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linda u.s. after 9/11 invaded afghanistan, and i don't know, some of you are too young to remember, but you might remember looking at our tv screens and seen the pictures of the very fancy new weapons that we had, and this idea that we now had these precision weapons that would only target the people that we wanted to get, and would not result in collateral damage. and it was almost a way to say to people, calm down, don't be worried. we won't a killing innocent people. so, i was worried, because i don't have a sense that the latest and greatest new weapon is going to protect innocent

people and went to afghanistan two weeks after the invasion with several other colleagues. it was before we even got into afghanistan around the border of pakistan that we found already people who would be considered collateral damage. the first young woman i met is somebody who sticks with me because she looks like my daughter. she was 13 years old and my daughter at that time was 13 years old. i asked her if i could learn about her story and she took me back to her home and with the help of an interpreter, i learned that she had recently come from kabul when the u.s. started bombing. her family lives on the outskirts of the taliban compound in her home was bombed by mistake. she was not there and her father was not home and in the house were her mother and three sisters and brothers.

when they came home that evening, they found the whole house in and destroyed and the only thing they found were pieces of flesh on the trees. that was all that was left of the family. and of course she started crying as she retold the story, and also we told the story of her father who was a big strapping man, picking up the pieces of flesh, carrying them, praying and never speaking again and never working a day in his life again. and at that moment at her team she found herself the head of the household with a father, two little brothers and sisters and had to start walking, and walked in very dangerous territory through the khyber pass all the way into afghanistan where she was living hand to mouth begging on the streets in the very poor city. i realize that no matter how

precise our bombs are, no matter how smart these bombs are, they are still killing innocent people and leaving a lot of people suffering. that is really the reason that i researched the drums and the reason that i do this work is because i think as americans we have to be thinking about the lives of people everywhere, not just our own children but children in pakistan and afghanistan or anywhere as kids as precious as her own. the other reason i want to do the look is because i realize that now that we are 10 years into war, that the american people are tired of war and that this this is, out in poll after poll and in fact the most recent poll shows that it's not just democrats or independents or green party members. its republicans as well.

in fact for the first time now we have a majority of republicans saying that the war in afghanistan is not worth fighting. which is something very significant because it's often hard to people when a war is going on and they still have american troops there to say this just is not worth fighting. also we have to recognize that with this country in a financial crisis more and more people are recognizing that these are now trillions dollar wars that we have been in, that this is part of the reason our economy has been in the shape it's in now and we just can't afford these expensive wars. i think the government understands that and is recognizing that if we are going to keep the wars going, it has to be through other means and not with boots on the ground where americans are killed and not this expensive old way of doing war but with the new way of doing more and that is the

drone strikes. the drone strikes are shown to the american people as a way to do war without putting our own soldiers at risk because there is no pilot in the cockpit and as a way of an alternative to boots on the ground. i use the whole book to kind of counter those arguments but let me step back for a minute and talk about what our drones. for anybody who doesn't know, drones come in all shapes and sizes. there are little bitty drones the size of insects and there are drones the size of birds. in fact your drones that are mimicking the hummingbird and different types of birds, dragonfly drones. there are drones the soldiers used to put in their backpacks and could launch them individually. these drones go out and survey the terrain before the soldiers go, and then there are the

larger drones, the size of a small airplane, the reaper and predator drones. those are the ones that are being used in these legal attacks. and they are made by a company called general atomics based in southern california. then there are very big surveillance drones like the ones called the global hawk that are the size of a commercial airplane. these can fly at 60,000 feet altitude and give you the side of entire city at once. so there are all kinds of drones. most of them are surveillance drones, but the larger surveillance drone can easily be equipped to be lethal drones as well. so, who is piloting these drones? well, some of you in this audience actually have been protesting at the hancock air force base which is one of the places where drones are being

piloted. another places outside of las vegas nevada and there are many bases around the united states square drone pilots are either being trained or drones are being tested or they are being piloted. this is a new kind of warfare where you don't even have to be in the area of the battle. you can be thousands and thousands of miles away, looking at the battlefield through a video screen. in fact, the manufacturers admit that the screens, the design is taken from the video game that teenagers have grown up playing and that is easier for them when they are recruited and become drone pilots. they are used to using these kinds of playstation's. and joysticks. in fact the u.n. has said that the u.s. has created a playstation mentality to war.

it is a very surreal kind of thing to think about pilots being in an air force base in the united states or drones are being run by the cia. they could be outside of virginia, and they are in an air-conditioned room. they are sitting in an ergonomic chair and they are looking for hours and hours on end at a scene in a place that they may never have been to, don't speak the language, don't know the culture, and they are hovering over people's homes for days at a time, sometimes weeks at a time. and they are the ones then that press the kill button. now it is -- studies have been done that show that these pilots are oftentimes having the same kind of trauma

that soldiers on the battlefield half because they are being asked to do something that i think our brains are not really wired to do and that is to kill people remotely during the day and then go home in the evening to their families where they are supposed to be loving fathers, loving husbands, integrated members of their community, part of their church group and this is very hard for some of these pilots to do. there is another problem that the pilots talk about and that is boredom. they are just sitting in front of the screen for hours and hours and hours on and. in fact some of them say they would rather be in the battlefield and they signed up with the military to be in the battlefield. they want to be with their buddies on the ground. so sitting in front of a screen, they are actually looking for some action, meaning looking for some kind of suspicious behavior.

drone strikes are happening in two different ways. one is that there is a kill link where you're actually going after an individual whose name you know. you for example, we have you on the kill list and we are going to go after you and try and try and try again until we get you. you are a high-value target. there is another type of list, and that is called the personality strike and in the other is called a signature strike. and that is based on suspicious behavior. when i get this talk about those remote pilots who are sitting thousands of miles away, and they are looking for suspicious behavior, what they might surmise is vicious behavior when it is really just perhaps a community meeting. the kill list, let's speak a

minute to talk about the kill list. when i was writing the book i was trying very hard to figure that out and getting all kinds of different theories about it. it wasn't until "the new york times" came out with this long story on may 29 about how intimately involved president obama is in this kill list. and to me this was a jaw-dropping piece of journalism because he was so detailed and it came from people who are presently in the administration or had been recently in the administration. and what was shocking to me was to learn that president obama brings in his advisor once a week on what they call terror tuesdays. and they sort through these profiles of people that they have information and a photo and

they look like baseball cards. they decide who is going to live and who is going to die. they played the role of prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner all at once. some might say they play played the role of god. some of the most shocking things in that article were that they admitted that he administration defines all men of military age in the zone where we are using those towns as militants. that to me was just astounding. to think that by definition, a young man living in the wrong place at the wrong time is a militant and can only be proven innocent post seamlessly after they are killed.

when that article came out, there were a couple of different reactions. won from congress who said oh my god why are they doing these kill list? they are killing so many innocent people in defining militants like that. instead they said why are they leaking information to the press, which actually is a pretty good question because it's supposed to be a secret program that congress wasn't even supposed to talk about. but it would be nice if more people in congress were shocked about the kill list itself. but it seems that the speculation is that the obama team thought it would be a good election strategy to have this piece come out and show how tough the president is on terrorists. in case there were people like independent voters who he is trying to win over that might think that this president is

soft on security, that this would be an example to show them that he was a tough guy and in fact people said it was easy for him to put people on the list. not a lot of handwringing went into this. but i think that this article actually backfired because as i travel around and talk to people, and find people who are suddenly aware of this program, and who are really shocked by it. so let me talk about some of the examples of who is being killed. in pakistan is the place where the drones have been used the most. we have also used the drones about in iraq and afghanistan as part of the larger war. the u.s. has also used drones in yemen, in somalia, and it appears they have used drones in

the philippines and in libya as well. now libya is an interesting case because when there were discussions among the public about the pros and cons of the u.s. intervening in libya, there was one thing that was really left out of the equation and that is whether or not it was a good thing to get involved militarily over gadhafi. the way in which it was done was to cut congress out altogether and the administration's justification for not even bringing this up for a discussion in congress is that when it's just an air war and they are using drones and no u.s. lives are at risk, then the congress really should have no say in that. and so think of the kind of usurpation of power by the executive ranch taking it away from the legislative branch and what kind of precedent this sets

for future people in the white house. we have also in the case of iraq, when the troops left, left's drones behind and put them in the hands not of the military but the state department. so we have the diplomatic ranch of our government in iraq having its own fleet of drones and we left drones across the border in turkey where they have been used to give information to the turkish government in conflict with the kurds. in fact the u.s. supplied information in an attack that left a lot of citizens killed. it puts the u.s. in the middle of another conflict that we shouldn't be an. in the case of pakistan, there were drone strikes under the bush administration that there were a total of 46 strikes during the entire time of the bush which worked out to one strike about every four days

once they started using the drone strikes. in the case of the obama administration they became one strike every four days. there have been over 320 drone strikes, the vast majority under the obama administration and some would say that the obama administration decided to capture people and put them in guantánamo because that turned out to be very messy. it was then at that debate whether they should have civilian trials are military trials are what you do with the people you found were innocent and they have got nowhere to go, that was cleaner to just kill people. the outcry that many people in the country had towards indefinite detention, guantánamo, the torture, extraordinary rendition we don't hear that kind of outcry against in the palm administration

policy of aesthetically killing people. in a the case of pakistan, it seems that there are no good statistics because there government doesn't tell us about these programs but there are several different organizations that have tried to compile the specifics. it's very difficult because journalists are not allowed into the northern part of pakistan where the drones are being used for some of the best figures say that they have about 3000 people that have been killed in pakistan. 175 of them children. another astounding thing is that you probably have never seen a picture of a child has been killed by a drone strike. you probably have never seen a picture of anybody who has been killed by a drone strike. our media doesn't seek out those stories, doesn't show us the photos. i will show you a couple today because again this is not what you see on your tv screens.

