US DRONE SURVEILLANCE PROGRAM VIOLATES CITIZENS' CIVIL LIBERTIES

       Washington, 10 Rabi’ul Akhir 1434/ 19 February 2013 (MINA) – The United States domestic drone surveillance program has been sharply condemned by experts who say that Washington violates American civil liberties, according to Press TV reports as monitored by Mi’raj News Agency (MINA), Tuesday (19/2).
      “This kind of policy for unlimited surveillance. I think this is a dangerous precedent,” said Mounzer Sleiman, a US national security affairs analyst, adding that Americans “assume that this country is free and we have a constitution and we preserve the rights of every individual.”
       His comments came as the US Federal Aviation Administration announced last week that it has issued some 1,428 permits for domestic drone operators since 2007 and that another 10,000 permits could be issued over the next five years.
      The US Department of Homeland Security also confirmed that it had received a massive response from potential drone-building vendors, and was moving toward more tests of the technology for “public safety applications”.
      Experts criticized Washington for its aggressive pursuit of a domestic drone program, saying it violates privacy rights, while drawing on similarities with the foreign drone policy used in warzones in the Middle East.
      The use of assassination drones overseas under the administration of US President Barack Obama has caused national and international debates.
     “We’ve been talking about this for a good while, the immorality of drones, dropping bombs on innocent people,” said Princeton professor Cornel West, calling him a “war criminal” over Washington’s killer drone program.
       “I can’t see a greater collapse when the executive can kill its own citizens arbitrarily, at will, in secret, without any of the decision-making becoming public,” said WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, adding that the deadly campaigns denote the “collapse” of the system in the US.
      The US has used its assassination and surveillance drones in several countries including Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Somalia.
      The remote-controlled aircraft vary in size and form with some being as small as model airplanes and others as large as military Predators.
      The United Nations says the airstrikes are targeted killings that flout international law. (T.P06/E1)

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Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)