By Arthur Holland Michel In just over a week, no fewer than four lengthy reports about drone strikes have been released to the public. Christof Heyns, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial killings and Ben Emmerson, the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental …
Raphael “Trappy” Pirker is the founder and front man of Team Black Sheep, a group of hobbyist drone pilots who have gained global renown, and infamy, for their aerial videos of landscapes and cityscapes from Rio de Janeiro to New Zealand. Trappy first came into the public spotlight when he …
In September, Bard Classics professor Thomas Bartscherer delivered a lecture about drones and Plato’s Republic. Here are the notes. I. Background reading 1) Virgil, Aeneid, Book III (excerpt) 2) Apollonius Rhodius’s Argonautica, Book II (excerpt) 3) http://livingunderdrones.org/victim-stories/ 4) Conor Friedersdorf on the “Living Under Drones” report: 5) Joshua Foust …
By Dan Gettinger On Thursday, the United States and Japan signed a new security agreement that broadened the cooperation between the militaries of the two nations. As part of the agreement, the United States will establish a drone base at an undisclosed location in Japan. Up to four Northrop Grumman …
By Arthur Holland Michel At the Center for the Study of the Drone, the first question we asked when we received news of the U.S. government shutdown was, “How will the shutdown affect U.S. government drone use, both abroad and domestically?” Cyril Almeida, a Pakistani journalist, speaking for the Northern …
By Arthur Holland Michel On September 24, Bloomberg News reported that in the past year the defence contractor Northrop Grumman has greatly increased its lobbying spending to fight proposed cuts to the military’s Global Hawk drones, which Grumman makes. Grumman has focused its lobbying efforts, which amount to over $9million …
By Arthur Holland Michel In the public imagination, military drones shoot at things. But in fact, throughout their history, drones have much more often served to be shot at. This week, Boeing released a video of its latest drone project: an old F-16 fighter jet that had been turned into …
Departing from the recent drone art that plays into to the collective imagination rather than challenge it, Under the Last Sky brings the spectator into contact with the unseen technology that enables drone operations. Artists Elle Flanders and Tamira Sawatzky have re-appropriated a series of components–electrical wafers, complementary metal-oxide-semiconductors, active …
By Matthew Schroyer Sometimes, the most powerful ideas sprout from a series of seemingly intractable challenges. In 2011, amid the collapse of print media, widespread political upheaval, and natural and manmade disasters journalism faced a new set of challenges. The drone has now emerged as an effective and transformative tool …
We are no longer accepting applications for these positions. However, many other opportunities to become involved are available. Please email [email protected] for more information! The Center for the Study of the Drone is offering two paid internships to enrolled Bard students for the fall 2013 semester. MEDIA INTERN The Media …
To receive our roundup in your inbox, subscribe at the bottom of the page. News Speaking at the National University of Science and Technology in Islamabad, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said that drones should only be used for surveillance and intelligence gathering, and that they should always be deployed …
By Kurt Schmidlein “Our war on terror begins with al-Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated.” —President Bush, September 20th, 2001 Like many my age, my path to political awareness began …
