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FAA approves four companies to fly commercial drones - Decision come as FAA drafts regulations for drones to share the skies with passenger planes. Ref. USAToday
Downing drone at beach leads to jail
ENCINITAS A confrontation over a drone flying above beachgoers ended with damaged equipment, a man behind bars and lingering questions over the line between public air space and personal space. Augustine ... Ref. Source 5v
Air Force Times runs ad urging drone pilots to disobey orders:
A US veterans' organizations is running an advertisement in Air Force Times urging military drone operators to refuse orders to fly attack missions. This comes as the Air Force encounters trouble retaining drone operators due to the stress of the job. Ref. Source 4r
Former Drone Operators Say They Were "Horrified" By Cruelty of Assassination Program:
U.S. DRONE OPERATORS are inflicting heavy civilian casualties and have developed an institutional culture callous to the death of children and other innocents, four former operators said at a press briefing today in New York. Ref. Source 7j
President Barack Obama's administration estimated that between 64 and 116 civilians have died during the years 2009-1015 from U.S. Drone strikes outside of Iraq and Afghanistan.
In the same time span, the administration said between 2,372 and 2,581 militants had been killed by drones.
In an executive order, Obama tasked his administration with working in a uniform way to ensure that civilians aren't killed by drones.
Human rights groups are unlikely to be satisfied by the methods the administration used to calculate the figures and the geographic boundaries of the disclosure. Even ahead of the report's release, they dismissed the anticipated tally as being too low. Ref. CNN.
A man who's suing the U.S. Government for killing his family in a drone strike just made history;
The case could wind up peeling back some of the layers of secrecy surrounding America's use of drones in its wars. Ref. Source 5i.