Leaked Documents Reveal 'Insane' US Drone Program

The anonymous source is being called a second Snowden
By Michael Harthorne,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 15, 2015 4:27 PM CDT
An unmanned US Predator drone flies over Afghanistan. New government leaks revealed damaging information about the US drone program Thursday.   (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth, File)

(Newser) – A number of damaging secret government documents about the United States' drone program were published online Thursday after being leaked by an anonymous source "within the intelligence community," CNN reports. The new whistleblower is being called a second Edward Snowden. According to Politico, the anonymous source calls the process for how the White House decides who gets targeted for killing by drone "insane." "We’re allowing this to happen," Wired cites the anonymous source as saying. "And by 'we,' I mean every American citizen who has access to this information now, but continues to do nothing about it.” The so-called "Drone Papers" were published on The Intercept, the same investigative website that published Snowden's leak.

Among the reveals in the Drone Papers:

  • Up to 90% of drone killings over a five-month period weren't the intended target.
  • The government creates "baseball cards" of potential targets.
  • A Pentagon paper from 2013 states drone strikes are often based on shaky intelligence and hurt further intelligence gathering.
  • It took President Obama an average of 58 days to sign off on a target.
Read the full Drone Papers here.

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