Drones: an ethics and privacy minefield

The present military use of drones and the coming of civilian uses presents numerous ethical, legal and practical problems.

Guardian, 22. of January:


"The most pressing of the ethical and legal concerns surrounding drones lie in their use by the CIA for targeted killings in countries with which the US is not at war, such as Pakistan and Yemen. This practice, the subject of extensive reporting by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism last year , has led the UN Special Rapporteur on Extra Judicial Killing to foretell "a global war without borders, in which no one is safe". The American Civil Liberties Union, the US Centre for Constitutional Rights and Reprieve have all made attempts, some of which are ongoing, to legally challenge the CIA over this activity."

"the use of drones in the military arena for surveillance and targeting has risen at a startling pace, and in 2012 we will see drones appearing closer to home. It is widely anticipated that they will be used as a security measure during the London Olympics, and pressure is mounting on the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) to re-examine regulations governing UAVs in order to open up what military companies believe will be a valuable civilian market."

"Philosophers and lawyers, encouraged and occasionally funded by the military-industrial complex, are swarming around the issue. The questions raised are manifold. Do drones lower the threshold of war, encouraging those who deploy them to be more bellicose? Can they or their operators sufficiently discriminate combatants from civilians in order to comply with international law? Are they proportionate, or so horrifically cruel as to qualify, along with anti-personnel landmines and cluster bombs, for prohibition? Does their cybernetic nature make them a biological weapon? What effect does their deployment have on the "hearts and minds" of civilians, or the morale of soldiers? Should we worry that Iran appears to have assumed control of a US drone, having kidnapped it out of the sky? And who is to blame when drones go wrong? The question of responsibility becomes even more central as scholars consider the implications of a future featuring autonomous drones."

"Semi-autonomous weapons systems are already deployed in some contexts – such as in the demilitarised zone between South and North Korea – and the UK and US are both currently investing in the development of autonomous drones. In 1977 Michael Walzer wrote "If there are recognisable war crimes, there must be recognisable criminals", an argument that Australian bioethicist Robert Sparrow, co-founder of the International Committee for Robot Arms Control, suggests presents the ethics of autonomous killer robots with an unsolvable problem."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...rivacy-america

We were just discussing the use of drones in civilian life, say for spying on your neighbors, or for paparazzi photos of celebrities and came up with the answer that we ought to be allowed to shoot any drones caught over private property. Kind of like you can shoot a dog that's worrying your sheep.

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Originally Posted by thir

The present military use of drones and the coming of civilian uses presents numerous ethical, legal and practical problems.

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It’s not exactly new age tech is though, because it’s as old as the fourth or fifth James Bond film. I am surprised that it has taken all this time to realise the potential of drones. The Americans and British have opened a can of worms with all this espionage shit over in Afghanistan. The loss of one in Iran is really of no importance, because I would think that any country with the brains to make nuclear energy will have the brains to make a remote controlled aircraft.

I was surprised to see the size of the modal remote controlled aircrafts in the local shop the other day. You have robbed me of my thoughts, thir. I was looking at a helicopter the other day in the shop and it was the size of coffee table.

I don’t think we need to worry too much about The CIA or MI5 for that matter. I think there is more chance that terrorists will get to realise their potential against the soldiers on front lines. They could be in and out with a nerve gas at night before the poor guard knew what was taking place. What a better way to plant a bomb in a big city, no one would take a blind bit of notice of a toy aircraft. The point is that a drone or modal aircraft does not have to be big to invade privacy or cause mass destruction. I just thought I would give you a few of my thoughts on the subject. Military drones are just the tip of the iceberg before long you will need a licence to fly a modal aircraft and with licensed wing markings.

Be well IAN 2411

My owner laughed when I showed him this ...he says we have been using drones to do all sorts of sketchy things since the early 90's or before.

It isn't that new ... back as far as 1939, the German Air Ministry had proposals for remote-controlled planes carrying a tonne of payload for 300 miles. The remote control aspect wasn't reliable enough, so it was replaced with a basic autopilot to become the V1 "flying bomb". (Even in WW1, there were projects afoot; in WW2, the US Army alone bought 15,000 drones.)