this for example is an 8-year-old child who was killed by a drone strike february 14. these are two boys who were killed in a drone strike in pakistan. we have many of these pictures that you can see on the web site, drone watchdog or. this is quite a gruesome looking picture and i know it's hard to look at, but this is what happens and drone strikes. in fact most of the time the victims are just pulverized and he won't even see this kind of grisly picture because there will be no remains. i wanted to read a little bit from the book the about a case of somebody killed than a drone strike and they tried to humanize this a little bit for you. this is the case of the family of a man named karim khan and

the drone strike hit his family compound in northern pakistan on december 31, new year's day for us, new year's eve, 2009. the drone didn't just hover overhead that night. watching the movement of the villagers below as it had done on so many other occasions. no, this time it let loose a missile into the very heart of korean family compounds. in the chaos of the explosion dissipated kahn rather and son had been blown to bits. news reports allege that the target of the drone had been a taliban commander but the villagers insisted that omar had been nowhere in sight. the tragedy that forever scarred the lives of karim khan's family appeared to be the product of mistake ,-com,-com ma a faraway

aggressor who the god no punishment for pressing the fire button without looking long enough, without checking and without double checking. to rhee -- korean's summit just graduated from high school. his brother was not a militant or even a militant sympathizer but a schoolteacher with a master's degree in english literature. for eight years he had been teaching at a small village school with whatever meager resources he could muster. he left behind a young wife, now a widow, so distraught she could not speak for weeks after the attack and a 2-year-old boy who would never remember his father. he said the drones were constantly buzzing around his village and they were terrifying to people, especially the children who would go to bed at night.knowing if they would wake up in the morning or not. little did the people at this conference in islamabad know that the first drone strike that

we documented was two days later and it was the drone strike that killed this young man, tariq sees himself. the people that were at that conference were outraged and they went to the u.s. embassy, they went to the u.s. government and they went to the pakistani government. they said why did we kill this young man? and the u.s. government said he was a militant. and the lawyers said well, we would like to see the proof that he was a militant but in any case, if you had any proof, why didn't she just come into the hotel where he was staying or the meeting where he was for four days and arrest him and give him a chance for a trial like you are supposed to do? there was no answer to that question. so what have the people of pakistan done? we know from wikileaks documents

that originally the government of pakistan's prime minister said okay, you do the drone strikes and we will express our outrage to the public about them. and that went on for a while until the government realized that so many innocent people were being killed. and that this drone strike program was counterproductive and it was driving people into the arms of the taliban and al qaeda, that it was turning them against the pakistani government itself and turning them against the american people. so the government of pakistan went to the u.s. and asked them to stop the drone program. the u.s. government said no. then it went to the national assembly where they voted once, they voted twice and they voted three times unanimously not to ask but to demand that the

united states stop the drone attacks and the u.s. government refused to do that. and so the pakistani people have been going out in huge numbers by the hundreds of thousands protesting the drone strikes. most pakistani people are hate al qaeda, hate the taliban and hate the drone strikes. in fact there was a hole that was just dug recently that showed of the pakistani people who had heard of the drone strikes, because there was not a lot of information the media there as well, 97% of them said that they were against the strikes. 97% of the population. you would think that would tell something to the obama administration, to the pentagon, to the cia that maybe this was not a good program but unfortunately it hasn't.

in fact with the u.s. government has done is just transfer this to another country and that is to yemen. the drone strike in yemen under the obama administration began in 2009. the first drone strike was a mistake, hit the wrong target and left 14 women and 21 children dead. only one person of the dozens who were killed was identified as having strong ties to al qaeda. if you want to get a sense of how successful the drone strike has been in yemen, when it first started in 2009, there were maybe 200 members of something called al qaeda in the arabian peninsula and they controlled no territory. today there they were maybe over 1000 people as members of this group and they control substantial territory. there was a very good op-ed piece that came out in "the new

york times" on june 13 written by a 23-year-old yemeni activist and it was really a plea to the united states government. the title of it was, how drone's help al qaeda. he said the drone strikes are causing more people to join radical since not driven by ideology but revenge and despair. he said the short-term gains for killing military leaders is miniscule compared to the long-term damage the drone program is causing. so, in yemen, it's not only a case of killing people inside gehman and oh i should mention when the drum programs started there it was under the dictatorship of a sally and people as part of the arab spring has started to rise up against him. he was the one providing information to the united states

about al qaeda so he was picking people out. that's al qaeda and that's al qaeda and of course these were just his political opponents. so in the case of yemen the u.s. drone strike was not only killing people from that country but they had been killing american citizens as well. i wonder in this group if you heard the case of anwar al-awlaki. some of you have been i think many people in this country have not. this is a cleric, a muslim cleric born in the united states, moved to yemen known for his fiery sermons. he was put on a kill list and killed by a drone strike along with another american named samir khan. there are organizations like the center for organizational rights in the aclu that have asked the u.s. government to provide the information to say how can you justify the killing of an

american citizen in the u.s. government has refused to provide the information. in fact until recently the u.s. government has refused to talk about this whole program at all. two weeks after the killing of anwar al-awlaki and samir khan there was another drone strike that killed an american citizen and that was his 16-year-old voip who was the son of anwar al-awlaki. his name is abdul rock monde al-awlaki. i just want to pull up this picture for you to see because he was born in denver. these are his facebook pictures. he said that he likes rap, he liked hip-hop, he likes swimming. he was just an ordinary american boy with no interest in politics. he was basically killed in a

drone strike, again perhaps being in the wrong place at the wrong time and perhaps being born to the wrong family. you might remember in the case of trayvon martin how president obama was very sympathetic and said, if i had a son he would have would have looked like trayvon martin. i can't help looking at this picture and thinking perhaps if president obama had a son, he might look like abdul rock monde al-awlaki. it would be nice if he had some sympathy for this young man as well. it is really quite astounding that a young american teenager can be killed by a u.s. drone strike without a huge outcry throughout this country. the administration has felt some pressure to justify this killing

spree and attorney general eric holder spoke in march of this year, trying to give some legal justification. now i have a whole chapter in the book about the legal issues because it's so important to talk about how illegal this program is. according to international law the janee that convention and the u.s. constitution, all kinds of laws that are being broken. the u.s. government to sum it up for you is basically saying we have the right to self-defense. our enemies are mobile from one country to another and we can go there as well. according to the legal definition shin of self-defense is very narrowly defined. there is an army amassing on your border and you have given your enemy a chance to surrender. now tell me how can somebody surrender to a hellfire missile?

