Unmanned Systems For An Unsafe World, Part Two.

Back in March we spotlighted a series of ads for unmanned military drones in the Capitol South Metro station. We could not really pin point it (perhaps it was somehow related to the uncanny valley) but there was something off-putting about the thought of unmanned killer drones. It turns out that unmanned fighting drones are not only being used by the military, but by the CIA as well. And the CIA has been authorized to kill American citizens with them:

The Obama administration’s decision to authorize the killing by the Central Intelligence Agency of a terrorism suspect who is an American citizen has set off a debate over the legal and political limits of drone missile strikes, a mainstay of the campaign against terrorism.

The notion that the government can, in effect, execute one of its own citizens far from a combat zone, with no judicial process and based on secret intelligence, makes some legal authorities deeply uneasy. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/14/world/14awlaki.html?hp