Peace and War

Drones Are a Local Issue

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No city is an island, Entire of itself. Each is a piece of the continent, A part of the main.

I write from Charlottesville, Va., but am hopeful that this message applies to your city, town, or county as well.

In the absence of state or federal laws, localities around the United States are proceeding to put unmanned aerial vehicles in our skies as they see fit.  The federal government has authorized the flight of 30,000 drones, and the use of drones up to 400 feet by police departments, at least read more

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New CRS Reports on Drones

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The Congressional Research Service has released two new reports on drones.  The first is called

Integration of Drones into Domestic Airspace: Selected Legal Issues

Some highlights:

Under the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012, P.L. 112-95, Congress has tasked the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) with integrating unmanned aircraft systems (UASs), sometimes referred to as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or drones, into the national airspace system by September 2015. Although the text read more

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Talk Nation Radio: Marcy Wheeler: Brennan Is Obama's Cheney

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Marcy Wheeler blogs as Emptywheel at Emptywheel.net. She says John Brennan, the nominee for CIA director, has been Obama’s Dick Cheney, operating outside the law, lying about bin Laden, and lying about drones; the White House has killed an American for his speech; the CIA has stopped lying to Congress only by starting to tell Congress nothing read more

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A Blowback Hurricane

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Most violence we face we’ve provoked.  Those confronting us with violence are exactly as wrong as if we hadn’t provoked them.  But we are not as innocent as we like to imagine.

This seems like a simple concept awaiting only factual substantiation, but in fact it is dramatically at odds with most people’s ridiculously ill-conceived notion of how blame works.  According to this common notion, blame is like a lump of clay.  Whoever holds it is to blame.  read more

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A New Model Drone Resolution

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In the absence of state or federal laws, localities around the United States are proceeding to put unmanned aerial vehicles in our skies as they see fit.  The federal government has authorized the flight of 30,000 drones, and the use of drones up to 400 feet by police departments, at least 300 of which already have surveillance drones in operation.

Concerns include the following: drones can crash into airplanes, buildings, and each other; drones can fall out of the sky; drones can produce read more

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Talk Nation Radio: Reese Erlich on Bahrain and Syria

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Bahrain and Syria: in one the United States supports a brutal dictatorship against a nonviolent movement for human rights.  In the other the United States supports violent opposition to the government in the name of human rights.  All is not as it appears.  We speak with Reese Erlich.

Reese Erlich’s history in journalism goes back 45 years. He first worked as a staff writer and research editor for Ramparts, an investigative reporting magazine published in San Francisco read more

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Cville v. Drones

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UPDATE: Moved from 19th to 4th of February.

Charlottesville Va City Council has chosen to place on its agenda for the February 19th meeting a resolution opposing, restricting, or banning drones. (This date has been confirmed; it is the 19th.)

Sign up if you plan to be there.

The Virginia General Assembly has already been considering legislation on drones. It’s important for Virginia localities to make their voices heard.

The federal government has authorized the flight of 30,000 drones in U.S. read more

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