DIRECT NEWS INPUT SEARCH
By John Amidon & Ellen Grady
Members of the grassroots human rights coalition, Upstate Drone Action to Ground the Drones and End the Wars were arrested for closing the main gate of Hancock Airfield to back their call for a halt to the US weaponized drone program operated out of Hancock, in the Town of Dewitt, NY, by the 174th Attack Wing of the NYS Air National Guard. Hancock is home to “hunter/killer” (the Pentagon's phrase) MQ9 Reaper drone.
By David Swanson
Chris Woods’ excellent new book is called Sudden Justice: America’s Secret Drone Wars. The title comes from a claim that then-President George W. Bush made for drone wars. The book actually tells a story of gradual injustice. The path from a U.S. government that condemned as criminal the type of murder that drones are used for to one that treats such killings as perfectly legal and routine has been a very gradual and completely extra-legal process.
By David Swanson
This advertisement does a number of things in 15 seconds that U.S. television has not done before. It presents a moral case against drone murders (the U.S. government's terminology, and strictly accurate). It opposes drone murders as illegal. It shows victims. It provides the name and website of an organization opposing drone murders. And it directly asks drone “pilots” to refuse to continue. It also makes the Nuremberg argument that an illegal order need not (in fact must not) be obeyed.
By David Swanson
Cities and states across the United States have been taking various actions against drones, while the federal government rolls ahead with project fill the skies .
By Joy First
Mount Horeb, Wisc
Bonnie Block, Jim Murphy, Lars and Patty Prip, Mary Beth Schlagheck, and I were at Rest Area 10 along I- 90/94, about 5 miles south of Mauston, from 10:00 am to noon on Thursday October 9, 2014. We had a model drone and a stack of flyers ‘6 Things You Should Know About Drones’ to help us in reaching the public and so they can learn more about what is going on just up the road at Volk Field Air National Guard Base. We were there in solidarity with others around the country as part of ‘Keep Space for Peace Week’ and global days of actions against drones sponsored by Code Pink, Know Drones, and other groups.
Report by droneaction.org
Eve Tetaz, 83, was found not guilty last night in De Witt town court for opposing Reaper Drone War Crime at 174th Attack Wing at Hancock Air Base near Syracuse, NY Immediately after Onondaga County prosecutor Jordan McNamara rested his case against DC peace and justice activist Eve Tetaz, DeWitt town judge David Gideon granted Ms Tetaz’ motion to dismiss. Ms Tetaz represented herself pro se with the support of DC attorney Mark Goldstone.
by David Swanson
Syracuse July 31, 2014
After two hours of deliberation, Vietnam Veteran and Buffalonian Russell Brown was acquitted tonight by a six person jury in DeWitt Town Court, East Syracuse. He was facing charges of Obstruction of Governmental Administration (OGA), a misdemeanor carrying up to a year incarceration and up to $1000 fine, as well as Disorderly Conduct charge, a violation. Mr. Brown who went before the court Pro Se (he served as his own counsel) was assisted by Buffalo Attorneys Daire Irwin and Paul Fallon.
By Leah Bolger
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)…increased use of anti-anxiety, and anti-depressant drugs…suicide. These are all issues that are plaguing American combat soldiers, and which the American media has reported on widely.
Report by Veterans For Peace
Two conscientious nonviolent activists, Brian Terrell and Ron Faust, were convicted on Monday of trespassing, for having attempted to deliver a document listing concerns about drones to the commander of Whiteman Air Force Base near Jefferson City, Mo., last April. A third protester, Mark Kenney of Omaha, Neb., is serving a four-month sentence after having pled guilty in June to trespassing.
"President Barack Obama's administration on Wednesday refused to comply with a Freedom of Information Act request for basic information on its drone programs," remarked President of Veterans For Peace Leah Bolger. "While programs of assassination ought not to exist at all, this week's response provides further evidence of the extreme secrecy now surrounding so much of what our government does."
By David Swanson
Remarks in London, England, July 2, 2014.
In eight days, on 10 July Mary Ann Grady-Flores, a grandmother from Ithaca, NY, is scheduled to be sentenced to up to one year in prison. Her crime is violating an order of protection, which is a legal tool to protect a particular person from the violence of another particular person. In this case, the commander of Hancock Air Base has been legally protected from dedicated nonviolent protesters, despite the protection of commanding his own military base, and despite the protesters having no idea who the guy is. That's how badly the people in charge of the flying killer robots we call drones want to avoid any questioning of their activity entering the minds of the drone pilots.
By David Swanson
Now that the U.S. government has released parts of its We-Can-Kill-People-With-Drones memo, it's hard to miss why it was kept secret until now.