Write or Call Your Member of Congress Today: Make the U.S. Come Clean on Drone Killings

For years, New York State has been a center for protesting the immoral and illegal U.S. policy of using drones to carry out targeted killings.

Today, people protesting drones are contacting their representatives to encourage support for H.R.4372: the Targeted Lethal Force Transparency Act. If passed, the bill will require the Obama administration to come clean about the killings it has carried out using drones -- killings that, up until now, the administration has been able to pretend don't exist.

So now's the time: write or call your member of Congress today. 

To determine what district you live in, go to http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/

To see an example of a constituent letter, see An Open Letter to Congressman Mike Quigley on H.R.4372: the Targeted Lethal Force Transparency Act


New York Congressional Delegation

(Members of the Progressive Caucus are presumed to lean in favor of the bill and are marked Progressive Caucus; members of the Drones Caucus are presumed to lean against the bill and are marked Drones Caucus. As for those who are members of both . . . ?)
 NY01 - Timothy Bishop - (202) 225-3826 email
NY02 - Peter King - 202) 225-7896 email
NY03 - Steve Israel - (202) 225-3335 email
NY04 - Carolyn McCarthy - (202) 225-5516 email
NY05 - Gregory Meeks - (202) 225-3461 email
NY06 - Grace Meng - 202-225-2601 email
NY07 - Nydia Velázquez - (202) 225-2361 email (Progressive Caucus)
NY08 - Hakeem Jeffries - 202-225-5936 email (Progressive Caucus) 
NY09 - Yvette Clarke - (202) 225-6231 email (Progressive Caucus)
NY10 - Jerrold Nadler - 202-225-5635 email  (Progressive Caucus)
NY11 - Michael Grimm - (202) 225-3371 email
NY12 - Carolyn Maloney - 202-225-7944 email (Progressive Caucus)
NY13 - Charles Rangel - (202) 225-4365 email (Progressive Caucus)
NY14 - Joseph Crowley - (202) 225-3965 email
NY15 - José Serrano - (202) 225-4361 email (Progressive Caucus)
NY16 - Eliot Engel - 202) 225-2464 email
NY17 - Nita Lowey - 202-225-6506 email
NY18 - Sean Maloney - 202-225-5441 email
NY19 - Christopher Gibson - 202) 225-5614 email
NY20 - Paul Tonko - (202) 225-5076 email
NY21 - William Owens - (202) 225-4611 email
NY22 - Richard Hanna - 202-225-3665 email  (Drones Caucus)
NY23 - Tom Reed - (202) 225-3161 email
NY24 - Daniel Maffei - 202-225-3701 email
NY25 - Louise Slaughter - (202) 225-3615 email (Progressive Caucus) (Drones Caucus)
NY26 - Brian Higgins - 202-225-3306 email 
NY27 - Chris Collins - 202-225-5265 email

[SEE: hub page for all Resources to SUPPORT the "Come Clean on Drone Killings" Act (Schiff/Jones HR 4372: the Targeted Lethal Force Transparency Act)]

Related posts

First Reps. Raúl M. Grijalva (D-AZ) and Keith Ellison (D-MN) called the U.S. on the carpet for dodging the call from the international community to come clean about its drone killings. Then Reps. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Walter Jones (R-NC) submitted a bill calling for drone transparency. So ... are we finally going to get the truth?

(See REAL Progressives Demand that the U.S. Come Clean on Drone Killings)

A 2013 U.N. report makes it clear that the U.S. has to report fully on all its drone attacks.

(See 2014: The Year of Transparency (for U.S. Drone Use)?)

The reason the Administration is hiding truth about drones is that they don't have a satisfactory answer for how decisions about drone strikes are made.  As we have known all along, we need the public to think about how crummy the whole drone program is, and then they will be ready to be on our side. The best way to get them really thinking is to shine a spotlight on the secrecy, evasiveness, and deceit involved in the U.S. drone program.