you can't. the u.s. government is also saying that it has the right to go anywhere because in the aftermath of 9/11, congress gave the administration a green light to attack anybody associated with 9/11. well there's a problem there as well. a lot of the people that are being killed today were maybe 10 or 11 years old at the time of 9/11. and there's another problem with some of the organizations that are being attacked when yemen didn't even exist at the time of 9/11. and then there is this very strange and i would say macabre justification for the killing of american citizens overseas. and that is that it appears that the american people had been

misinformed about what our constitution actually guaranteed them. you might've thought 800 years after the magna carta when people had established over centuries the right to a trial, but somehow in our constitution you are guaranteed the right to a fair trial. did you think that? you were mistaken. you are not guaranteed the right to a fair trial. you are only guaranteed to something that is mysteriously called due process and it seems that the definition of due process by this administration, constitutional lawyer heading it is calling the guys for terror tuesday and deciding whether to put you on a kill list or not. it is terrifying and i looked for responses to eric holder's idea that we were not guaranteed any kind of judicial process. the best one i found was not

from a harvard lawyer or any constitutional lawyer. it was from a late-night comedian named steven colbert. you might've heard of him. steven colbert said yes, try -- trial by jury, rock paper scissors, who cares? the current process, the president meets with this advisor decides who to kill and then kills them. if we are ever going to win our never ending war on terrorism says colbert there are bound to be casualties in one of them just happens to be the u.s. constitution. let's give a hand for steven colbert. [applause] well, you might think that the u.s. can get away with it to kos we are the king of the drones. well, we are fast becoming one

of many many countries that have drones and that puts it in a whole different light. so the u.s. is number one producer and by far the number one user of drones. but coming up from behind is israel, that's right. the u.s. and israel have had a long collaboration in the development of drones that goes back for several decades now. in fact the predator in reaper drones that we are using today was developed by an israeli engineer who is working for the israeli defense forces. israel has used the drones extensively in the gaza strip. the operation -- in may of 2009 in which over 1400 people were killed, over 800 as people were killed by drone attacks.

israel also sells drones extensively overseas and in fact they are the number one exporter of drones and they have sold drones to over 50 different countries. and then there is another country that always seems to get on the bandwagon when it comes to manufacturing and that is china. go figure up. china seas, this is a multi-million dollar market and we are going to getting there and produce drones faster and cheaper than anyone else can make these drones and lo and behold the chinese are now producing several dozen different types of drones and selling them all over as well. so this is an arms race, definitely an ongoing arms race and it is "fast and furious" because people like leon panetta have called drones the only game in town. everybody wants drones, not only

states that nonstate actors. they can easily get their hands on a drone. let's think of a case that happened in iran. you might remember just a couple of months back that the iranians said they had hacked into a very sophisticated u.s. surveillance drone and brought it down without a scratch. they showed it to the world's tv cameras and said thank you very much president obama's for this very sophisticated gift you have given us and lo and behold couple of months later they had reverse engineered and they were now making their own very sophisticated surveillance drones. so you can see that what goes around unfortunately usually comes around. you've got to wonder what other countries are thinking. what are the iranians thinking? what are the chinese thinking? who they say they are terrorists

like the uyghurs that are living all around the world including here in the united states. why don't they just come and kill them here or what about the russians who say that they are at war with these chechnya terrorists and why didn't they just follow them wherever in the world but are and kill them with these drones? also known terrorists in miami like a man known for having downed a commercial airliner, a known terrorists living happily in miami. i have actually been to the apartment where he lives and i wonder what with the cubans be thinking about sending a drone into that apartment and killing him and perhaps a couple of neighbors in the process? that is what happens with these drones. they don't do it right now certainly to cuba because they would very afraid of a counterattack from the united

states. that there are very powerful countries and nonstate entities that perhaps would like to do the same kind of thing that the united states is doing and it's very dangerous. the possibility of blowback is very real. so that brings me to the other issue and that is drones here at home. so there is -- there is an entity in the united states the runs our airspace and that is called biff federal aviation demonstration. they have a mandate to look out for the safety of our airspace. they take that mandate very seriously which is why they have been very reluctant to give out willy-nilly permits to be using drones in the united states, because they know something that most americans don't know which is that the drones crash a lot. they crash all the time

actually. the air force has admitted that a third of their john's crash. one of the global hawks crashed last month in maryland and luckily it crashed into a swamp and didn't kill anybody but could have very well kill people in the crash. so the faa has given out a couple hundred permits. unfortunately they haven't wanted to let the american public know who has these permits. it was thanks to the freedom of information act request that we are starting to get information that there are about 300 current permits and they have been given out to federal agencies like homeland security, fbi, border patrol using drones on the southern and northern border. they have been given out to companies and the permits have been issued to some universities that were working with the fund

