perhaps, but some have systems of control that can range all the way back to a trailer at Nellis or etc.
The video feeds were not well-encrypted, but with recent events I suspect all of this IS being retro-fitted with better systems.
For now but probably not for long. They are working on autonomous drones. Who know? They probably already have them.
Remember our troops have to follow rules of engagement even at the risk of their own lives. If not they can be tried and sent to prison for life while making a life or death decision. But their Commander in Chief can kill anyone he wants without rules of engagement. How soon before American citizens within our borders are targeted by drones?
Doesn’t matter. If they’re moving though the sky, they can be tracked. Where they take off and land will be targeted. Don’t forget about all of the engineers and technicians who came up with these things. Some of those people take a dim view to the nefarious purposes that these drones are employed to do.
Geez, you make me miss my days in amateur radio!
Of course, that was when you got on the air with vacuum tubes & WWII surplus, & slow scan TV was one frame every six seconds. Scanning eBay for old Hammarlund, Collins, & Hallicrafters stuff is a trip down memory lane.
All I’ll say about droning Americans is that Al-Alwaki was no “American” but a West-hating jihadi with a US passport. Which doesn’t mitigate that this regime is basically at war with anyone who objects to its agenda.
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