Online publication The Intercept has published ‘The Drone Papers’, an eight-part investigation into the US drone program based on information provided by an anonymous whistleblower who allegedly worked on the program.
The documents reveal previously undisclosed details regarding the US drone program, which have become a key element of the country's national security policy.
The Drone Papers focuses on American drone use between 2011-2013 in Afghanistan, Yemen, and Somalia.
The report claims that during one five-month period of the operation “nearly 90 per cent of people killed in airstrikes were not the intended targets.”
According to the report, drone strikes “overwhelmingly” relied on a single source of information to locate their targets.
That often meant “signal intelligence” such as phone numbers or SIM cards were used to lock onto a source, which, allegedly made it highly unreliable.
The Drone Papers has piled pressure on US President Barack Obama, with condemnation coming from human rights group Amnesty International.
The director of Amnesty International USA, Naureen Shah, says the US Congress must launch an urgent inquiry into President Obama’s use of drones.
“These documents raise serious concerns about whether the USA has systematically violated international law, including by classifying unidentified people as ‘combatants’ to justify their killings,” Naureen Shah said.
“This warrants an immediate congressional inquiry into why the Obama administration has kept this vital information secret, including the real identities of all those killed in this global killing programme.”
Meanwhile, former CIA assistant-turned whistleblower, Edward Snowden, took to Twitter to praise the leak.
“When we look back on today, we will find the most important national security story of the year,” he tweeted.