and they have been given to 30 police departments to experiment with the drones. the drone manufacturers have been very upset with the faa and said look, this is a growth industry. we need a market are going you to sell these drones here at home. let's speed up this process. they form their own lobby group and they wrote a new piece of legislation and they got their own members of congress to form a drone caucus. now think about all the things you can have a caucus about, to help schoolchildren, to feed the homeless, i mean you know a million things. there are group of 58 congresspeople that think it is their duty elected by we the people to going to congress and address what they say is that urgent need to see more of these unmanned vehicles being used both overseas and here in the united states. so they passed a piece of

legislation on february 14 of this year, signed by the president on valentine's day, a big valentine's day gift to the drone industry, that mandates the faa to open up our airspace completely to drones by the end of september 2015 at the latest and earlier for law enforcement agencies. so we are going to see 20, 30,000 drones being used here at home in the decades to calm if we don't do something about it. what is the market that the drone manufacturers use? there are many commercial uses. but they are drooling at the thought of 18,000 police stations in this country all having their own drones. i mention that 30 police stations are already

experimenting with these drones. you might say well, this is this is a time of budget cuts across the board and the police stations, where they getting the money to pay for these drones? does anybody have a suggestion? homeland security to the rescue, taking our tax dollars and going to police stations and saying, wouldn't you like to have a drone? here, we will give you the money to go out and buy it in to me it's like a drug pusher saying hey old girl wouldn't you like to try some of this and getting her hooked on the transcend than the other police stations are around saying hey we want some of that as well. that is what is happening right now. i'm going to just give you an example of a police station outside of houston in montgomery county that got a $300,000 rants from homeland security to buy a drone. the ceo of the company that sold

the drone said that it was for things like search-and-rescue missions. it was surveillance purposes and this drone could be outfitted with what we call -- control system so let me give you an example of what less lethal systems can be. you can imagine your own. beanbag firing guns called stun batons grenade launchers teargas rubber bullets and even a 12-gauge shotgun. they also talked about how we could use these for surveillance purposes, recognizing that these drones could be equipped with thermal and -- imaging, facial recognition techniques, wifi tracking capabilities systems to interdict text messages and phonecalls.

there was a sheriff at the press conference and he said no matter what we do in law enforcement somebody's going to question it. but we are going to do the right thing and i can assure you of that. so are you feeling reassured? well, for good reason. you are not the only one. in fact the aclu thinks that everything is being put in place now for a 24 sevenths surveillance society that would her family change the nature of public life in the united states. the people who are getting upset about that are not people just on the left or the right. this extends to many americans who value their privacy as well as their safety. in fact there are some interesting collaborations that we are now looking into. i just do not bid peace in the new york daily news with the cato institute. some of you might know the

interesting collaboration between codepink and the cato institute in which we wrote about the dangers of those drones and said that there should be legislation that says that no government agency can use our tax dollars to give police departments or law-enforcement agencies money to buy drones. senator rand paul introduced a piece of legislating saints -- legislation saying that the drones could not spy on americans without a warrant. there is a possibility of a broad collaboration to try to stop the 24 sevenths surveillance of americans before it starts. we are asking people as they travel around to do a very simple thing and that is call your police department. i am going to pass around three questions for you to ask your police department. they are very simple. do you have any drones? do you have any plans to buy any

drones and have you applied for a grant from a government agency to get any drones and then of course to add your own opinion about them getting drones. we are compiling this information on the web site of the electronic frontier foundation who is doing really wonderful work on this issue. the other thing we are asking communities to do is to bring resolutions before their city councils to declare their city a drone free zone. so would it be wonderful if you are in buffalo and you declared your city a drone free zone? [applause] thanks to your very active occupy and as well as the very act of peace community the resolution has already been introduced into the city council and there will be hearing about this on july 31 at 2:00 p.m. in

the buffalo city hall. [applause] so show up one and all and let's send a very strong message to the drone manufacturers as well as to the city and this government that we don't think that the drones in the hands of the police will make us any safer. so a couple of other things that are being done on the internet which is the level i wanted to mention. one is that while we are concerned about drones in the hands of the military, at least there are some rules in place about what happens when the military kills people. in the case of the cia there are no rules in place at all. the cia is not a military agency. agency. it is a civilian agency by any kind of international law. it is illegal for them to be having lethal drones and killing people with these drone so we are passing around a sign-up

sheet that is -- we are going to take into meet and to meet with senator dianne feinstein who is the head of the intelligence community and say -- committee and say senator please do your job and get drones out of the hands of the cia. [applause] we have been making connections with people in pakistan to tell them that the american people are not all silent and going along with these programs, that there are many of us who are speaking out now. once we made those connections, they came up with a proposal and said, it would be so powerful that the group of americans came to pakistan and linked arms with us and walked gandhi style to the region where the drone strikes are killing so many innocent people. won't you please do that?

and we set of course, we would be honored to do that with you. we have decided to take a delegation of the week of october 3 to 10th and we are inviting people in and the public to come and join us. we have information on the web site called drones watch.org and you can check the box going around here if you want more information about that peace delegation. and finally, i wondered if any of you were thinking, what about the u.n.? shouldn't the u.n. being doing something about this? the people in the u.n. have been speaking out against the drone program for years now but it's just recently that more action has been taken. in fact for the first time when the u.n. met in june of this year, they had commissioned a report on the drone program and came out with a very critical report saying that the u.s. had justified why was killing people

instead of capturing them and letting them have a fair trial. obviously many people in the u.n. are wondering the same as we are wondering here. they also had the u.s. must be accountable, transparent and should give reparations to the victims of the drone -- then there's a question of the international leve what about getting some regulation about these drones? there have been successful though difficult campaigns that have regulated other weapons like landmines and cluster bombs. in the case of drones it's going to be harder one because there is a very strong lobby in two because in a way the genie is out of the bottle when it comes to drones. but there have to be regulations. there's a group called the international committee for robot arms control.