The significance of the Iran incident is not so much the loss of the drone itself, but that the Iranians were able to capture it, indicating considerable control. Merely jamming the control signal should have been difficult - getting enough influence to land it somewhere is worrying.

IAN: "I think there is more chance that terrorists will get to realise their potential against the soldiers on front lines."

Technically, that use of unmanned aircraft is almost two centuries old now! The Austrians used balloons carrying explosives against Venice, with limited success, in 1849. Against front-line troops, I doubt it would work well - after all, you can use simpler weapons: grenades, mortars, RPGs - but against civilian targets it could be quite effective. Fly a radio controlled plane into a Superbowl crowd, for example: a small enough explosive charge to be carried wouldn't achieve much, nerve gas is hard to find - but a few pounds of simple pepper spray would cause panic and chaos with people thinking it was some sort of deadly chemical. Remember, there were 96 fatalities and 766 injuries in the Hillsborough disaster in England; imagine a crowd of 100,000 trying to flee a terrorist chemical attack.

The TV series NCIS actually featured a slightly less ambitious drone attack by a Hamas terrorist cell, aimed at the crowd awaiting a returning US aircraft carrier, thwarted by the NCIS team physically capturing the control unit for the drone before the attack was carried out.

A purely remote-controlled drone, like current ones, isn't that interesting legally or philosophically: it's still an aircraft operated by a pilot, even if the pilot's at a safe distance thanks to technology. If a US pilot fires a missile at something he shouldn't have, why does it matter whether he was six feet or six timezones from the missile when he fired it? (Or indeed from a submarine weapons officer firing a Tomahawk from 600 miles.) It's different psychologically, of course, because of that safety aspect, but it isn't until you have aircraft able to fire weapons autonomously that culpability becomes an interesting problem.

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Originally Posted by denuseri

My owner laughed when I showed him this ...he says we have been using drones to do all sorts of sketchy things since the early 90's or before.

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Is it a laughing matter?

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Originally Posted by js207

A purely remote-controlled drone, like current ones, isn't that interesting legally or philosophically: it's still an aircraft operated by a pilot, even if the pilot's at a safe distance thanks to technology. If a US pilot fires a missile at something he shouldn't have, why does it matter whether he was six feet or six timezones from the missile when he fired it? (Or indeed from a submarine weapons officer firing a Tomahawk from 600 miles.) It's different psychologically, of course, because of that safety aspect, but it isn't until you have aircraft able to fire weapons autonomously that culpability becomes an interesting problem.

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And as the article makes clear, it's not the drone aspect itself, but the use against legally and ethically questionable targets that has raised concerns.

Militarily and ethically, the missions in places like Yemen would be no different if they were carried out by piloted planes: the important difference is that they probably wouldn't be carried out. Ever since the U2 incident in 1960, the US has been intensely aware of the dangerous position of pilots on hostile missions outside the protections of the laws of war (for what little those may be worth in places like the Yemen,) and the political damage back home if they are lost. Losing front line pilots, particularly to capture and interrogation, is unpopular enough back home in a war situation; when they are somewhere the Government would rather not admit to, doing something a lot of voters might balk at, it can be a real scandal. By contrast, the loss of a drone is just another item on the unaudited defence budget. In the new phrase, there's no moral hazard, and we all know where that leads.

So the important question, as I and the article's author see it, is not that this is a new technology, but if it's being used to do things we shouldn't be doing.

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Originally Posted by leo9

So the important question, as I and the article's author see it, is not that this is a new technology, but if it's being used to do things we shouldn't be doing.

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Which is closely related to the question "Is killing Osama bin Laden and his ilk something we should be doing?" With the strikes in Pakistan, the worrying aspect for me is not that the terrorists are being killed, but that Pakistan isn't making enough of an effort to do it. If you live next door to me and your home has termites, you have a legal and moral obligation to stop them spreading to mine even if you don't care about your own property; if someone breaks into my home then you enable him to escape through yours, you can face criminal charges as well.

