Interview with drone pilot

Huffington Post has a rare interview with a drone pilot, or as he likes them to be called, Remotely Piloted Aircraft.

It’s a little candid, a little dispiriting, and a little propagandistic all at the same time.

Nearly 5 million hold security clearances

The number of people holding security clearances rose to about 4.9m in 2012, according to the latest official figures (pdf) from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI).

Steven Aftergood of the FAS Security blog provides more details:

The total number of cleared personnel as of October 1, 2012 was 4,917,751.  Although the number of contractors who held a clearance declined in 2012, the number of eligible government employees grew at a faster rate, yielding a net increase of 54,199 clearances, or 1.1 percent, from the year before.

It is possible that there were more security-cleared Americans at some points during the Cold War, when there was a larger standing military with more cleared military personnel than there are today.  But until 2010, no comprehensive account of the size of the security clearance system had ever been produced.  So the new 4.9 million figure is the largest official figure ever published.

As he notes, ODNI requested that the legal obligation to report these numbers be canceled, which was initially granted, but following a public outcry, the obligation was restored (ODNI claimed it took a lot of time and effort to prepare).

It’s very useful for us to know these numbers, and indeed further information could well be disclosed without threat to national security, such as the number of contractors working at each IC agency, and in what capacity.

New Ambinder surveillance book: Deep State

Marc Ambinder and D. B. Grady, journalists at The Week/GQ/The Atlantic have a new book “Deep State: Inside the Government Secrecy Industry.” Here’s part of the publisher’s blurb:

There is a hidden country within the United States. It was formed from the astonishing number of secrets held by the government and the growing ranks of secret-keepers given charge over them. The government secrecy industry speaks in a private language of codes and acronyms, and follows an arcane set of rules and customs designed to perpetuate itself, repel penetration, and deflect oversight. It justifies itself with the assertion that the American values worth preserving are often best sustained by subterfuge and deception.

There are indications that this deep state is crumbling. Necessary secrets are often impossible to keep, while frivolous secrets are kept forever. The entire system has fallen prey to political manipulation, with leaks carefully timed to advance agendas, and over-classification given to indefensible government activities.

The book is currently available via Kindle and in hardback in April. Shane Harris at the Washingtonian reviews it here.

The case for and against drones

Earlier this year, an American philosopher at the Naval Postgraduate School, Bradley Strawser, made what he called “the moral case for drones.” Perhaps realizing that this was a somewhat unusual argument, he received coverage in both the Guardian (also here) and the New York Times. His basic argument was simple, and certainly seriously proposed:

after a concentrated study of remotely piloted vehicles, he said, he concluded that using them [drones] to go after terrorists not only was ethically permissible but also might be ethically obligatory, because of their advantages in identifying targets and striking with precision.

Whatever you think of this argument on its own grounds, or whether the data are sufficient to assess it, it is not possible to either ignore it or dismiss it. Why not? Simply because it is the prevailing position of the Bush/Obama administrations and policy-makers.

The post-election lull in US drone strikes now appears to be over. Thus, geographers and others will need to once again address this argument. Engaging on the moral calculus of death (for example the claim that drone strikes are more precise than bombing) will strike many as iniquitous. But if it’s not done, then this argument hangs out there. (Good work on this thankless job has been done by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism.)

Drones are not yet a major part of warfare in terms of numbers or in munitions deployed (around 9% of the latter are from UAVs). No one thinks that number will go down. So here are the top three counter-arguments against armed drones, leaving out objections on personal moral grounds for the moment:

1. They contribute to an increasing militarization of everyday life, not just “over there” but domestically too. Police departments, companies–even universities–are applying for waivers to use drones, and we may soon see America’s skies  occupied by state and/or private drones, either for surveillance or weaponized. Additionally, everyday life becomes weaponized, not just our activities and practices, but the knowledge we produce as well. Here I’m thinking of the enrollment of scientific and scholarly knowledge (“cloak and gown,” military-academic-industrial complex), area studies, overseas expeditions, etc.

