Oh, so I didn’t actually know what you were getting at. I don’t think the protocol for using drones to kill American citizens, Mexican cartel operatives, or foreign terrorists needs to be any different from our protocols for doing so with manned aircraft or rifles. The means by which death is achieved is trivia, who is killed, where, and why is what matters.
Human Action,
Here is a verbatim from the Peter Baker report in the Times:
Mr. Obama said the seeming precision and remote nature of modern warfare can 'lead a president and his team to view drone strikes as a cure-all for terrorism," and it is not hard
to imagine which president he had in mind. “We must define the nature and scope of this
struggle,” Mr. Obama said, “or else it will define us.”
…The killing he authorized in September 2011 of Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen tied
to terrorist attacks, brought home the disparity between how he had envisioned his presidency and what it had become…The Awlaki strike also killed another American, Samir Khan, who officals say was not intentionally targeted. A subsequent attack killed Mr. Awlaki’s
16 year old American son…A furor over the American deaths convinced Mr. Obama that it was
time to lay out clearer standards and practices for drone warfare…
IMHO, it’s a debate about “who’s in charge”. How many agencies… Federal, State or Local…
do we want in control of drone killings ?
Not speaking about anyone in particular, but it is nuts to believe that police are on the verge of starting to kill people with drones. Nuts, I say. It is on the same level of nonsense as people thinking a few decades ago that bar codes were soon going to be tattooed on everyone, “mark of the beast” style.
Nuts, I tell you.
Raven
I think that idea is nutty too. But it is not far fetched to visualize a drone, 5 years from now,
taking off on an assignment already programmed into its memory, searching for the target,
finding the target, waiting for the target to comply with protocol (no noncombatants or
unidentifiable persons within 10 meters) liquidating the terrorist, returning to base, and
landing successfully without human assistance or supervision.
Singanas
Yes, it is. That’s sci/fi fiction.
Well, that’s an easy answer. Since they are being used in a war effort, they are under federal control, as only the federal government can wage war. The way it works are present is that multiple intelligence agencies can submit targets, the attacks are then carried out by the military.
Even if the technology were there to do that, why would you? Drones are very expensive pieces of equipment, and are preforming actions that may have far ranging diplomatic consequences. Only a complete idiot would just send it off on its own without someone back home keeping an eye on it.
If a drone could execute a mission without a human controller or operator,
it might save money. I think the Tomahawks used against Qaddafi in Libya
were a million dollars each, and we launched probably 100. A controller may
not be worth $1 million but his portable command post might cost that much.
Again, though, an autonomous drone would be subject to the same rules of engagement as a remotely-piloted one. We already have protocols in place; if and when our weapons are fully autonomous, we can just program those protocols into them.