The Latest Drone War Strategy: UK Government Revokes Citizenship Then Kills

The UK’s Independent published an eye-opening article yesterday that details what is likely to be an increasingly popular strategy by authoritarian governments in the Western world that do not wish to be tied down with antiquated and prosaic notions such as the rule of law and basic human decency.  Basically, what the article exposes is that the UK’s Home Secretary, Theresa May, has the authority to strip British citizens of their passports if they are suspected terrorists.  Not only does she have this authority, but she has used it at least 16 times since 2010.  Unfortunately for those that end up with their citizenship stripped, they tend to end up in the crosshairs of a U.S. “freedom bird.”  From The Independent:

The Government has secretly ramped up a controversial program that strips people of their British citizenship on national security grounds – with two of the men subsequently killed by American drone attacks.

An investigation by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism for The Independent has established that since 2010, the Home Secretary, Theresa May, has revoked the passports of 16 individuals, many of whom are alleged to have had links to militant or terrorist groups.

Critics of the programme warn that it allows ministers to “wash their hands” of British nationals suspected of terrorism who could be subject to torture and illegal detention abroad.

Those affected have their passports cancelled, and lose their right to enter the UK –making it very difficult to appeal against the Home Secretary’s decision. 

The leading human rights lawyer Gareth Peirce said the present situation “smacked of mediaeval exile, just as cruel and just as arbitrary”.

Ms Peirce, a leading immigration defence lawyer, said, “British citizens are being banished from their own country, being stripped of a core part of their identity yet without a single word of explanation of why they have been singled out and dubbed a risk,” she said.

A Home Office spokeswoman said: “Citizenship is a privilege not a right. The Home Secretary has the power to remove citizenship from individuals where she considers it is conducive to the public good. An individual subject to deprivation can appeal to the courts.”

“The public good,” huh?  Who decides what the public good is?  Theresa May?  You don’t have to be a visionary to see how dangerous this power is and how arbitrarily and aggressively it could be used in the future.  Meanwhile, how cowardly can the UK government get.  Strip people of citizenship and basically sentence them to death and torture and then get U.S. drones to take care of your dirty business.  Pathetic.

Full article here.

In Liberty,
Mike

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2 thoughts on “The Latest Drone War Strategy: UK Government Revokes Citizenship Then Kills”

  1. the drone war is over it ended the day the irainains hacked and stole one the only ones who failed to notice were the us military.

    if you also failed to notice here is how this plays out: at some point a “hacker” WILL take control of an armed drone and use it against a US base or a target of us intrest , there will be an atempt at a cover up wich will fail , and congress under direct threat from the public will take the cia’s toys away PERIOD.
    russian “black box” tec. (what the irainians used) is now making its way to “terrorist groups” so it wont be long befor drones and even self guided ordence will be jamable from there it is just one short step to taking control , as it stands NOW those who allowed a ‘stealth” drone to fall to the irainians are in fact guilty of gross incompetence for having failed to forsee that it was possable and allowing top secret stelth tec.. to be incorperated in to one in the first place , this has now been compounded by the study comissioned by the military right after that clusterfuck , they gave some grad students a small budget and asked them to hack a drone that they flew every day in the area ……….they did it in just a few weeks using only a fraction of the funding given spending just $7500.00 on hardware if i recall corectly …………..yes it is exactly that simple, on a budget well with in the means of ANY government and ALL terrorest orgainations on the planet and knowledge available to any collage grad ANYBODY can dectect jam and steel a drone thus the entire program is in fact a liability not an asset ,

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