2. Drones make military activity more likely. As Derek Gregory points out, in an important post, they are cheaper and less likely to involve domestic troop injuries or deaths (because operated remotely). (By “domestic” I don’t just mean the USA; there is no reason to suspect that China et al. won’t develop weaponized drones capable of flying overseas.) This argument, like the first, requires a supplement to detail exactly why or when “military activity” may be counter-productive. Ie., many people are of the opinion that it is justifiable if it produces certain ends, security for example.

A related point made by Gregory is that they carry out this military activity by stealth and are therefore less accountable. Part of the reason for this stealth is that drone activity is taking place far from the battlefield or even in countries with which the US is not at war.

However, this is an argument that could be rebutted. Perhaps these factors are really part of the same point–what if drone strikes were only in places with which the US was at war and the order for their use went up through a proper chain of command? What if the Obama administration published an official list of drone strikes every time (or, for more political distance, tacitly endorsed an approved agency or contractor to do so)?

3. Thirdly then, I would like to explore the argument that drones–as part of a larger strategy of countertorrism, foreign intervention, special ops, and signature strikes–are not “sustainable.” Here I mean sustainable in the sustainability science meaning of not being possible to continue because they will decrease human well-being. There are two issues worth pointing out here. First, we are talking about not just a single technology and activity (drones), but an assemblage. Here I’m talking as much about an integrated military strategy of which drones are a part (occupying the skies from low-altitude to satellite constellations), and especially understanding satellite/drone imagery and surveillance not so much as a product, but as data files and calculative “code space.”

Second, does sustainability science give us worthwhile data measurement proxies and leverage that allow us to get beyond on the one hand objections to war on personal/ethical/moral [religious] grounds, and on the other acceptance of it because it leads to security? Neither of these arguments appear to me to be particularly fruitful, because you can’t do anything with them. Would sustainability/resilience/well-being provide such an avenue? Perhaps no more than climate science and the IPCC has, but surely no less than either. In a time when the US spends $1T a year on security, surely we can ask, is that even sustainable?

Trevor Paglen in the New Yorker

Nice profile on Trevor Paglen, the artist (and geographer) in the New Yorker about his work photographing spy satellites and military bases.

Is transparency enough?

Two recent events have got me thinking about transparency. Particularly whether demands for transparency of process, coupled with oversight, are sufficient to ensure good practice.

The proximate cause of these thoughts was Sarah Elwood’s excellent talk to the geography department “Activism, Civic Engagement and the Knowledge Politics of the Geoweb.” Sarah discussed NGOs and their use of geospatial and GIS technologies, and noted that they claimed these offered a benefit to the user (eg., to increase participation) due to their added transparency compared to previous NGO efforts. Sarah was careful to note that these were the NGO claims, and that they needed further assessment. Given the subject matter of her talk, the clear implication was that transparency alone (ie., access to knowledge about their activities) is no more sufficient than previous claims for transparency of the map were ever sufficient. (The map as a transparent window on to the real world.)

The original comments that started me on this however were a couple of posts on Derek Gregory’s blog (here and here) on covert killing through drone strikes. Here are the pertinent sections, first in the context of a recent report on the civilian impact of drones:

military protocols are indeed more public, even transparent, as the authors note, but the space between principle and practice is still wide enough to inflict an unacceptably heavy burden on the civilian population.

Derek had previously made a more developed version of his point:

Madiha’s root objection is to the way in which what she calls the Obama administration’s ‘theatrical performance of faux secrecy’ over its drone war in the FATA (and elsewhere) – a repugnantly teasing dance in which the veil of secrecy is let slip once, twice, three times – functions to draw its audience’s entranced eye towards the American body politic and away from the Pakistani bodies on the ground.  The story is always in Washington and never in Waziristan.  It’s a hideously effective sideshow, in which Obama and an army of barkers and hucksters – unnamed spokesmen ‘speaking on condition of anonymity’ because they are ‘not authorised to speak on the record’,  and front-of-house spielers like Harold Koh and John Brennan – induce not only a faux secrecy but its obverse, a faux intimacy in which public debate is focused on transparency and accountability as the only ‘games’ worth playing.