made up mostly of scientists who recognize how dangerous this technology is and they came to a conference that we gathered in washington d.c.. they said if you think things are bad now, wait until you see what is in the works because where we are today in drone technology is where the wright brothers were with the airplane and what is being developed would knock your socks off. of course it would blow you up, but -- [laughter] and what they're really worried about is something called autonomous drones. that is when there is no human in the loop at all. there is no pilot even remotely, 10,000 miles away. these are pre-probe rammed drones that would be told where to go, what to look for and then would go out on their own to do it. they can call another drones in what they call a forum and just have a drone attack.

these scientists are saying we much -- must stop autonomous lethal drones before their use and we must put rules in place for the uses of any kind of lethal drones, that this technology is now outpace the regulations that we have internationally and of course domestically to deal with this technology. so these are some of the things that are happening both locally and internationally. and i wanted and looking for just a minute at the drone as a simple because it it is symbolic of the kind of attitude towards the world as well as a kind of economy that i think is keeping us on the wrong track here at home and in our relations overseas. in terms of here at home, we are suffering from a financial crisis that is really grounded in things like trillion dollar

wars that we have been in as well as an economy that is based on the benefit for the 1% and included in that one person is the 1% that benefits from these wars, the 1% of corporations that are getting all the contracts for these wars, the weapons manufactures. we have people desperate to work in this country and in my travels i have met drone engineers who are working in making drones when they would much rather be using their extensive talents to be making things that benefit people here at home. we need jobs for engineers don't have to make killing machines to make a living. [applause] and then in terms of the way that we are looking at the world, i'd give an example in the book of a study that was

done, a 268 different entities that were called terrorists groups. in the last 60 years, how did they dissolve? the study which is a very extensive study by the rand company shows that the vast majority of them, their demise came by negotiations, something very rare these days, came by better policing and only 7% came from the use of military force. now we are in our 11th year of trying a military of force against a problem that cannot be solved by military force. [applause] just about everybody who is associated with the attack on 9/11, and so now what we are

doing is creating more enemies faster than we can kill them. we are only perpetuating a war machine. our government has said we there have who's on the ground here and we have an expensive war in which the american soldiers can get killed, or we have drones. if it is time to to say to the american government, we want another option and that is polar troops out of afghanistan and ground the killer drones. under the worship administration there was a very strong vibrant antiwar movement. it was so strong and so vibrant that on february 152003 before the invasion of iraq, we organized the largest mobilization of people in human history about any issue. [applause] for eight years people came out into the streets in this country to say no to war.

by the hundreds of thousands. and then president obama got elected. many people thought okay, he's going to end the wars, let's give them a chance, let's give him a honeymoon. other people then got caught up in the financial crisis and had to focus on issues here at home. for whatever reason the antiwar movement fizzled out. but there is another reason and that is partisan politics. because many people who are sensitive to the killing of innocents overseas might find themselves in the democratic party and might find themselves supportive of president obama and at this point might find themselves very anxious to see him reelected. so they don't speak out about a killing spree that president carter said in a "new york times" op-ed recently would have never been allowed in any other administration. and so we are allowing this administration to get away with

something that is murder. we have to build a movement that is not attached to a political party. we have to build a movement that is attached to values, to morals, that says whatever government is empowered, that we want to relate to the rest of the world not through drones, not through bombs, not through tanks, not through killing but their kindness, compassion, through loud and to respect the international law and their own constitution. [applause] okay, let's open it up for discussion. asked me whatever you would like. >> it seems to me number one, the technology for these drones

are -- that's number one. secondly, since 1980 it may be said that we have been involved in the structural drift towards fascism in this country. and it's bipartisan. it has its highest point curly -- currently within this administration. james madison said that period of the executive would come in the future, interesting observation. so taking this idea off a movement, what is going to be the mechanism for the architecture of this movement? is it going to be just occupy and so on and labor and other groups? what is the mechanism? one other observation, that the u.s. is going to all these different countries with the drones and it may also be

understood -- though that that is an imperial theory. >> let me suggest, don't think this is a fascist country. i think we should recognize that we still have a tremendous ability in this country to move out and we have to use that ability. we have to recognize that we can mobilize in the streets. we can use civil disobedience. we can do sit-ins and we certainly have done them in our congressional offices. there are a lot of things we can do and we have to do more of them. ..

has been back. >> , . [applause] >> >> i have been talking about a obama the difference between him and net romney. not to way left but to very anti-obama but my question

the 2012 election if mitt romney is elected my work is more difficult. where do you stand? >> i don't feel wounded it is my position to encourage people to vote one way or the other. you have to vote your conscience. i could not vote to four obama zero knowing what i know. i will vote for the green party candidate. [applause] via understand people have all kinds of issues. you have to make a list and who would be the best candidate based on those

issues. we're not given enough choices. the two-party system is so limited. i'll look with envy at countries that if you get to 5% of the vote you get 5% of the representation and then with those third parties. look at what is important to you personally. to me is building movements independent of political parties. we have to vote to the lesser of two evils or put down the independent because we will start organizing one

of the two major parties. i will not do it. >> that movement does exist obama lo will probably wind. but we should not allow him to do this but remained a viable politician. [applause] but make sure he will not act with impunity and the truth is a matter of the president there are always progressive movements to hold them accountable.