If the Pakistani or Yemeni government doesn't want other people doing their job for them, there's a nice easy answer for them: do their own job! Where there isn't a functioning government, of course others will have to do the job instead, like dealing with the Somali pirates - but that's purely a failing of the government concerned, not the others stepping in to fill the void.

So what you're saying, js207, is that if your dog is tearing up my garden and you won't do anything to stop him, it's okay for me to shoot your dog?

(Personally, not being a dog lover, I have no problem with this philosophy. But I think others would tend to see things differently.)

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Originally Posted by Thorne

So what you're saying, js207, is that if your dog is tearing up my garden and you won't do anything to stop him, it's okay for me to shoot your dog?

(Personally, not being a dog lover, I have no problem with this philosophy. But I think others would tend to see things differently.)

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Legally, that's the case here if the dog is molesting your livestock. You could also sue me for the dog's actions, ultimately getting me ordered to either control the dog or go to jail and forfeit ownership of the dog. I do like dogs - and with owning them comes an obligation to take responsibility for them, or you'll find them in the ground and/or yourself in court.

Then I take it we're in agreement: If the Pakistani, Yemeni, or Somali governments won't/can't control their own dogs, it's our right to protect our own livestock, as well as those of our neighbors? And I assume that the "rules" don't require me to take on the dogs in equal combat, either? I can send over drones, artillery, whatever it takes to do the job?

(Again, I don't give a damn about the dogs. I'm all for wiping them out. And I don't even mind if a few cats get hurt in the process.)

Pretty much ... the rules don't require you to go after the dogs on their level, using your bare hands and teeth, just to take care to avoid excessive collateral damage: shoot at the dog legitimately with your rifle, you're on safe ground even if the dog's owner steps in front of the dog suddenly and gets hit, but carpet-bombing the whole street, or shooting at their cat because of their dog's actions, crosses the line.

Someone starts shooting at you from a building, you can fire back; if non-combatants die as a result, it's the other side's war crime for hiding behind them, not yours for shooting at a legitimate target that went somewhere it shouldn't.

One of the questions I am interested in is whether your can send drones (killermachines) against people with whom you are not at war.

And if that is ok, are anyone safe?

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Originally Posted by thir

One of the questions I am interested in is whether your can send drones (killermachines) against people with whom you are not at war.

And if that is ok, are anyone safe?

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Define war. If my country goes and fires missiles at your country, puts troops there, starts shooting your people, is that war?

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Originally Posted by thir

One of the questions I am interested in is whether your can send drones (killermachines) against people with whom you are not at war.

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That would seem to me to constitute an act of war by itself. Sending them against those with whom you ARE at war, even when they are hiding in someone else's country? That may be a grey area. It's one of the most difficult aspects of the "War on Terrorism". The terrorists, by definition, don't HAVE a country. They come from MANY countries. You are forced to attack them where you find them, and sometimes that means attacking them in countries that don't necessarily support terrorism, but don't have the wherewithal (political and/or military) to evict them. And when the terrorists are living within the local population, are an active part of the local culture, it become impossible to differentiate between the terrorist and the innocent. Of course, when the innocent are actually hiding and aiding the terrorists, they are no longer innocent, are they?

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Originally Posted by Thorne

Of course, when the innocent are actually hiding and aiding the terrorists, they are no longer innocent, are they?

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That's the key really. Supposing a terrorist training camp were found in rural Wales. If the RAF go and bomb them - perhaps there's no time to get police or ground troops into the area - is that an act of war by the British government against itself? Of course not. Now, supposing rather than an RAF Tornado, an American F-15 from RAF Lakenheath did the same (possibly even flown by British personnel: there are a few British F-15 pilots as it happens, though I don't know if Lakenheath has any) - act of war, or act of friendship?

Really, it's a question of whether we as a country identify with the terrorists, or those fighting against them. I think the fact the Pakistanis are angry about American troops fighting with the terrorists in Pakistan, rather than with the terrorists themselves, speaks volumes about their allegiance.

