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There are lots of hypocrisies surrounding the recently released executive summary of the Senate Intelligence Committee report on the CIA's detention and interrogation program. But they pale in comparison to the current Democratic silence about President Barack Obama's policy of targeted drone assassinations. Since 2004, drones have killed an estimated 2,400 to 3,888 individuals in Pakistan alone, according to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism in London. An estimated 345 to 553 individuals in Yemen have been killed in drone strikes over the same period. The BIJ reports that the Obama administration has "markedly stepped up the use of drones. Since...

The U.S. Navy’s Pacific Command’s recent announcement that it has successfully completed tests on its GhostSwimmer unmanned underwater vehicle prompted an immediate rebuttal from Russia: They, too, are close to unmanned submarine drones. The U.S. Navy first trumpeted its successful test on Friday.

In the aftermath of the release of the Senate Intelligence Committee's torture report focused on Bush-era techniques, the Obama administration's own counterterrorism practices are coming under increased scrutiny. Gruesome details of forced rectal feedings without medical necessity, waterboarding, and sleep deprivation were chronicled in the report's executive summary, dredging up harsh practices employed during the George W. Bush administration. But on Capitol Hill, Republicans charge that the Central Intelligence Agency's approach to counterterrorism has not grown more humane—it's merely shifted. "Obviously, we don't interrogate prisoners anymore," says Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., who chaired the Intelligence Committee during the Bush administration....

Governor Palin posted to Facebook:See more here:http://insider.foxnews.com/2014/12/13/eric-bolling-blasts-cia-torture-report-i-have-zero-sympathy-terrorists  Connect with Governor Palin on Facebook

Via the British group Reprieve comes a report asserting that U.S. drones in Yemen and Pakistan kill 28 "unknowns" for every intended target. What's more, "41 names of men who seemed to have achieved the impossible: to have ‘died,’ in public reporting, not just once, not just twice, but again and again. From the Reprieve report: As many as 1,147 people may have been killed during attempts to kill 41 men, accounting for a quarter of all possible drone strike casualties in Pakistan andYemen. In Yemen, strikes against just 17 targets accounted for almost half of all confirmed civilian casualties....

We should have known that the mixture of mistletoe, drones and $10 endless appetizers would only lead to bloodshed. A TGI Friday's mistletoe drone wreaked havoc at a Brooklyn, N.Y., restaurant last Thursday when the drone accidently slammed into a photographer's face.

President Obama on Saturday condemned the "barbaric murder" by al Qaeda of U.S. hostage Luke Somers in Yemen during a rescue attempt by U.S. forces. "On behalf of the American people, I offer my deepest condolences to Luke’s family and to his loved ones," he said in a statement. "As this and previous hostage rescue operations demonstrate, the United States will spare no effort to use all of its military, intelligence, and diplomatic capabilities to bring Americans home safely, wherever they are located. And terrorists who seek to harm our citizens will feel the long arm of American justice," he...

“What would happen to Moses if he arrived today?” Bale pondered. “Drones would be sent out after him, right?”

The government has the power to hold drone operators accountable when they operate the remote-control aircraft recklessly, a federal safety board ruled Tuesday in a setback to small drone operators chafing under Federal Aviation Administration restrictions. The National Transportation safety Board, which hears appeals of Federal Aviation Administration enforcement actions, ruled that small drones are a type of aircraft and fall under existing FAA rules. "An 'aircraft' is any 'device' 'used for flight in the air.' This definition includes any aircraft, manned or unmanned, large or small," the board said. The decision strengthens the FAA's position as the agency tries...

The U.S. government now patrols nearly half the Mexican border by drones alone in a largely unheralded shift to control desolate stretches where there are no agents, camera towers, ground sensors or fences, and it plans to expand the strategy to the Canadian border. It represents a significant departure from a decades-old approach that emphasizes boots on the ground and fences. Since 2000, the number of Border Patrol agents on the 1,954-mile border more than doubled to surpass 18,000 and fencing multiplied nine times to 700 miles. […] The government has operated about 10,000 drone flights under the strategy, known...

DESOTO COUNTY, MS (WMC) - You might expect to find an army in DeSoto County ... an army of drones, that is. A Southaven man has an army of hand-crafted drones, all controlled from inside of his customized command center. Estes built drones that provide infrared thermal imaging; they also detect human movement inside of a home or car. And what he is doing is legal. "You can do good things with this, or you can do bad things with this," Estes acknowledged. Estes wrote letters to the Federal Aviation Administration about his drone capabilities. Right now, the FAA requires...