we have gotten lazy and we need to get to. >> [applause] but rand paul was the only one speaking out but the other pulled obama to the right. now romney polls obama into a position and the military industrial complex boeing obama. ben in the other direction the demobilized peace

movement. you're absolutely right. how do they let anybody in the white house get away with that foreign policy. >> as far as regulation is limited but after somebody gets a permit is there any follow-up they are not be equipping with weapons if it is just a rich person or company? is there any follow-up for no other activity? >> is a great activity. -- question. if they have been given out for very specific uses but

they will not tell us. and those have already been violated. food drums permitted used on the northern border already used it to find somebody who stole six cattle then said isn't that great? it is already a violation. is an important question. i am trying to find out those meeting with the faa. it only has to do with safety. not privacy. then you are in another area. if you see the results of

that i do not know what kind of regulations their vote the for the less than lethal uses. >> that it is what is scary. i cannot find anything. >> i and agree. we should go to the national association of police because you are absolutely right. >> very disturbing 55. >> with the militarization of police with $3 billion over the last 10 years distributed to local law-enforcement with the military armed s.w.a.t..

it is day fusion center. with the terrorism taskforce. and with that creepy fascism that we see. >> take advantage of the occupied movement as dangerous as it is successful in terms of a violent movement is being used to justify the civil

liberties. >> the last comment goes to where i was going. the work with that lies ahead. the on organized masses we need to getting gauge. though there between progressive that block the forward movement. it is not dangerous but necessary. [applause] >> in terms of due process when we put that to been the context of national defense authorization act that says now it is legal to hold

people without charges pre-magnet carter level of civil liberties is shocking. what can we do ourselves? so just summarize with you what it buys us to do. >> i would not advise you when others have been doing but i will tell you what they said. [laughter] there are people who say rifles in the air ameritech, the first american to issue down a drone will be a full keogh.

[laughter] others have said we should have down the drums just like the iranians. i don't use those as by tactics they are part of being in the peace movement is prevention. we can form a relationship and go to our congress people to have discussions and o the united states there should be ditty after city whirled towns, conservative americans we have to appeal to make it non-partisan and reach out to people we often do not speak to. sometimes they will not to

talk to us like recently have been in philadelphia we tried to join with the tea party movement but they would not let us and. we reached out. in this area we need to find a lot of support. i have a lot of conservative people in my family. we have found common ground arco but then to show the progressive democrats. dennis kucinich usually cannot get traction but normally we get conservative

republicans and maybe even make some headway. there was an article put out that said the complaints about the drones were just on the fringe. which is of. [laughter] but now it is more mainstream a congressmen from a louisiana at wal-mart people ask me about the damned drums. -- drums. we could get to that resolution passed and we could try to stop the drones but i am glad people have put it in the context of militarization of the police force. people said i cannot come to your talk because people

fled the city council because the city of berkeley is talking about buying a tank. it is more of a larger issue. to keep it in that context. >> is there of chance to have some congress% or religious group that says the killing aspect is wrong or half's to be discussed? >> dennis kucinich did not even say it was wrong but we needed accountability. and to get to 25 other congress people which is astounding. >> is the election-year and they want to show support

for the administration and. >> baathist is a really good question and puzzles me to no end. i haveearched for people and the religious community and what they have to say about this. you think there would be remiss. it is hard to find religious leaders speaking out against it. we have to change that quickly. change our pastors, a priest, rabbis, all those who have the faith based

community. but the catholic worker community who are the most soulful, heart fall the best our country have stew author to care for the plant and trying to stop the killing puts their bodies on the line also my a codepink sisters who have been doing this in front of the air force bases, at the headquarters of the drones manufacturers.

a lot of vietnam era of that this i would think everybody who has done something make sure more of us come with you it would be good for somebody to explain what you have been doing. >> i wanted to get the microphone that here in buffalo we have a faith based group that has been a supporter of the of state coalition which is where the protest comes from. we have a couple. also says the veteran for peace has been part of the hancock walk.

everybody just stand up. we are hoping to not think this is a solution. it is a big problem. we're looking for a win-win. hancock field outside of syracuse withstood drawn operations working with fort drum and good drones and afghanistan.

we had a building protests. they are sponsoring the biweekly protest but that is a coalition of different groups we're getting some traction. all the problems with the violence are solidified and anything that makes the violence to perpetrate. fighting violence with violence is like fighting

fire with gasoline. we're glad to be part of a larger movement that is one of the things we do with hancock field. our first charge was disorderly conduct but they did, the officer did not write disorderly conduct for chromosome shocked i said the only way to be more orderly if we had done it in alphabetical order. [laughter] the second time was arrested again as the police liaison. a first arrested 60 or 70 people walking without a

permit to and assembling without a permit to. >> that was used against dr. martin luther king. >> it was the pre-emptive arrest. because of these meetings but we're finding ways to prevent our petitioning the government for redress and we are working under the nuremberg principles to stop the illegal act of our

government. we had and international law expert to the illegality of the drones. [applause] of couple of you talked about seeing me with the counter terrorism chief who was speaking for the first time addressing the drone program. trying to keep myself from being pulled out the door. it is not easy to do, easy to get arrested are the counter terrorism chief, but we have to. john brennan said we have not killed one civilian he

