Join us: ANTI-KILLER DRONE ACTIVISTS SEEK MEETING WITH JHU PRESIDENT

National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance, 325 East 25th Street, Baltimore, MD 21218 PHONE: 410-366-1637

PRESS RELEASE-FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE May 7, 2012

CONTACT: Max Obuszewski 410-366-1637 or mobuszewski at verizon.net

ANTI-KILLER DRONE ACTIVISTS SEEK MEETING WITH JHU PRESIDENT

WHO: The Pledge of Resistance-Baltimore is a part of the National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance [NCNR], which organizes direct action against U.S. wars. For example, NCNR members went to the National Security Agency on October 9, 2011 to seek a meeting with the director Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander to discuss the NSA’s involvement in U.S. war plans.  Instead of getting a meeting, fourteen citizen activists were arrested and are scheduled for trial in U.S. District Court on May 29 in Baltimore,

WHAT: NCNR decided to focus attention on the government’s use of killer drones.  Since Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory has a contract to do drone research, NCNR, on May 1, sent a letter to Ronald J. Daniels, JHU president, and Dr. Ralph Semmel, director of the APL, seeking a meeting.  There was no response to the letter, so a group of NCNR members are going to the Homewood Campus to seek a meeting with the president.

WHEN: Tuesday, May 8, 2012 at 1 PM

WHERE: Johns Hopkins University, Homewood Campus, 3400 North Charles Street, Baltimore, MD 21218

WHY: Jurists, political leaders and even the former director of the National Security Agency, General Michael Hayden, have questioned the use of drones to kill.  See the op-ed in the Los Angeles Times by Doyle McManus on February 5, 2012, “Who reviews the U.S. 'kill list’?” This is what McManus wrote: “When it comes to national security, Michael V. Hayden is no shrinking violet. As CIA director, he ran the Bush administration's program of warrantless wiretaps against suspected terrorists.” Then the op-ed brings up the case of Anwar Awlaki, a U.S. citizen killed by a drone in Yemen, and Hayden is quoted: “’We needed a court order to eavesdrop on him, but we didn't need a court order to kill him. Isn't that something?’” Go to latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-mcmanus-column-drones-and-the-law-20120205,0,876903.column.

 

It is both baffling and shocking that our government has assassinated U.S. citizens without even a pretense of due process. These hunter-killer Reaper drones and other forms of unmanned aerial vehicles cause horrific destruction.  But who decides the use of drones? Who decides who to target? Laws of war make it illegal to target civilians.  Doesn’t the U.S. Constitution guarantees due process to U.S. citizens and probably non-citizens?

 

The Nuremberg Principles obligate citizens to challenge governments involved in illegal activities.  These Principles forbid wars of aggression, attacks on civilians and extrajudicial assassinations, all associated with drone warfare. Citizens have a duty to act where they can to prevent violations, even if the violations are committed by their government or a university engaged in research which helps develop the weapons used illegally.

 

"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs