July, 01 2016, 03:15pm EDT
U.S. Releases Official Casualty Numbers and New Executive Order on "Targeted Killing"
The Obama administration today released statistics revealing how many people it believes it has killed since 2009 in drone and other airstrikes "away from areas of active hostilities," including the number of civilians. It also issued an Executive Order providing for the regular disclosure of similar information in the future.
The release estimates that drone strikes in these areas have killed between 64 and 116 non-combatants.
Hina Shamsi, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's National Security Project, had this reaction:
WASHINGTON
The Obama administration today released statistics revealing how many people it believes it has killed since 2009 in drone and other airstrikes "away from areas of active hostilities," including the number of civilians. It also issued an Executive Order providing for the regular disclosure of similar information in the future.
The release estimates that drone strikes in these areas have killed between 64 and 116 non-combatants.
Hina Shamsi, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's National Security Project, had this reaction:
"Although we welcome this release, it's hard to credit the government's death count, which is lower than all independent assessments. The government continues to conceal the identities of people it has killed, the specific definitions it uses to decide who can legitimately be targeted, and its investigations into credibly alleged wrongful killings. The American public can't be confident that the government is using lethal force legally and wisely with a disclosure that's so limited as to be virtually meaningless."
Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director of the ACLU, had this reaction to the issuance of the executive order:
"The issuance of the executive order is a positive step, but the transparency it promises is very shallow, and not sufficient to allow a meaningful assessment of the government's policies. In addition, it's important to remember that the next president can revoke this order with a stroke of a pen. While we welcome today's disclosures, transparency about the drone campaign should not be a matter of executive grace. Both the courts and congress have a role to play in ensuring that the public has the information it needs in order to understand and assess the government's policies."
In the coming days, the government is expected to release a redacted version of the Presidential Policy Guidance that has supplied the policy framework for many U.S. drone strikes since 2013. That release will come in response to an ACLU lawsuit pending before Judge Rosemary Collyer in the Southern District of New York.
This statement is at:
https://www.aclu.org/news/us-releases-official-casualty-numbers-and-new-executive-order-targeted-killing
The American Civil Liberties Union was founded in 1920 and is our nation's guardian of liberty. The ACLU works in the courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to all people in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States.
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After Classified Iran Briefing, Dems More Convinced Trump Wants Ground Invasion and Forever War
"I am more fearful than ever, after this briefing, that we may be putting boots on the ground," said Sen. Richard Blumenthal.
Mar 04, 2026
Senate Democrats said after receiving a classified briefing from the Trump administration on Tuesday that they're increasingly concerned about the US-Israeli war on Iran dragging on "forever"—and involving American troops in a ground invasion.
"I am more fearful than ever, after this briefing, that we may be putting boots on the ground," Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) told reporters, criticizing the Trump administration for not providing the American public with information that was given to senators behind closed doors.
Blumenthal's warning came a day after President Donald Trump publicly declined to rule out a ground invasion of Iran, saying he doesn't "have the yips with respect to boots on the ground."
"Every president says, ‘There will be no boots on the ground.’ I don’t say it," Trump told the New York Post. The Trump administration's letter formally notifying Congress of the initial attacks on Iran—sent days after the war began—said "no United States ground forces were used in these strikes."
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) emerged from Tuesday's briefing—which included Pentagon Secretary Pete Hegseth, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, and other top officials—"more convinced" that the war on Iran "is going to be open-ended and forever."
"This feels like a multitrillion-dollar open-ended conflict with a very confusing and constantly shifting set of goals," said Murphy. "They told us in that room that there are going to be more Americans that are going to die."
"We shouldn't be voting to proceed to other pieces of legislation until we get a debate on this deeply unpopular, immoral, and illegal war with Iran," Murphy added.
Here's what I believe: no more business as usual in the Senate. We shouldn't be voting to proceed to normal legislation until Republicans schedule a debate and a vote and on a declaration of war against Iran. Let's see if Trump has the votes to authorize war. I bet he doesn't. pic.twitter.com/KIrkMD54yQ
— Chris Murphy 🟧 (@ChrisMurphyCT) March 4, 2026
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) addressed her concerns to the American public, saying in a video posted to social media that "it is so much worse than you thought."
"You are right to be worried," said Warren. "The Trump administration has no plan in Iran. This illegal war is based on lies, and it was launched without any imminent threat to our nation. Donald Trump still hasn't given a single clear reason for this war, and he seems to have no plan for how to end it, either."
I just left a classified briefing with the Trump Administration about the war in Iran.
I was worried before, but I’m more worried now. pic.twitter.com/HoSWLVWrR8
— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) March 3, 2026
The briefing came after the Pentagon announced it would be sending additional troops to the Middle East as the American death toll rose to six—and the Iranian death toll neared 800 and counting.
The Trump administration, which has neither sought nor received congressional authorization for military action in Iran, has repeatedly declined to provide a clear timeline or objective for the attacks and offered muddled justifications for why they were purportedly necessary.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters after Tuesday's briefings that the administration aims to "systematically" dismantle Iran's ballistic missile program, "destroy their ability to sponsor terrorism," and "destroy their Navy"—goals that go well beyond protecting the United States from a supposedly imminent threat.
On Wednesday, the Republican-controlled Senate plans to begin voting on a war powers resolution aimed at forcing the president to end military operations in Iran.
"Every senator will have to go on the record to declare whether it is in our best interest to send our sons and daughters into conflict against Iran," said Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), the measure's lead sponsor. "I pray that my colleagues will vote to end this dangerous and unnecessary war that has already resulted in the loss of six servicemembers and injured others. We owe it to those in uniform, their families, and all Americans to not make the same mistakes that we made in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
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Democratic Lawmakers Demand Probe Into DHS Warrantless Location Tracking
“Location data is extremely sensitive, and can reveal someone’s religion, their political views, medical conditions, addictions, and with whom they spend time."
Mar 03, 2026
Over 70 Democratic US lawmakers on Tuesday demanded a new investigation into warrantless purchases of Americans' location data by Department of Homeland Security agencies—including Immigration and Customs Enforcement—which critics say violate the Fourth Amendment prohibition of unwarranted search and seizure.
In a letter to DHS Inspector General Joseph Cuffari, 72 congressional Democrats led by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-NY) wrote, "Public contracting documents indicate that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) recently resumed buying Americans’ location data from a shady data broker" after the agency "ended a previous program to purchase Americans’ cellphone location data in 2023, following an investigation by your office and scrutiny from Congress."
"Location data is extremely sensitive, and can reveal someone’s religion, their political views, medical conditions, addictions, and with whom they spend time," the lawmakers' letter states. "It is for that reason that ordinarily, the government must obtain a warrant from a judge in order to demand such data from phone or technology companies."
While the Fourth Amendment generally prohibits the government from searching or obtaining Americans' private information without a warrant, federal agencies have circumvented the proscription by buying sensitive personal data from private brokers.
"Public reports indicate that ICE has resumed its location data purchases, even though DHS has yet to adopt all of the recommendations from your prior review," the lawmakers noted in their letter.
The letter continues:
ICE issued a no-bid contract to the surveillance company PenLink in 2025, which included licenses for its location tracking product, Webloc, according to press reports. Webloc was developed by the controversial surveillance company Cobwebs Technologies, which was combined with Nebraska-based PenLink as part of a $200 million private equity deal in 2023. Cobwebs gained notoriety when Meta banned the company in 2021, as part of a crackdown on surveillance mercenaries after detecting the company’s customers targeting activists, opposition politicians, and government officials in Hong Kong and Mexico.
ICE is now stonewalling congressional oversight into its purchase of location data. Sen. Wyden’s office requested a briefing from ICE soon after this contract was revealed in the press, in October, which was scheduled in December, for February 10, 2026. One day before that briefing was to take place, ICE canceled it with no explanation and without any offer to reschedule.
"Given DHS’ failure to adopt a policy for the use of commercial data, coupled with ICE awarding a no-bid contract to a shady data broker that is likely violating federal law, we urge you to open another investigation into the purchase," the lawmakers wrote.
The letter asks:
- Whether ICE and other DHS components are purchasing illegally obtained location data about Americans;
- If so, why does DHS not have policies in place to prevent taxpayer dollars from going to contractors that have invaded Americans’ privacy in violation of federal law;
- How ICE and other DHS components have used location data and whether they have used it to investigate Americans for engaging in constitutionally protected activities, including protesting or monitoring ICE operations;
- Whether ICE and other DHS components are auditing employee access to commercial location data to identify likely patterns of abuse; and
- Why has DHS still not adopted a policy for the use of commercial location data, as you recommended in 2023?
