Month: September 2012

Shelling Out: New Reports Shows UK Has Spent £2bn on Drones

Chris Cole

Drone Wars UK is today publishing a report that shows the UK Government has already spent over £2 billion purchasing, developing and researching drones and unmanned systems since 2007.

The report, Shelling Out: UK Government Spending on Unmanned drones, finds that the UK has spent £872m on five different drones that are currently in service with British forces, including £506m on the armed MQ-9 Reaper drone.  The UK has committed  a further £1,031m to developing new drones such as the Watchkeeper UAV and BAE Systems Taranis drone.  Finally the UK has funded £120m of research within UK universities and British defence companies looking at  unmanned systems.  This included £30m funding for the ASTRAEA programme to open up UK civil airspace to autonomous drones. Read more →

More on legal action over US drone strikes

Chris Cole

On both sides of the Atlantic, legal challenges related to US drone use are about to hit the courts.

Tomorrow the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) will take the CIA to court for refusing to comply with a Freedom of Information request for copies of documents related to the CIA’s drone strike programme.

The CIA has refused to comply with the FoIA request on the grounds that it is forbidden to talk about the secretive programme.  The ACLU say that the CIA cannot on the one hand refuse documents on the grounds of secrecy while at the very same time regularly give  briefings about its drone strikes.    Jameel Jaffer, the deputy legal director of the ACLU told the Guardian: Read more →

Mapping drone proliferation: big business vs. the MTCR

Chris Cole
Countries that have drones according to GAO report

A new US Congress report on the proliferation of drones has confirmed a huge rise in the number of countries that now have military unmanned aerial systems.  The US Government Accountability Office (GAO) has published an unclassified version of its February 2012 report on the proliferation of UAVs.  The report examines both the proliferation of UAVs, commonly known as drones, and examines US and multilateral controls on the export of drone technology. Read more →

David Cameron: End the secrecy surrounding the use of British drones!

Chris Cole

Drone Campaign Network launch new petition

Drone Wars UK is a member of the Drone Camapign Network, an network of NGO’s and local  groups in the UK campaigning on the use of drones.   The network has launched a new campaign to end the secrecy surround the British use of drones in Afghanistan.   Here’s more detail: 

Since June 2008, UK forces have carried out around 300 airstrikes in Afghanistan using armed unmanned aerial vehicles (commonly known as drones), controlled from thousands of miles away. Although there is some public information about US drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, there is almost no public information about drone strikes carried out by the UK in Afghanistan. Read more →

Europe to open skies to drones by 2016 says Commission document

Chris Cole

In an obscure working document, the European Commission has announced it is working on plans to open European civil airspace to unmanned drones by 2016.  This follows the signing by President Obama earlier this year of the FAA Appropriations bill which mandated that US airspace must be opened to drones by 2015. 

The European Commission (EC) plan was revealed in a Staff Working Paper published on September 4th 2012 entitled  “Towards a European strategy for the development of civil applications of Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems”.

The document  summaries the conclusions of the year-long European Unmanned Air Systems Panel which began meeting in July 2011and recommends setting up a European RPAS [Remotely Piloted Air Systems] Steering Group (ERSG).  The aim of the ERSG, writes Peter van Blyenburgh, President of UVS International, (the main European drone lobby group) on the UAVS Vision website is to “foster the development of civil RPAS by planning and coordinating all the activities necessary to achieve the safe and incremental integration of RPAS into European air traffic by 2016”.

Surprisingly – or not depending on your view of the inner workings of the EC – membership of the ERSG has already been decided and it has already met to begin its work before its existence was announced.  The group is co-chaired by the EC’s Directorate-General Enterprise & Industry and Directorate-General Mobility & Transport.  Other members include representatives of other EC directorates plus what it calls a whole range of “stakeholders”.  These include industry bodies including UVS International, the main drone lobby group.

The ERSG has established three working groups and is planning to publish by December 2012 a “comprehensive roadmap” towards the integration of civil drones into European airspace by 2016.