State Sanctioned
A clearinghouse for information, analysis, and resources related to state sanctioned violence in the United States
The War on Terror
If you encounter a broken link, try the “archived” version instead.
Jump down to: Central Intelligence Agency — Civilian Casualties — General Commentary — ISIS/ISIL — Islamophobia — Spying and Surveillance — Torture — Drone Warfare — Military Prison & Detention — In-Country
Central Intelligence Agency and Secret Operations
Aftermath of CIA-MI6 Drone Assassination is Horrifying, Business Insider, April 14th, 2016
The Appearance of Disappearance: The CIA’s Secret Black Sites, Financial Times, March 17, 2016
‘Eyewash’: How the CIA deceives its own workforce about operations, Washington Post, January 31st, 2016
Showtime Documentary Collects All of the Former CIA Chiefs, Winston Salem-Journal, December 31st, 2015
The not-so-secret history of special ops, Watertown Daily News (reprinted from Washington Post), December 15th, 2015
Checkmate on ‘the Devil’s Chessboard,’ Consortium News, October 27th, 2015
Jeffrey Sterling’s Selective Prosecution, Consortium News, October 17th, 2015
With less oversight, activists fear more civilian casualties from drone strikes, PBS News Hour, December 26th, 2015
The New York Times and Washington Post are ignoring civilians killed by US drone strikes, Huffington Post, October 22nd, 2015
Doctors Without Borders airstrike: U.S. alters story for fourth time in four days, The Guardian, October 6th, 2015
Media and Political Responses to San Bernardino Massacre Reveal Racial Coding and Assumptions of Collective Guilt, ColorLines, December 4th, 2015
Syed Farooq is an American: Let’s stop the Muslim vs. Christian debate and take a look at ourselves, Salon, December 3rd, 2015
You probably think this war is about you, The Washington Post, November 12th, 2015
The War at Home: Drones, Torture, and the Impatient State, AntiWar.Com, October 22nd, 2015 (archived)
U.S. Soldiers Told to Ignore Sexual Abuse of Boys by Afghan Allies, New York Times, September 20th, 2015
Terror Network or Lone Wolf? Disparate Legal Treatment of Muslims and the Radical Right, Naomi Braine for Political Research Associates, June 19th, 2015
The U.S. and Al-Qaida in Love and War – Glen Ford for the Black Agenda Report, June 17th, 2015
Terrorism Fueled by State Violence, Extrajudicial Killings, and Ethnic Tensions by Cahal Milmo for The Independent, June 15th, 2015
From Drones Abroad to Police Brutality at Home, U.N. Slams U.S. Human Rights Record, Lauren McCauley, Common Dreams, May 12th, 2015
What U.S. Intelligence Predicted the World Would Look Like in 2015, Uri Friedman for the Atlantic, December 31st, 2014; read the full CIA report here
Lynching is Torture and Torture is Lynching – Richard Kreitner in The Nation, December 15th, 2014
America’s secret African drone war against the Islamic State, Middle East Eye, December 29th, 2015
The Islamic State creates a new type of jihadist: part terrorist, part gangster, Washington Post, December 20th, 2015
Obama’s speech reminded Americans that the war with ISIS is still illegal, The Guardian, December 6th, 2015
Iraqis think the U.S. is in cahoots with ISIS, Washington Post, December 1st, 2015
Obama’s drone war a recruitment tool for ISIS, U.S. air force whistleblowers say, The Guardian, November 18th, 2015
President Francois Hollande asks presidents of U.S., Russia, to join forces against ISIS, Times of India, November 17th, 2015
France Launches Massive Airstrike on ISIS Stronghold in Raqqa, The Guardian, November 16th, 2015
What is France doing in Syria? The Atlantic, November 15th, 2015
As U.S. Escalates Air War on ISIS, Allies Slip Away, The New York Times, November 7th, 2015
The Company Getting Rich Off the ISIS War, The Daily Beast, August 2nd, 2015
In Effort to Neutralize ISIS and Protect American-Trained Forces, U.S. to Conduct Air Strikes in Syria, Huffington Post, August 2nd, 2015
US Predator Drone Crashes in Iraq After Suffering ‘technical complications’ While Conducting Spying Mission on ISIS, The Daily Mail, July 22nd, 2015
ISIS Transforming Into Functioning State That Uses Terror as a Tool, The New York Times, July 21st, 2015
ISIS was Born in Abu Ghraib Prison by Serdar Karagoz in the Daily Sabah, November 18th, 2014
Trump fails history: how the U.S. right’s failure to understand Japanese internment drives anti-Muslim hatred, Salon, December 28th, 2015