As the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) recently explained, ICE has spent $5 million on Webloc and Tangles, another location and social media surveillance product made by PenLink.
According to EFF:
Webloc gathers the locations of millions of phones by gathering data from mobile data brokers and linking it together with other information about users. Tangles is a social media surveillance tool which combines web scraping with access to social media application programming interfaces. These tools are able to build a dossier on anyone who has a public social media account. Tangles is able to link together a person’s posting history, posts, and comments containing keywords, location history, tags, social graph, and photos with those of their friends and family. PenLink then sells this information to law enforcement, allowing law enforcement to avoid the need for a warrant. This means ICE can look up historic and current locations of many people all across the US without ever having to get a warrant.
There have been several attempts to solidify restrictions on government purchase of Americans' personal data in recent years, most notably the Fourth Amendment Is Not for Sale Act (FANFSA), which failed to pass.
Last month, Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) introduced the Security and Freedom Enhancement Act, which would reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act but is also intended to protect Americans from warrantless spying, including by closing the data broker loophole that lets law enforcement buy their way around the Fourth Amendment.
Also last month, Rep. Shontel Brown (D-Ohio) led 13 Democratic lawmakers who sent a separate letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem seeking answers about ICE's use of PenLink surveillance technology "designed to collect and analyze cellphone location data across entire neighborhoods."
"Mass surveillance of entire communities or city blocks raises serious questions about data privacy and potential violations of civil liberties," Brown wrote.
"Americans should be able to trust their government to uphold the Constitution and respect fundamental rights," she added. "Instead, DHS appears to be engaging in broad surveillance practices to monitor entire communities, violating Americans’ fundamental civil rights and civil liberties to punish dissent and advance the president's cruel and unconstitutional mass deportation agenda."
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"The American people are firmly against this war and will see straight through this ruse," said one campaigner.
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As the House of Representatives faces mounting pressure to pass Congressmen Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie's war powers resolution to end the US-Israeli assault on Iran, six right-wing Democrats on Tuesday introduced a competing bill that would give President Donald Trump a green light to keep waging war in the Middle East for the next month.
Khanna (D-Calif.) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) have been pushing for their H.Con.Res.38 since shortly before Trump bombed Iranian nuclear facilities last June. Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Saturday attack has ramped up demands for Congress to pass that resolution, along with S.J.Res.59, introduced last year by Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.).
Those resolutions, expected to receive votes this week, were already facing uphill battles in both Republican-controlled chambers, and all-but-certain vetoes if they ever made it to Trump, whose administration claims "Operation Epic Fury" is about preventing a nuclear-armed Iran, while critics around the world accuse him and Netanyahu of engaging in an illegal regime change war.
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"There is a concern that the Khanna-Massie war powers resolution currently requires the immediate withdrawal of US forces, even while Iran is actively targeting American troops, assets, embassies, and our allies across the region," they said in a statement. "It is vital that we allow for a safe transition, that protects our service members, embassies, and allies, not a potentially precarious withdrawal."
While proposing a 30-day window for ending the conflict—absent an authorization for the use of military force or a formal declaration of war from Congress—the six Democrats also said that "an open-ended commitment by the administration and the recent implication from the secretary of defense that ground troops may be engaged are both unacceptable."
Politico called the new measure "a sign of how some Democrats are struggling to reconcile their opposition to the Trump administration's military action with a desire to appear hawkish on national security—even in a largely symbolic capacity."
The outlet also noted that when asked about the latest proposal during a Tuesday news conference, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said that "our focus is on the resolution that will be on the floor this week."
"We'll continue to make the strongest possible case," Jeffries added. "There is going to be very strong Democratic support for the war powers resolution across the ideological spectrum."
Cavan Kharrazian, a senior policy adviser at the grassroots group Demand Progress, was far more critical, declaring that "of course Democrats who raced to applaud Trump's illegal war in Iran, and in one case was pardoned by him, would draft a pro-war war powers resolution meant to sabotage the real war powers resolution receiving a vote this week."
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