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Originally Posted by js207

Really, it's a question of whether we as a country identify with the terrorists, or those fighting against them. I think the fact the Pakistanis are angry about American troops fighting with the terrorists in Pakistan, rather than with the terrorists themselves, speaks volumes about their allegiance.

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Exactly. What we have to remember, too, is that the actions of the Pakistani government may not reflect the wishes of the Pakistani people, but in this case, from what I've read about it, the people are doing more to protect the terrorists than the government! So who are the innocents?

What terrorists? Those Pakistani terrorists that blow up hundreds of people in Karachi? Those who attack hotels in Mumbai? What the fuck does it bother you in America? Just make sure they can't lay their hands on any planes and you should be just fine.

Apart from that, I totally agree on the dogs. ;)

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Originally Posted by lucy

What terrorists? Those Pakistani terrorists that blow up hundreds of people in Karachi? Those who attack hotels in Mumbai? What the fuck does it bother you in America? Just make sure they can't lay their hands on any planes and you should be just fine.

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Of course it matters! Start blowing things up in India and who are we going to call for technical support?

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Apart from that, I totally agree on the dogs. ;)

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That's because you are an eminently intelligent person.

Another article on drones from the Guardian:


With its deadly drones, the US is fighting a coward's war

"These power-damaged people have been granted the chance to fulfil one of humankind's abiding fantasies: to vaporise their enemies, as if with a curse or a prayer, effortlessly and from a safe distance."

"The CIA, which is running the undeclared and unacknowledged drone war in Pakistan, insists that there have been no recent civilian casualties. So does Obama's chief counter-terrorism adviser, John Brennan. "

"As a report last year by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism showed, of some 2,300 people killed by US drone strikes in Pakistan from 2004 until August 2011, between 392 and 781 appear to have been civilians; 175 were childre"

"This danger is acknowledged in a remarkably candid assessment published by the UK's Ministry of Defence, which also deploys drones, and has also used them to kill civilians. It maintains that the undeclared air war in Pakistan and Yemen "is totally a function of the existence of an unmanned capability – it is unlikely a similar scale of force would be used if this capability were not available". Citing the German military theorist Carl von Clausewitz, it warns that the brutality of war seldom escalates to its absolute form, partly because of the risk faced by one's own forces. Without risk, there's less restraint. With these unmanned craft, governments can fight a coward's war, a god's war, harming only the unnamed."

"The danger is likely to escalate as drone warfare becomes more automated and the lines of accountability less clear. Last week the US navy unveiled a drone that can land on an aircraft carrier without even a remote pilot. The Los Angeles Times warned that "it could usher in an era when death and destruction can be dealt by machines operating semi-independently". The British assessment suggests that within a few years drones assisted by artificial intelligence could make their own decisions about whom to kill and whom to spare. Sorry sir, computer says yes."

"Drones grant governments new opportunities to snuff out opposition of any kind, terrorist or democrat. "

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In October last year, a 16-year-old called Tariq Aziz was travelling through North Waziristan in Pakistan with his 12-year-old cousin, Waheed Khan. Their car was hit by a missile from a US drone. As always, their deaths made them guilty: if we killed them, they must be terrorists. But they weren't. Tariq was about to start work with the human rights group Reprieve, taking pictures of the aftermath of drone strikes. A mistake? Possibly. But it is also possible that he was murdered out of self-interest. If you have such powers, if you are not held to account by Congress, the media or the American people, why not use them?
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"The danger to democracy, and not just in Pakistan but one day perhaps everywhere, should be evident. Yet, as fatalistic as the ancient Greeks, we drift into this with scarcely a murmur of debate, leaving the gods to decide."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...us-cowards-war

I am aware that this may have crept up on people, the drones have been underway for a while, but now they are really used. And in contries where no was has been declared, which, in my opinion and according to international laws, makes it murder.

As a general rule, I tend to look at the morality of remote gadgets by asking if it would be OK if a human did it first hand. CCTVs are acceptable if it would be reasonable to have a cop or security guard standing there looking; otherwise, no.

In this case, it ought to be self evident that if you're not allowed to send a soldier into Ruritania to shoot someone your government dislikes (or someone who happens to have the same name as the target, or lives in the house next to his,) then you're not allowed to send a remote controlled bomb. I am at a loss to imagine who in the State Department decided that international law doesn't apply to 21st Century doodlebugs. I'm afraid it is much more likely that the reasoning behind it was "because we can."

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Originally Posted by thir

"The danger is likely to escalate as drone warfare becomes more automated and the lines of accountability less clear. Last week the US navy unveiled a drone that can land on an aircraft carrier without even a remote pilot. The Los Angeles Times warned that "it could usher in an era when death and destruction can be dealt by machines operating semi-independently". The British assessment suggests that within a few years drones assisted by artificial intelligence could make their own decisions about whom to kill and whom to spare. Sorry sir, computer says yes."

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Way back when America's first primitive "smart" weapons were being field-tested on the North Vietnamese people, someone suggested it was time the First Law of Robotics was incorporated into international law.

Alas, it looks as if it's now too late: any such law would be treated with the same contempt as national boundaries and the rules of war.

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Originally Posted by js207

Legally, that's the case here if the dog is molesting your livestock.

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But if you break into the dog owner's home to shoot the dog because it molested your livestock years ago, I doubt if any country's laws would back you up. Which is what the Pakistani government is complaining about.

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I do like dogs - and with owning them comes an obligation to take responsibility for them, or you'll find them in the ground and/or yourself in court.

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But you don't usually find your neighbour kicking in your door or throwing grenades through your windows. So we're lucky that civil law is better policed than international law.

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Originally Posted by js207

Define war. If my country goes and fires missiles at your country, puts troops there, starts shooting your people, is that war?

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Well, yes, that's exactly the Pakistani government's complaint.

Officially, the US is their friend. But they're getting tired of having to reassure their people that yes, those families the Americans killed were definitely terrorists, and so were our soldiers whose base the Americans shot up, the Americans told our President so, and they're our friends so it must be true.

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Originally Posted by js207

That's the key really. Supposing a terrorist training camp were found in rural Wales. If the RAF go and bomb them - perhaps there's no time to get police or ground troops into the area - is that an act of war by the British government against itself? Of course not. Now, supposing rather than an RAF Tornado, an American F-15 from RAF Lakenheath did the same (possibly even flown by British personnel: there are a few British F-15 pilots as it happens, though I don't know if Lakenheath has any) - act of war, or act of friendship?

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Fascinating question, so let's make it more accurate. Suppose the US knew about the camp but didn't tell the UK government, but just went ahead and took it out (along with any civilians nearby - hey, they were around, they were probably in league with the bad guys.) Well, knowing our government, I've no doubt at all that they would tug their forelocks and say "Thank you kindly, Master." But I'm not sure the general public would be so universally grateful.

Back in the days of the Troubles, the British military intelligence knew the IRA had bases in Eire, and in some cases probably had the map references and a list of the people there. But having an old fashioned respect for international law, we didn't send a plane over to bomb them. The interesting question is, if we had, do you think it would have weakened the IRA (whose entire political platform, remember, was that they were fighting the Brits on behalf of all the Irish people,) or improved co-operation with the Irish government?

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Really, it's a question of whether we as a country identify with the terrorists, or those fighting against them. I think the fact the Pakistanis are angry about American troops fighting with the terrorists in Pakistan, rather than with the terrorists themselves, speaks volumes about their allegiance.

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If only it were that simple.

If someone invaded my country to attack someone they (not I) had a problem with, I would feel justified in protesting even if I had not the slightest sympathy with their targets. Wouldn't you?

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Originally Posted by leo9

If someone invaded my country to attack someone they (not I) had a problem with, I would feel justified in protesting even if I had not the slightest sympathy with their targets. Wouldn't you?

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And that is the problem in a nut shell: Killing by drones is highly questionable in itself, but doing it in a country not declared war with, is simply murder.

I cannot understand why this has not caused an outrage. The fact that is hasn't I find disturbing in the extreme.

Has there been so much killing that nothing matters anymore???