In December, 2017 I discovered a backup hard disk that still had data and various files from my work as a graduate research assistant in CSL, UIowa. That graduate research work was performed during October 2007 to June 2009, as mentioned earlier. The work I had performed there included creating psychometric analysis tools for measuring the performance of operators of manned and unmanned vehicles. Engineering psychology, operations research, and ergonomics were my main focus areas with a specialization in "work domain analysis." That is how I came to be involved in drone control systems design and development, from a human factors and ergonomics perspective, starting around September-October of 2007.
In early-2008, I had raised objections to how the systems' designs, created by the team of members working on particular defense projects, had eliminated the safety features for preventing drone based attacks on civilians and friendly soldiers. Those safety features had reached production and deployment stage by mid-2000s, even though drones were being flown by pilots in ground control-stations, using remote controls, throughout the US-Afghanistan war that had started in December 2001.
Since the early 2000s, drones have continued to become increasingly autonomous, with human operators moving more towards planning and supervisory roles in deployment of — both manned and unmanned vehicles equipped to have war fighting capabilities as EWACS.
Due to the large number of, supposedly unintended, casualties of automated drone warfare, CSL was provided grants by US-ONR via DARPA, to conduct research into root-cause analysis of mission failures, as well as for improvement of the artificial intelligence (AI) components programmed into fleets of EWACS, by using work domain analysis and "abstraction hierarchies."
Now, as a matter of fact, within the programmed components of automated war-machines, a number of software based control parameters exist for identifying combatant and noncombatant entities. Such control parameters were, and are, specially calibrated for identifying on-ground, US-led soldiers in the battlefield, by using electronic sensors and other camera based systems fitted onboard the autonomous vehicles used, and sold by US-led groups. More specifically, American versus non-American soldiers, even among coalition soldiers could be, and still can be accurately identified by various pieces of equipment onboard EWACS, because of passive and active radio-electronic devices that are carried by, or incorporated into the standard issued gear and kits, used by American soldiers and field operatives.
The aforementioned control parameters were necessarily programmed and installed into UAS to prevent the drones from firing at any entities that were identifiable as:
(a). Noncombatants i.e. civilians
(b). Friendly combatants i.e. coalition soldiers
(c). Combatants that were within close proximity of (a) or (b), with a safety margin that was sufficiently greater than the known blast radii of deployed missiles and artillery shells
All of the above parameters were eliminated from the control software for missiles launched from a variety of drone models as well as other drone assisted guided-missile systems. And the above-mentioned safety margin, for guided artillery equipment, was rounded down and reduced so greatly, that it was as unconscionable as eliminating it all together.
So why was that significant, or why does it still matter? It directly led to hundreds of soldiers from the US, the UK, and other coalition soldiers getting killed or severely wounded over the years, by "friendly fire." And thousands of coalition soldiers as well as tens of thousands of civilians were killed or permanently disabled because of those automated bombings and shelling. This information was known to the US military, its coalition commanders, and the engineering wings of private as well as state-funded organizations involved in the R&D of such drone related: identification, navigation, and targeting systems. The erroneous and faulty, opto-electronic and AI systems were, and are currently installed onboard manned as well as unmanned vehicles that can launch automated attacks within manually selected "combat zones."
In January 2008, when I continued to argue against the removal of safety parameters within the designs and programs for drone based target acquisition and attack systems; I was moved to a different project concerning remote pilots' trust in the displayed information on the control systems for those drones. I was sternly warned by my supervisor that it wasn't my job to tell the generals what they should or shouldn't do.
Following that project work, in July 2008, I was advised by my supervisor to move to a different project about Implicit Association Tests (IAT). And then, I later found out that research work on IAT was being used for desensitizing pilots and soldiers, to systematically make them more comfortable with killing targets that couldn't be properly identified as enemy combatants. During training and active duty missions, the decision making faculties as well as physical activities of those pilots and soldiers, were being further manipulated via biochemical and psychological techniques, for altering human physiological responses to information displayed on a vehicle's control systems. This was done, and is still done, by administering a combination of psychoactive stimulants and depressants prescribed to soldiers and operators, at various time periods of their training, as well as active missions and sorties.
The margin of error in being able to distinguish between friend versus foe, with the aid of equipment supplied by companies like FLIR, had already been compromised or completely eliminated from the control systems. This was done for allowing aerial vehicles, in autonomous as well as manual control modes, to execute targets without hesitation. That is how the malfeasance within engineering and operator training programs involving autonomous and semi-autonomous vehicles, has continuously played a causal role within increasing incidents of mass casualties, and targeted serial killings of civilians. Such deaths and destruction were not "unavoidable" casualties of war, nor have the ongoing civilian deaths due to drone strikes been some type of, "necessary collateral damage, for the greater good of humankind." And that is specifically because the means and motives to avoid those deaths and injuries, were deliberately thwarted by authority figures within R&D groups and military chains of command, for the purpose of delivering "shock and awe," which has remained an euphemistic command for deploying horror and petrifying terror, upon targeted peoples.
By fall-2008, I had become dejected and dismayed from being involved in such R&D work. But during the months when I had to work on those projects, I wasn't able to raise my voice strongly enough, nor was I able properly refuse the work, due to the pressure of being fired and not being able to complete the graduate study program, with the risk of then being deported. However, due to my declining work performance and absence from office on most days of the week, I was moved to a project involving the design of roadways and highway traffic signs, along with the creation of novel "perceptual countermeasures," to control the driving behavior of road vehicle drivers.
However, the issue of ever increasing number of dying friendly soldiers and civilians due to drone warfare kept jabbing at my conscience. And the more I tried to talk about it with my supervisor the more I got put down. Eventually in June 2009, I was simply fired. Upon being let go from CSL I had to destroy all the project files that were in my possession, and return the office computer that had many more pieces of evidence about deliberate or accidental attacks on — friendly soldiers and innocent civilians.
So, in December 2017, when I found a number of R&D files in a backup hard-disk that I had forgotten about, I realized that I had an obligation to provide such evidence to competent authorities, in service to humanity, due to a moral imperative towards preventing further counts of wrongful injuries, deaths, and destruction across the world, from ongoing military campaigns and automatized warfare. Those types of military campaigns and drone based warfare are still being led, or supported by US military forces, and their globalized R&D groups using defense systems, which have been and are being misappropriated via North American universities, along with faulty operations protocols of those illegitimately obtained systems.
However, during the winter of 2017, I did not know how, and more specifically to whose attention and knowledge, I had to provide such pieces of evidence. So I tried to keep them hidden and secure, but then certain operatives managed to find me due to misdeeds of Canadian healthcare workers who leaked my private healthcare data to them. Those operatives then conducted cyber-attacks as well as physical incursions into my home, to tamper with and steal that data, in October-November 2019, while I was residing in Ontario.
Abbreviations:
AI - Artificial Intelligence
CCAD - Center for Computer Aided Design (University of Iowa, USA)
CSL - Cognitive Systems Library (University of Iowa, USA)
DARPA - Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (USA)
EWACS - Early Warning And Combat Systems
IAT - Implicit Association Tests
R&D - Research and Development
UIowa - The University of Iowa
UK - United Kingdom
US - United States (of America)
US-DOD - US Department of Defense
US-DOJ - US Department of Justice
US-DOS - US Department of State