It is certainly true that the administration’s “now you see it, now you don’t” position on CIA drone strikes (as opposed to those performed by the military in Afghanistan) are hypocritical. On the one hand they issue the standard Glomar response (“neither confirm nor deny”) about drone use in countries with which the US is not at war (Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia). On the other they send out self-congratulatory announcements about killing suspected al-Qaeda members in Yemen, even when they hold American citizenship (such as Anwar al-Awlaki). (Glenn Greenwald has written the most informatively on this, eg here.)

I would also agree with Derek that “false transparency” is deceptive (as is the quest for total or full transparency). However, I would argue that the conditions of knowledge, or if you like the politics of knowledge, are currently in such an asymmetrical state that efforts to rebalance these asymmetries are meritorious. Not just the two recent reports on drones (which I haven’t read yet but plan to do so), but also efforts like WikiLeaks, which I wrote about recently in Geopolitics. The Obama administration’s war on whistleblowers has been truly unprecendented, and brave employees of the NSA, like Thomas Drake, and of the CIA, such as John Kiriakou (who revealed its practice of waterboarding and admitted it was torture) have been charged under the Espionage Act. Not to mentioned Bradley Manning, accused whistleblower, who allegedly provided State department cables to WikiLeaks. (The Drake case was dismissed but the Kiriakou case continues. Proceedings against Bradley Manning are also continuing today.)

While transparency is not enough, and false transparency is misleading, I think it’s important to continue to work for increased government oversight, and I know that it is effective. Things like FOIA and working on declassified documents in archives do yield plenty of information. The FAS Secrecy blog is also highly informational (not least in part because of their use of FOIA to obtain eg., the NGA Congressional budget justifications). In a paper I wrote this summer with two colleagues, Susan Roberts and Ate Poorthuis, we used information we obtained from  corporate filings with the SEC. The paper would not have been as empirically rich without it.

This issue has connections to the vexed problem of visuality, but my focus has more often been on knowledge, and, as here, access to knowledge and denial of access (secrecy). I have a blog post coming up on “the secret” so more on that soon.

2012 Secrecy Report

OpenTheGovernment.org has published its annual secrecy report. Among its highlights:

Federal Circuit Court Whistleblower Decisions: 3-226 Against Whistleblowers
Classified Information
• National/Military Intelligence Budgets Disclosed
• Security-Cleared Population Reaches New Reported High
• Original Classification Decisions Fall by 44%; Lowest Since 1996
• $215 Spent Keeping Secrets for Every Dollar Spent on Declassification
• National Declassification Center—Progress Made, But Goal Not Reached
• Success of Mandatory Declassification Leads to 8% Growth in Requests, Continued Rise in Backlogs
• Classification Challenges Plummet by 90%
• State Secrets Privilege Policy: Impact Unclear, IG Referrals Unknown
Invention Secrecy Orders in Effect Rise by 2%
Use of National Security Letters Continues to Increase
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) Approvals Rise 11%

The Report is produced by more than 80 different groups which advocate for more open government, and has a steering committee comprising such luminaries as Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) and Tom Blanton of the National Security Archive.

WikiLeaks piece published

My contribution to a discussion forum entitled ”Leaky Geopolitics” has just been published in Geopolitics 17: 681-711.

The idea behind this piece was to examine what WikiLeaks might mean geopolitically. The piece includes contributions by Simon Springer, Heather Chi, Fiona McConnell, Julie Cupples, Kevin Glynn, Barney Warf and Wes Attewell and was put together by Simon and Heather.