Formerly Interned Japanese Stand Up Against Anti-Muslim Hate, Microsoft News, December 23rd, 2015
What Happens When White People Are Asked About White Terrorism? Black Youth Project, December 4th, 2015
Surprise! NSA data will soon be used for domestic policing that has nothing to do with terrorism, Washington Post, March 10th, 2016
Obama’s Abuse of the Espionage Act, Consortium News, November 4th, 2015
Court Approves Civil Rights Lawsuit Against NYPD for Spying on Muslims, Colorlines, October 15th, 2015
No-fly list uses ‘predictive assessments’ rather than hard evidence, US admits, The Guardian, August 10th, 2015
White House responds to Snowden Pardon Petition, Slate, July 28th, 2015 (archived)
NSA to Purge Database of Phone Records Collected Under Mass Surveillance, the National Journal, July 27th, 2015
Feds Regularly Monitored Black Lives Matter Since Ferguson, The Intercept, July 24th, 2015
Drone Maker Sees Growing Maritime Surveillance Market, DoD Buzz, June 30th, 2015
Glenn Greenwald: Of Course They’re Still Spying, Jorge Ramos for Fusion, June 18th, 2015
New Senate Bill Would Require Warrants for Federal Aerial Surveillance, George Joseph in The Intercept, June 17th, 2015
Government’s Secret Surveillance Site May be About to Get a Little Less Secret, Max Rosenthal in Mother Jones, June 12th, 2015
Global Opposition to US Surveillance and Drones, but Limited Harm to America’s Image, Pew Research Center, July 14th, 2014
Mass Surveillance Exposed by Snowden ‘not justified by fight against terrorism,’ The Guardian, December 8th, 2014
Surveillance Surge on the Border, Tom’s Dispatch, July 11th, 2013 (see also Immigration –> Militarization of the Border)
Mapping Muslims: NYPD Spying and Its Impact on American Muslims, Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, circa 2012/2013, PDF: Mapping Muslims NYPD Spying and its Impacts on American Muslims
Guantanamo Bay inmate describes torture methods, International Business Times, December 15th, 2015
UN: governments must refrain from torture even outside their borders, The Jurist, October 22nd, 2015
Human Rights Report: US is Violating Judicial Rights and Not Punishing Torture, News Everyday, August 17th, 2015
New Effort to Rebut Torture Report Undermined, Intercept, August 5th, 2015
Anti-torture reforms opposed by psychology group after damning report, The Guardian, August 2nd, 2015
How America’s Psychologists Ended up Endorsing Torture, The Economist, July 28th, 2015 (archived)
Five Steps to Choosing Torture: Psychologists Breaking Bad, Huffington Post, July 24th, 2015
Credit: Mike Luckovich, Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Gitmo Nurse Who Refused to Torture Inmate Faces Navy Retaliation, RT News, July 24th, 2015
Untangling the Circular Logic of America’s Torture Apologists, Council on Foreign Relations, July 24th, 2015
US: Joint Appeal to Investigate Torture, Human Rights Watch, June 23rd, 2015
On the ‘Ethics’ of Complicity with Torture, Global Research, July 22nd, 2015
Obama Simply Switched from One War Crime that Increases Terrorism to Another, Center fro Research on Globalization, July 21st, 2015
Guantanamo Bay psychologists to remain despite APA torture fall-out, The Guardian, July 15th, 2015
OHSU prof’s response to the ‘enhanced interrogation’ report, Portland Business Journal, July 14th, 2015
Psychologist who warned of torture collusion gets her due, The Guardian, July 13th, 2015
Psychologists Could Torture Because They Have No Hippocratic Oath, The Guardian, July 13th, 2015
If Execution by Torture isn’t Cruel and Unusual Punishment, What is? The Guardian, June 29th, 2015
I Was Tortured. I Know How Important it is to Hold the CIA Accountable, Politico, June 23rd, 2015
Abu Ghraib and the Perversion of the ‘Political Question Doctrine’ by Steven Vladeck, for Just Security, June 19th, 2015
Torture is a War Crime the Government Treats like a Policy Debate, Trevor Timm for the Guardian, June 17th, 2015
US Has No Intention of Stopping Torture, According to Analyst, PressTV, June 17th, 2015
Senate Torture Vote Bans ‘Enhanced Interrogation’ Techniques like waterboarding, rectal feeding, International Business Times, June 16th, 2015
Human Experimentation: A CIA Habit, David Swanson for CounterPunch, June 16th, 2015
John Oliver Has Helen Mirren Read the Torture Report on ‘Last Week Tonight’ and its Still Pretty Horrifying, June 15th, 2015
CIA Torture Appears to Have Broken Spy Agency Rules on Human Experimentation, The Guardian, June 15th, 2015
