“St. Bonifacius gets it!” said FBI whistleblower Coleen Rowley, known for exposing intelligence failures before the 9/11 attacks, while addressing a crowd that had gathered in the social hall of St. Albert the Great Catholic Church in Minneapolis on April 6 to protest drones and war.
“They realized drones are targeted on us and have banned drone surveillance. They need to do this in Minneapolis and every other city.”
What Rowley was referring to was the announcement that the Twin Cities-area town of St. Bonifacius, which has about 2,300 residents, had become one of the nation’s first cities to ban the use of drones, sort of.
The city banned drones from city airspace up to 400 feet, but since higher altitudes are managed by the federal government, high-flying drones would be legal, and the city allowed some exceptions, including drone usage for emergencies and search warrants, as well as individuals using drones over their own property.
Drones have reportedly never been used in the city, but Mayor Rick Weible said the arrival of aerial drones in the city’s airspace was imminent, and he didn’t want the new technology used against citizens of St. Bonifacius.
“When I look at the potential uses of drones, I have an obligation to my residents to defend their Fourth Amendment rights,” he said.
Though Weible says he would be open to purchasing a small, remotely piloted aircraft with an infrared camera to help firefighters in their search for trapped persons in burning buildings, but says a lack of leadership at the federal and state level regarding drones gave him too many reservations.
Weible has said that part of the reason the city implemented the ban was to spark a public debate about the issue in Minnesota. “There seems to be a rush to use this new tool within the U.S., but our state and county laws are fairly silent on the issue right now,” he said.
The timing of the drone ban in St. Bonifacius could have not been more appropriate, as on the same day, the Minnesota Peace Action Coalition (MPAC) hosted an event as part of month-long, nationwide protests against the use of drones internationally and nationally.
While the point of the gathering was to raise awareness about wars and drone usage, some speakers like Mel Reeves, a member of Occupy the Hood, told the crowd: “You know the evils of drones and war, now I want to inspire you to do something about it.”
“It may seem improbable to stop drones and war, but it’s not impossible,” Reeves said. “War is immoral, drones are immoral. These [politicians] are not like me and you. The way they kill folks? With a combo of napalm and shrapnel and cluster bombs, is gross!”
Drones are here — what do we do about it?
During her speech, Rowley discussed the “lies and terms that have been hijacked” in the Department of Justice’s White Paper on drones, which “sets forth a legal framework for considering the circumstances in which the U.S. government could use lethal force in a foreign country.”
She stressed to the audience that they had to be careful to not repeat the lies used in the white paper while discussing the issue, as doing so would make them part of the propaganda machine. The lies Rowley was referring to included using alternate words for actions, such as “enhanced interrogation” instead of “torture”; “targeted killing” or “lethal operation” instead of “assassination”; and said “national security law” was used as a euphemism for “unlawful, illegal national security actions.”
Rowley stressed that education about drones is important, giving the example that although murder is illegal in foreign countries, the last four pages of the white paper document make a public authority exemption to murder. “This is why you have to know what you’re up against,” she said.
Cheryl Daytec, a Filipino human rights lawyer and activist and fellow at the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute at the University of Minnesota, agreed with Rowley and said the U.S. criticizes human rights abuses of other countries, but forgets about those human rights laws it violates. She dubbed this act “American exceptionalism.”
Daytec shared that while looking for Indonesian terrorist, Umar Patek, in 2006, the U.S. attacked the Philippines — a nation that is supposed to be a large ally of the U.S. — with a drone strike. “The strike didn’t kill the terrorist, but [civilians],” she said, continuing on to say that countries like Pakistan, Yemen and the Philippines are not a playground for the U.S. to experiment with drones.
“[The U.S.] kills a lot of innocent people,” stressed Reeves. “[Politicians] don’t kill who they say they’re going to kill,” he said, adding that the U.S. qualifies an acceptable amount of civilian deaths as part of the war on terrorism.
How many drones does it take to create and maintain a democracy?
About 76 countries have drones, but only three nations have used them so far: the United States, United Kingdom and Israel.
Groups like MPAC and the Anti-War Committee, Twin Cities Peace Campaign, Veterans for Peace and Women Against Military Madness, stress the importance that the public know and understand that drones are used on American citizens and not just internationally. The use of drones on American citizens is why St. Bonifacius also called for a two-year statewide moratorium on drones until the public can weigh in on how the technology will be used, and whether its images and other data can be used as evidence in court.
“Police have policies and procedures on all of the actions that officers take with firearms,” Weible said. “I want to be sure that we’re holding drones to that same level.”
Though the ban likely won’t affect the large military drones that would fly in airspace controlled by the federal government, and are equipped with weapons and high-altitude cameras, usage of ordinary drones, remote-controlled flying vehicles that can be the size of a basketball and cost $25,000 or less, will be.
As a local Minneapolis poet, Misty Rowan, said during the event, it takes about 300 people to operate one drone for one day. She answered the million dollar question in Washington on how to fix the budget, by recommending that the government “land some drones, man.”
Rowan also lightly suggested that we may soon see bumper stickers that say “No dolphins or citizens were harmed in the making of this democracy.”
The Federal Aviation Administration currently allows about 325 police departments, universities and government agencies to use them to catch crooks, patrol borders, search for missing children and study crops with drones. Other professionals that have either considered using drones or have used drones include realtors and journalists.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has raised concerns about government use of drones, citing the Fourth Amendment’s protection from unreasonable search and seizure. In early February, Charlottesville, Va., became the first city in the U.S. to pass an anti-drone ordinance.
“This is great technology, but we’ve got a keen interest in protecting privacy and civil rights for our citizens,” said Hennepin County Sheriff Rich Stanek. “The question is how we’ll do this and balance it all out.”