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US can’t make up its mind about the medal of droner

Posted on 14 March 2013 by nsharkey

Before he retired from his job as US Secretary of defence, Leon Panetta announced a new ‘distinguished warfare medal to be given to drone pilots who sit thousand miles away from the action. This upset many service people and their families because it has a higher ranking than the ‘bronze star’. The bronze star has […] Continue Reading

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No room for the buzzing of the drones on the big rock candy mountain

Posted on 14 March 2013 by nsharkey

An article in yesterdays Globe and Mail (Canada) emphasized the psychological impact of drone strikes combined with noisy surveillance. Something that is often overlooked is the impact on civilians of the constant buzzing of drones overhead. They may be mainly used  for surveillance but even the occasional strike means that no one knows if the […] Continue Reading

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A call for engineers to stop autonomous killing machines now.

Posted on 12 March 2013 by nsharkey

In this month’s ‘The Engineer’, a magazine for engineers, I published an article calling upon engineers to help with a ban on autonomous lethal weapons. They titled my article “say no to killer robots” which was more direct than my own title of “stop autonomous killing machines now”.   “This is a call to engineers […] Continue Reading

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If the US president can order the assassination of Americans overseas, what are the limits to his power?

Posted on 11 March 2013 by nsharkey

An article published in the New York Times (March 9 2013) gives great insight into the targeting of US citizens abroad. For the first time we get details of intelligence gathering and the enormous resources that the CIA used to track down and kill US citizen Anwar al-Awlaki. The article talks about one bungled attempt […] Continue Reading

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Job adverts point to the US planning drone strikes controlled from the UK

Posted on 10 March 2013 by nsharkey

The Mail on Sunday has found two job adverts from the US Air Force asking for a communication systems administrator analyst and a systems administrator with operational experience with Predator Drones. Nothing odd about this until you find out that they are to work at RAF Waddington in the UK – ouch! The adverts say […] Continue Reading

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Code Pink brings chocolates and flowers to the tea party.

Posted on 10 March 2013 by nsharkey

When drone extremist John Brennan’s appointment to Chief of the CIA was delayed by 13 hours by filibuster, Senator Paul Rand, accolades came from an unexpected source. As pointed out by the New York Times, ‘In Washington, Code Pink, a leftist group of antiwar activists, showed up with flowers and chocolates at Mr. Paul’s Senate […] Continue Reading

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Robot warriors: Lethal machines coming of age

Posted on 06 March 2013 by nsharkey

The BBC News Magazine published an article that pits Nobel Peace Laureate Jody Williams and Peter “Wired for War” Singer against Henric Christensen and Ron Arkin from Georgia Institute of Technology. Henrick Christensen’s project funded by defence contractor BAE systems is used as an example of how autonomous robots may be used in conflict. The […] Continue Reading

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Killer robots must be stopped, say campaigners

Posted on 06 March 2013 by nsharkey

The Campaign to Stop Killer Robots was announced by Tracy McVeigh in the Sunday Newspaper the Observer on 24th February. This has created large positive media interest ahead of our the campaign to be launched in April this year. From the Observer: “Killer robots must be stopped, say campaigners A new global campaign to persuade […] Continue Reading

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DoD Directive on Autonomy in Weapon Systems

Posted on 27 November 2012 by Mark Gubrud

On Nov. 21, as news of Human Rights Watch’s (HRW) “Losing Humanity” report was spreading, the Department of Defense quietly released Directive 3000.09 “for the development and use of autonomous and semi-autonomous functions in weapon systems”, making the United States the first nation to have an official policy statement on autonomous weapon systems (AWS). The […] Continue Reading

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Civil Society Wins the Discursive Victory, Despite Collapse of Arms Trade Treaty Conference

Posted on 30 July 2012 by mbolton

After a month of procedural wrangling, intense lobbying, heavy campaigning and frantic late night negotiations, the Arms Trade Treaty conference came to a frayed inconclusive end last Friday as skeptical states like China, Russia, Venezuela, North Korea and Cuba, joined by the United States, called for more time to complete what they saw as an […] Continue Reading

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