Did ‘Enhanced Interrogation’ Break the CIA’s Own Rules on ‘Human Experimentation’? Frontline/PBS, June 15th, 2015
Avoiding the Torture Trap: Lessons Learned from Iraq, David Abramowitz for the Seattle Times, June 14th, 2015
Another CIA Torture Case Not Being Prosecuted, The Intelligencer, June 14th, 2015
Catholics, Evangelicals, Urge Anti-Torture Amendment, Catholic Philly, June 14th, 2015
Report Highlights Unknowns of CIA Torture that Still Remain – Jaime Fuller, Daily Intelligencer (New York Magazine), June 11th, 2015
CIA Interrogation Sessions “Out of Control” – Joyce Hackel, Public Radio International, June 2nd, 2015
I went to prison after exposing U.S. torture. Why were none of the perpetrators charged? Moyers and Company, May 15th, 2015
Former CIA Chief Claims Enhanced Interrogation Techniques Absolutely Effective, Pam Key in Breitbart, May 15th, 2015
Closing the Door on Torture, by whistleblower John Kiriakou, OtherWords, May 13th, 2015
American Psychological Association Bolstered CIA Torture Program, Report Says, New York Times, April 30th, 2015
General Taguba Shares ‘Unfiltered’ Stories of Abu Ghraib Torture, The Inquirer, April 20th, 2015
Court Denied FOIA Request for Panetta Review of CIA Torture, Just Security, March 31st, 2015
Few Have Faced Consequences for Abuses at Abu Ghraib, Los Angeles Times, March 17th, 2015
The Boys of Abu Ghraib (film review), Times of Oman, March 5th, 2015
The Disappeared: Chicago Police Detain Americans at Abuse-Laden ‘Black Site’ Spencer Ackerman for The Guardian, February 24th, 2015
Can Torture Ever Be Moral? New York Times op-ed, January 26th, 2015
The Case Against Torture – New York Times op-ed video by Brian Knappenberger
The Torture Question, Khalil Bendib for OtherWords, December 30th, 2014
James Mitchell, CIA’s ‘Torture Teacher’ Hits Back, Toby Harnden for Real Clear Politics, December 16th, 2014
The US paid torture doctors millions, The Guardian, December 16th, 2015
CIA Torture: Health Professionals Committed War Crimes, according to report, Dominic Rushe for The Guardian, December 16th, 2014
John Yoo: If Torture Report is True, CIA Officers at Legal Risk, Colon Friedersdorf for The Atlantic, December 16th, 2014
The Next Torture Report: US Legal Battle to Withhold Photos, by Raf Sanchez in The Guardian, December 15th, 2014
Why it Matters that Dick Cheney Still Can’t Define Torture by Paul Waldman in The Washington Post, December 15th, 2014
Antonin Scalia’s Spirited Defense of Torture, by Steve Benen, MSNBC, December 15th, 2014
Psychologists’ Role in CIA Torture Program Comes Into Focus by Joseph Tanfani and WJ Hennigan, in the LA Times, December 14th, 2014
Antonin Scalia’s Case for Torture, by Matt Ford for The Atlantic, December 13th, 2014
The Torture Party: Why Republicans Support the Most Sadistic Government Program in Recent History by Jonathan Chait in The Daily Intelligencer/New York Magazine, December 12, 2014
Even if Torture Doesn’t Work in the Real World, TV Has Us Convinced that it Does by Eric Deggans, NPR, December 12th, 2014
CIA Torture Report Poses Challenge to American Exceptionalism, Peter Weber, The Week, December 10th, 2014
John Yoo commentary on ‘the torture memos‘ by John Yoo for the UC Berkeley news, January 4th, 2005
Drone Warfare & Targeted Assassination
See also Immigration –> Militarization of the Border
Drone Stream – real-time data on reported U.S. drone strikes (also available as twitter feed)
DroneOn – tumblr with regularly updated news and commentary re: domestic and global drone programs
Artists in Pakistan Target Drones with Giant Posters of Child Victims, The Independent (UK), April 8th, 2016
What Italian drone pilots see as they scan Iraq for militants, New York Times, December 11th, 2015
Air Force proposes $3-billion plan to expand its drone program, Los Angeles Times, December 10th, 2015
Is James Bond more moral than a drone? The Daily Herald, November 10th, 2015
Air Force struggles to add drone pilots, address fatigue and stress, Los Angles Times, November 9th, 2015
Targeting Assumptions: The Questionable Ethics of Drone Warfare, Chronicle of Higher Education, November 8th, 2015
‘Drone Papers’ revelations are a cry for ending the slaughter, Huffington Post, November 5th, 2015
Why NYT Dissed the ‘Drone Papers,’ Consortium News, November 4th, 2015
The Inside Story of Predator Drones, PBS News Hour, October 29th, 2015
Drones, IBM, and the Big Data of Death, The Intercept, October 23rd, 2015