also called drones at the call just and surgically precise and why is. it is very sad it comes from somebody higher up in the history shin. one thing how proud i am for those who put their lives on a line will into go to jail who stand up for all human life and i also want to recognize the work ahead of us to convince the other americans. they might be quicker to agree, they still living under the cloak of the year

that allows them to think it is a kay to kill people overseas. of the militant could just want to leave their country and the american people allowing us to kill innocent people including teenage boys. the saddest thing i've read is eight out of 10 americans said it is a kay to use against terrorist suspects suspects -- suspects including liberal democrats and they said it is okay to kill the american overseas to was a suspect. on the of the hand there was

a similar poll taken of 22 different countries that shows the vast majority of people who think the strikes are atrocious and a barbaric way to address the international conflicts of anxious to see american people joined the world community. at least we can feel we are part of a global community to give us inspiration. >> thank you for everything you have done. [applause] those that stand up for a justice and compassion and a visible way. and reassessment of the sleeping peace movement

occupy has not really begun. lot of things are happening right now. something is happening. i see these movements collectively. what have you discovered is the administration's military goal to kill people in the country in the northern half of pakistan? what are they hoping to do by killing people? what military goal is

achieved? >> fact it is in pakistan the surge is unsuccessful. although they send more troops into afghanistan that it just wasn't happening and pakistan those that are fighting s are spilling over. so much of this is protocol showing military strains. five above to be the fly on the wall. to make sure there is no

other terrorist attack. if it means we launched more hellfire missiles and kill innocent people in the process when with so be it if we have to make sure there is not an attack during the election year. it comes with the idea is it is a military solution. there is not that much of a major transformation when it comes to the military and the cia. it is the same mindset and a

reflection of the ability to have a military solution even with boots on the ground. those with the policy now all using drones in africa lonesome betty stop and allowing it to have been will keep happening. >> trying to refuse orders talk about those who legalities and i am concerned about the

education process why people are willing to kill the innocent people. >> a number of people are content is objectors. those who are speaking out that just have been around vietnam's. there would be a huge confuse movements that could end already. with on the 1% of the population, we're all affected but they are directly involved makes it harder to build up the peace movement.

it will take more work and effort. we need allies on the inside who are speaking out who are afraid to speak out those whose voice is arsine as legitimate. people from the obama administration have left and speaking out to i find it disgusting george bush, dick cheney, rumsfeld, a condoleeza rice, colin powell make so much money

from retained their memoirs. i scrape together $5 polar a speaking speeeleven day propagate the lives if they did when they were an office. codepink has spent telling people take some handcuffs and tried to arrest them. when you have no accountability for the sins of the past you have none for this. >> here is what comes to mind. talk about the government, the military, coming back especially during sports

season. approach says we are behind. we should sit down. it is we the people that have to do it. everything goes back to the simple bumper sticker. if the people the, the people will follow. and specifically to the peace movement. inclusion to do the work we need to do.

i am in love with you. >> i am so inspired by this community that has shown me how you can integrate the local economy with the global picture. we do not want to see the local and the global. you really are a model for us. thank you for bringing it back you are the ones i have been waiting for. thank you. [applause]

>> the longest serving senator from kentucky their republican leader in the united states senate and the four most republicans and in history. born in alabama came to kentucky when he was young got involved with fed county judge executive which is the largest city and ran for the

u.s. senate in 1984 and has been reelected four times. is a steady upward climb and he kay men with no connections or reputation and built that on campaign finance reform resisting measures and got into the leadership and would aspire to become the senate majority leader semi their primary who legislative expertise instill fly obery supposing campaign finance reform that would infringe upon the first amendment. the effort -- for most

advocate for burma but he has been toying for many years. he recently went to two burma. he had a measure to protect those institutions in hong kong and involved in a lot of legislation when dealing with national security wiretaps. very soft-spoken and a big university of louisville sports fan, read history and does his own grocery shopping and tell stories of people he meets and tries to

keep in touch and tries to come home to stay in touch with ball game is. he is pleasant and does not manifest a temper but doesn't mean he does not get upset. his reputation shows him a clever operator a master parliamentarian built his reputation on legislative strategies and thought to to play hardball you can make a deal with him and it will stick. >> the democrats describe

him with the grudging respect. he is worth less -- ruthless but they admire what he has done for this state that is predominantly democratic. but mcconnell made his way up has helped to open days to build a stronger republican party and the state. negative aq can describe him as widely respected. and the people of kentucky with prominence that leadership he brought back

things to kentucky. they can say mitch mcconnell helped us. he was not just the ideologue. he has smeared where the republican party has been. he has been marinated in the institutions of the senate. but unlike a lot of senators he never wanted to be president he has been a creature of the chamber and never really thought he was

the president. >> interviewing countless people that senator mcconnell had a lot of interviews. i met him before but we were not close acquaintances. i would not have done the book 50 did not cooperate. it is not official but he did cooperate. sometimes i would share with him and he would say where it might be wrong but he would say is your book here is my take on that. sometimes parts would remain

he did not agree with. whether president reagan had coattails that helped him to win the 1984 election. i happen to think there is something to it. there also criticisms i am sure he would dispute the administration and is where it is different but for the most part who i am an agreement with the mcconnell philosophy. there are instances where we