Drone Civilian Casualties On the Rise Thanks to Private Corporate Operators

Upstate Drone Action activist Ed Kinane claims that private drone operators analyzing intelligence for the US military can lead to more civilian casualties with lesser accountability.

""WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — Private drone operators analyzing intelligence for the US military can lead to more civilian casualties with lesser accountability, Upstate Drone Action activist Ed Kinane told Sputnik.

“The likely consequences include trigger-happiness with the ensuing maiming, death and terrorizing of civilians," Kinane said on Friday. “It is unlikely that such operators will be adequately trained in or responsive to international law. They are willing cogs in this rogue nation’s killing machine.”HILDEBRANDT

Kinane comments came the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (BIJ) issued a report claiming hundreds of private contractors are aiding the US military and Special Operations forces to analyze drone intelligence used to target terrorist groups.

Estimated one in ten people working on drone intelligence are now contractors as the US military seeks to feed an “insatiable demand” for more intelligence, according to the BIJ.

A private contractor equals a mercenary, Kinane argued, i.e “someone in it for the money, someone outside the chain of command, someone subject to little accountability.”

Yet, the analysis the contractors provide have life or death consequences for civilians.""

According to the BIJ statistics, up to 1,000 civilians have been killed by US drone strikes in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen over the past ten years.

http://sputniknews.com/military/20150801/1025287419.html

SpaceX's Robotic Dragon Resupply Spacecraft Arrives at International Space Station with Groceries

""SpaceX's robotic Dragon resupply spacecraft has arrived at the International Space Station after a two-day orbital chase.

NASA astronaut Barry "Butch" Wilmore, commander of the station's current Expedition 42, grappled Dragon using the orbiting outpost's huge robotic arm at 5:54 a.m. EST (1054 GMT) on Monday (Jan. 12). Crew members will next install Dragon on the Earth-facing port of the station's Harmony module.

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Once installation is complete, astronauts will begin offloading the 5,200 pounds (2,360 kilograms) of food, spare parts and scientific experiments that Dragon brought up on this mission, the fifth of 12 unmanned cargo flights SpaceX plans to fly to the space station under a $1.6 billion deal with NASA. [See photos from SpaceX's fifth Dragon cargo launch]

SpaceX launched the Dragon capsule early Saturday (Jan. 10) atop a Falcon 9 rocket that lifted off from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. After the rocket sent Dragon on its way, SpaceX attempted to bring the Falcon 9's first stage back to Earth for a pinpoint landing on an "autonomous spaceport drone ship" in the Atlantic Ocean, as part of the company's effort to develop reusable-rocket technology.

The rocket stage came down on target but hit the drone ship too hard Saturday. SpaceX will try the bold maneuver again on future launches, company representatives said.

Dragon is unmanned, but the capsule did bring a number of living passengers up to the orbiting lab. For example, it hauled an experiment that will look at how microgravity affects the wound-healing abilities of flatworms, and two others that will study how plants grow in space.""

Main Article:

http://news.discovery.com/space/private-spaceflight/spacex-dragon-capsule-delivers-supplies-to-space-station-150112.htm

Computer Virus Hits U.S. Drone Fleet Cockpits of America’s Predator and Reaper

 ""A computer virus has infected the cockpits of America’s Predator and Reaper drones, logging pilots’ every keystroke as they remotely fly missions over Afghanistan and other warzones.

The virus, first detected nearly two weeks ago by the military’s Host-Based Security System, has not prevented pilots at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada from flying their missions overseas. Nor have there been any confirmed incidents of classified information being lost or sent to an outside source. But the virus has resisted multiple efforts to remove it from Creech’s computers, network security specialists say. And the infection underscores the ongoing security risks in what has become the U.S. military’s most important weapons system.

“We keep wiping it off, and it keeps coming back,” says a source familiar with the network infection, one of three that told Danger Room about the virus. “We think it’s benign. But we just don’t know.”

Military network security specialists aren’t sure whether the virus and its so-called “keylogger” payload were introduced intentionally or by accident; it may be a common piece of malware that just happened to make its way into these sensitive networks. The specialists don’t know exactly how far the virus has spread. But they’re sure that the infection has hit both classified and unclassified machines at Creech. That raises the possibility, at least, that secret data may have been captured by the keylogger, and then transmitted over the public internet to someone outside the military chain of command.""

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/10/virus-hits-drone-fleet/