Here’s part of the Abstract:

The ‘Wikigate’ scandal thus represents an important occasion to take stock and think critically about what this case tells us about the nature of sovereign power, freedom of information, the limits of democracy, and importantly, the violence of the state when it attempts to manage these considerations. This forum explores a series of challenges inspired by WikiLeaks, which we hope will prompt further debate and reflection within critical geopolitics.

The only other discussion of WikiLeaks by geographers I’m aware of came from my colleagues here at UKY: Sue Roberts, Anna Secor and Matt Zook in Antipode earlier this year (we all seem to have liked the “leaky” metaphor!). What I think we were trying to do here was to explore alternatives to the state, and in my case, how the state “outsources” itself, especially (using Matt Hannah’s term) how there are emerging battles over “epistemic sovereignty.”

If the state is outsourcing itself in defense and intelligence contracting, the fact that WikiLeaks tried to play on the same ball field and got squelched reveals much about how the game is supposed to be played. A parallel I didn’t mention in the piece because it developed after we submitted it is the present “concern” about leaks, eg by Dianne Feinstein the Senate Intelligence Committee Chair. Over the past two months sher’s been all about stopping leaks of classified material, and yet when it suits her purpose she is apparently known to be a serial leaker herself.

This is my final paragraph:

An inescapable conclusion is not that sovereignty is being weakened or challenged, but rather that it is being outsourced and redeployed beyond the state. This is cause for concern, because there is less accountability in such arrangements, not to mention that contractors can work outside the military chain of command (for example, contractors are used to operate the CIA’s drone system). WikiLeaks is a minor but symbolically powerful figure operating among governmental outsourcing and acting as an outlet for whistle-blowers and providing oversight and transparency. Until (at a minimum) there is true participatory bi-directional dataveillance, we must continue to value WikiLeaks for these efforts.

 

The .22 caliber cigarette and other gadgets of the OSS

Couldn’t resist getting this book out, a republication of the rare OSS weapons manual (OSS Special Weapons and Equipment, Spy Devices of WWII, by H. Keith Melton).

Pictures speak louder than words, so herewith:

The .22 caliber cigarette. Careful who you share ciggies with!

Simulated poop smell. Highly offensive.

Cool! A folding motorbike for air drops. I say, invented by the British. Top speed 30mph!

No spy would be caught without a miniature camera.

The famous pen gun.

Exploding coal! Confound your enemies and amuse your friends. Breaks the ice at parties!

Take that! Oof!

What, no suicide pill?

Probably not a problem for Katniss.

For the cryptos…

This is just a small selection. There were actually suicide pills (L-pills). don’t smoke cigarettes? There was also an exploding pipe (Captain Haddock anyone?). Great boy’s own stuff…

 

Matt Hannah Interviewed on Dark Territories

Exploring Geopolitics has an excellent lengthy interview with Matt Hannah on his latest book Dark Territories in the Information Age.

On the parallels to protest today:

It is perhaps more interesting to note that the parallels between issues of anonymity in physical public spaces and anonymity in the virtual world of electronic information were already clear then. At the same time that boycotters were challenging the state’s ‘epistemic sovereignty’, its right to know everything about the people living within its borders, struggles raged in the streets and courtrooms over whether protestors should be allowed to cover their faces and wear improvised armour (motorcycle helmets, etc.).

The right to see faces and to coerce or injure bodies, like the right to gather personal data and use it to coerce compliant behaviour, were explicitly seen as part of the emergence of what Hamburg activists called ‘cybernocracy’.

In the Occupy movements of today, these links remain clear, even if the strategic and tactical struggles have moved into new areas, for example in protestors’ use of their own camera drones to track police movements.

On the possibilities of “informatinal citizenship” (one of the big takeaways from the book, for me):

By the term informational citizenship I mean a way of seeing many different kinds of knowledge about people, not just knowledge about their preferences among official parties or candidates, as forms of political representation. To exercise informational citizenship would thus be to get involved actively in decisions about what kinds of knowledge are gathered about us, linked to what sorts of social ontologies, by what organisations, to what purpose, what is done with that knowledge, how is it stored and for how long, etc.