Where does this end? After drone papers leak, UK gov’t has a kill list of its own, Democracy Now, October 22nd, 2015
Killing by metadata: How drone warfare threatens Europe’s existence, Science Daily, October 22nd, 2015
The drone papers offer even more reason to end remote-controlled war, Truth Dig, October 22nd, 2015
Obama’s drone crimes, Socialist Worker, October 21st, 2015
As Drone Usage Soars in Latin America, Concerns Arise, McClatchy DC, August 31st, 2015
The Military’s Drone Obsession Isn’t Making Things Better, Five Thirty Eight, August 20th, 2015
Moral Theory and Drone Warfare, Lawfare, August 17th, 2015
It’s not risk-free war, it’s displaced war, Qantara, August 11th, 2015
Private Firms at Heart of U.S. Drone War, The Guardian, July 30th, 2015
Police power is emergency power, always, For Another Critique of the Pyramid (blog), July 27th, 2015
Five Things You Should Know About the CIA’s ‘Robotic’ Drone Assassination Campaign, Huffington Post, July 23rd, 2015
The Unquiet Sky, New York Times, July 22nd, 2015
Our Drone War Burnout, New York Times (op-ed), July 14th, 2015
Killing by Committee in the Global Wild West, Chatterjee in the Huffington Post, July 13th, 2015
Death from Above, Remotely Controlled: Obama’s Drone Wars, In These Times, July 9th, 2015
Eyes in the sky: the legal and philosophical implications of drone warfare, David Patrikarakos, New Statesman, June 25th, 2015
See How Drone Warfare Could Get Much, Much Scarier in the Future, iO9, June 22nd, 2015
Consider the humanitarian costs of drone warfare (op-ed), Battle Creek Enquirer, June 19th, 2015
America’s Drone Pilot Shrink Says They Need a Vacation from War, Defense One, June 18th, 2015
Obama’s Humble Approach to Drone Warfare, Paul Woodward for Eurasia Review, June 17th, 2015
Yemeni Whose Family Was Killed by Drone Strike Will Sue U.S. Govt by Kevin Gosztola for FireDogLake, June 8th, 2015
Drone Warfare and Collateral Damage: 98% of Casualties are Civilians by Tim Martin for Centre for Research on Globalization, June 8th, 2015
The Bureaucratic Utopia of Drone Warfare by Cora Currier for The Intercept, June 7th, 2015
Seal Team 6 and the History of Secret Kill Missions in Afghanistan, Dan Lemoth for the Washington Post, June 6th, 2015
Drone Strikes Equal Collateral Massacre by Tim Martin (op-ed), in Eureka Times Standard, June 6th, 2015
Interfaith Letter to Obama Expresses Grave Concerns About Drone Warfare, in Religion News Service, June 1st, 2015 – text of the letter, and more information about the Interfaith Network on Drone Warfare, available here
PTSD Is Higher in Drone Operators by Rebecca Hawkes for The Telegraph, May 30th, 2015
Beyond Drone Warfare: Prof Warns of Automated Killing Machines by Public Affairs, UC Berkeley News Center, May 28th, 2015 – read Russel’s full op-ed in Nature, May 27th, 2015
Can Drone Warfare Cause PTSD? video on Huffington Post, May 20th, 2015
Germany is the Tell-Tale Heart of America’s Drone War, Jeremy Scahill for The Intercept, April 17th, 2015
ACLU Files New Lawsuit Over Obama Administration Drone ‘Kill List’ The Guardian, March 16th, 2015
The secrecy around ‘kill lists’ lets the president act like a monarch, Fusion, March 16th, 2015
Drone Warfare: Life on the New Frontline, The Guardian, February 24th, 2015
Sudden Justice – an Interview with author Chris Woods on drone warfare by Virginia Moffat (~2014)
Navy SEALS and coverup claims amid Afghan detainees death, Tampa Bay Times, December 17th, 2015
Senate passes defense bill blocking Obama’s Guantanamo plan, CNN, November 10th, 2015
Congress OKs bill banning Guantanamo detainees from U.S., MSN/the AP, November 10th, 2015
Guantanamo Bay prisoners ask judge to ban use of female guards, The Guardian, November 4th, 2015
Democrats Continue to Delude Themselves About Obama’s Failed Guantanamo Vow, The Intercept, August 12th, 2015
Memoir: Inside Abu Ghraib, Army Times, June 19th, 2015
Federal Judge Orders U.S. Government to Release Photos of Abu Ghraib Abuses, March 20th, 2015
Few Have Faced Consequences for Abuses at Abu Ghraib Prison, Noah Bierman in the L.A. Times, March 17th, 2015
Will Anyone Pay for Abu Ghraib? – op-ed in the New York Times, February 5th, 2015
Detention Site Blues: CIA Torture in Poland in The Economist, December 11th, 2014
ISIS was Born in Abu Ghraib Prison by Serdar Karagoz in the Daily Sabah, November 18th, 2014
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