(See Drone Killings: Come Clean )

New York State's 21st Congressional District: Living Under Drones?

by Joe Scarry

So here's an interesting question: the Federal Aviation Administration recently designated Griffiss International Airport near Rome, NY, as the hub of one of the first six designated drone testing locations in the country, in New York State.

Griffiss is located NW of Utica, near the southern edge of
New York State's 21st congressional district.

But where, exactly, are they going to be flying those drones?

If I lived in the northeast corner of New York State, I would be very concerned that I will soon be "living under drones."

You see, it takes a lot of space to test drones.  In fact, the military has grabbed so much of the states of New Mexico and Colorado for their test site that activists there have begun calling it "the Pentagon's 51st state."

Which is not to say that drone testing and training leaves people alone.  An infamous profile of drone training in New Mexico, published in The New York Times, shows just how "hands off" these activities are:

When I visited the base earlier this year with a small group of reporters, we were taken into a command post where a large flat-screen television was broadcasting a video feed from a drone flying overhead. It took a few seconds to figure out exactly what we were looking at. A white S.U.V. traveling along a highway adjacent to the base came into the cross hairs in the center of the screen and was tracked as it headed south along the desert road. When the S.U.V. drove out of the picture, the drone began following another car. 

“Wait, you guys practice tracking enemies by using civilian cars?” a reporter asked. One Air Force officer responded that this was only a training mission, and then the group was quickly hustled out of the room.

(See "The Drone Zone" by Mark Mazzetti, New York Times, July 6, 2012.)

And the new test site is not all. The district also lies a short distance from the site of Hancock Air Force base near Syracuse -- one of the main drone warfare operating centers in the U.S. and the site of ongoing protests by the large and growing community of antiwar activists in that area.

Hmmm ... drone base ... drone test site ... lots of space to test drones .... Will New York's 16,000 square mile 21st congressional district soon be claiming the state's motto -- "Excelsior!" (upward) -- for its exclusive use?

Excelsior!

A lot of candidates and party operatives are eying the 21st and pinning their political hopes on it.  If the people of the 21st want to stop the drones, now's the time.

In recent days, the state GOP has designated its chosen candidate to run for the House seat in the 21st district. Will Elise Stefanik put her foot down about drones over the skies of the 21st?

Or perhaps that task will fall to the GOP "rebel," Joe Gilbert, who says he will continue to run against Stefanik. says he expected the endorsement of Stefanik by the region’s GOP chairs.

“My campaign is rooted in our founding principles. It is the individual freedom, the individual political sovereignty where we the people are the masters of government, not the other way around. My guiding principle is the Constitution. My guiding principle is the Bill of Rights. Government exists to protect the individual rights of its citizens. And if I feel it is not doing that any longer, then I am going to stand up very strongly and say no. My mission all along has been to bring my message to the people and to the voters and that’s what I’m going to do.”

And there is no news yet who will run on the Democratic ticket. The seat in the 21st is expected to be heavily contested: the incumbent, Democrat Bill Owens, is retiring, and the seat has traditionally been held by a Republican. Moreover, due to redistricting the borders of the district are different than in recent years.

The primary in New York State is expected to be held June 24. 

Related posts


There will be elections for 435 House seats in 2014. In at least some of those races, U.S. surveillance, secrecy, and assassinations will be an issue.

Herewith an Insider's Guide to the 7 S's (surveillance, secrecy, and assassinations) in the 2014 Midterms.

(See Will the 2014 Midterms be a Referendum on Obama's Surveillance, Secrecy, and Assassinations? )

April 2013 -- Following the Convergence to Action, a weekend of workshops, panels, and organizing meetings in Syracuse headed by the Upstate NY Coalition to Ground the Drones and End the Wars, nearly 300 activists came out to Hancock AFB on Sunday in a massive demonstration that helped to cap the nationwide April Days of Action Against Drones, which included events all throughout the state.

(See April Days of Action Against Drones Culminates with a conference in SYRACUSE and a massive demonstration at Hancock AFB- 31 arrested)

Events throughout New England were part of the April Days of Action Against Drones in 2013.

(See Boston, Maine, NH events during April Days of Action Against Drones)