Most of Al Qaeda’s most significant, known terror plots directed at the U.S. homeland in the last several years — including the 2009 Christmas Day Bomb Plot or the 2010 Printer Cartridge Bomb Plot — originated in Yemen, where, since President Obama took office in 2009, the U.S. has ramped up a campaign of air, missile and drone strikes against the organization’s regional affiliate, known as Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). “AQAP continues to be Al Qaeda’s most active affiliate, and it continues to seek the opportunity to strike our homeland,” CIA Director John Brennan said in an April...

A Dutch student has revealed a prototype ‘ambulance drone’, a flying defibrillator able to reach heart attack victims within precious life-saving minutes. Developed by engineering graduate Alec Momont, it can fly at speeds of up to 100 kilometres per hour (60 miles per hour). Painted in emergency services yellow and driven by six propellers, the drone can carry a four kilogramme load – in this case a defibrillator. ‘Around 800,000 people suffer a cardiac arrest in the European Union every year and only 8.0 percent survive,’ Momont, 23, said at the TU Delft University. ‘The main reason for this is...

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), or drones as they are often called, have had a good press recently: from humanitarian rescues to the promotion of free trade, these remote-controlled, pilotless robots are the heroes of the moment. Still, their biggest use continues to be for military purposes. And although the deployment of drones in military operations is nowhere near as morally objectionable as some critics allege, the inevitable proliferation of UAVs does raise some serious security questions. The real challenge is not to prevent nations or corporations from acquiring them but, rather, to adopt international safeguards on how independent such drones...

Iraq uncovers al-Qaeda 'chemical weapons plot' The authorities in Iraq say they have uncovered an al-Qaeda plot to use chemical weapons, as well as to smuggle them to Europe and North America. Defence ministry spokesman Mohammed al-Askari said five men had been arrested after military intelligence monitored their activities for three months. Three workshops for manufacturing the chemical agents, including sarin and mustard gas, were uncovered, he added. Remote-controlled toy planes were also seized at the workshops. Mr Askari said they were to have been used to release the chemical agents over the target from a "safe" distance of 1.5km...

USAA wants to take to the skies in an effort to fast-track insurance claims. The financial services company, whose members include U.S. military personnel and their families, asked the Federal Aviation Administration for permission to test unmanned aircraft last week, becoming the first insurance provider to seek an exemption. Since commercial drone use is prohibited by regulators, USAA has conducted four years of research in partnership with the FAA and public entities. The exemption would pave the way for independent testing of small drones that could help USAA quickly settle insurance claims during natural disasters.

Scarcely a week goes by without a story in the news about drones, whether it is a Senator finding a drone peering in her window, or a small town in Colorado discussing whether to offer drone-hunting licenses (in the end they voted not to). The fear that a drone may be watching you is far from unreasonable. Today’s news, for example, is that up to 20 percent of the Border Patrol predator-drone flight hours take place in the US; meanwhile, in Miami where we both live, the police department has a fleet of drones out on patrol. This week’s arrest...

A friend of mine showed me this video today. I know it's an ad for a company that makes silencers....in this case, a shotgun silencer. However, the idea behind the video struck me as something right up FR's alley. What do you think? Johnny Dronehunter video

The Argentine government has used drones to catch out wealthy tax evaders who had not declared mansions and swimming pools. Unmanned aircraft were dispatched over an upper class area of Buenos Aires and discovered 200 homes and 100 pools that had not been detailed on returns. Tax officials said the drones took pictures of luxury houses standing on lots registered as empty. The evasions found by the drones amounted to missing tax payments of more than $2 million and owners of the properties have been waned they now face large fines. Use of drones has been expanding in Argentina and...

According to Robert Sczcerba, a health technology venture capitalist and former director of life sciences at Lockheed Martin, the greatest health technology danger is the cacaphony of beeps that attend medical devices in every hospital. Because if everything is a priority then nothing is. He writes: Have you ever stood in line at a fast food restaurant listening to a loud, persistent beeping from the kitchen’s deep fryer? If so, you’ve probably wanted to yell, “Hey, could somebody get the fries, or press a button to make that stupid dinging stop?” The employees, meanwhile, have long since stopped paying attention...