Tuesday morning, a consortium of human rights organizations launched the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, a joint project to enact an international treaty banning the use of “fully autonomous robots” — machines that kill without direct human oversight — in combat. The launch highlights a net of thorny ethical and legal issues surrounding the use of these weapons, ones that have yet to be fully resolved by the US government or international community.

The campaign to ban robot soldiers began in response to rapid advancements in military robotics in roughly the past decade and a half, developments that most famously produced the armed Predator and Reaper drones in common use by U.S. armed personnel today. In 2009, several concerned researchers founded the International Committee for Robot Arms Control (ICRAC), the first NGO dedicated to pushing an international treaty that (among other things) would ban autonomous weapons. Debate over the topic heated up in late 2012, when Human Rights Watch released much-debated report arguing that autonomous weapons were in-principle inconsistent with international humanitarian law.

The Campaign to Stop Killer Robots joins ICRAC and HRW with 20 other like-minded organizations, including Amnesty International and Code Pink, in a renewed effort to codify a ban on autonomous weapons. There is no currently existing fully autonomous weapons platform and the U.S. Department of Defense, which supervises what is by far the most robotically advanced military in the world, has a self-imposed moratorium on deploying weapons capable of autonomously using lethal force. However, the Campaign’s member groups are worried that technological advancement will make the deployment of such weapons inevitable without a treaty ban:

Over the past decade, the expanded use of unmanned armed vehicles or drones has dramatically changed warfare, bringing new humanitarian and legal challenges. Now rapid advances in technology are permitting the United States and other nations with high-tech militaries, including China, Israel, Russia, and the United Kingdom, to move toward systems that would give full combat autonomy to machines…”We cannot afford to sleepwalk into an acceptance of these weapons. New military technologies tend to be put in action before the wider society can assess the implications, but public debate on such a change to warfare is crucial,” said Thomas Nash, Director of Article 36. “A pre-emptive ban on lethal autonomous robots is both necessary and achievable, but only if action is taken now.”

These efforts are obviously in their infancy, and militaries have some pretty obvious reasons to want autonomous weapons, so it’s unlikely that we’ll see a treaty banning robot soldiers anytime soon. Moreover, it’s not even clear if it’d be a good thing: lawyers and ethicists are sharply divided as to whether autonomous weapons would be illegal, unimportant, or potentially even an improvement over human soldiers.

Critics of autonomous weapons argue that they’re incapable of complying with critical provisions in international humanitarian law aimed at protecting civilians. That Human Rights Watch report concludes that no algorithm or artificial intelligence could sufficiently distinguish, for example, between civilians and insurgents in an Afghanistan-style counterinsurgency, meaning that no army employing autonomous weapons could satisfy the legal principle of “distinction” (that all armies must, over the course of fighting, identify civilian populations and military targets and treat the two differently). Critics also believe that autonomous weapons would have difficulty making the kinds of contextual moral judgments necessary to comply with the principle of proportionality, the idea that any unintentional cost to civilian life must be proportionate to the military benefits, or “military necessity,” the legal principle requiring armies to hold off on attacks (even on military targets) that aren’t necessary for winning.

Opponents of a treaty ban, by contrast, argue that such criticisms are missing the point. All weapons, they hold, can be used illegally — obviously, armies using machetes alone can violate the principles of distinction, proportionality, or military necessity. Indeed, they might be more likely to: while humans are driven to massacre by anger or sadism, a properly programmed robot will never lash out (Ronald Arkin at the Georgia Institute of Technology is working on just this sort of programming). It’s much smarter, they argue, to attempt to identify the specific circumstances under which autonomous weapons could be used lawfully or unlawfully rather than tilt after the windmill of an international treaty.

While some of these quandaries depend on technical assessments — How well can we program robots? How good are their sensors? — others are more conceptual. One such challenge comes from Monash University Professor Robert Sparrow, who argues that robots create problems of moral responsibility for atrocities that are in principle impossible to resolve. Sparrow argues that, the more autonomous a combat machine is, the less predictable its behavior in combat zones becomes, and hence the less fair it is to hold either its programmer or commanding officer responsible for any atrocities it commits. But if it’s wrong to hold anyone responsible for atrocities, then the entire system of international law and the morality of war — which depends on being able to hold particular individuals responsible for war crimes — falls apart.

Others, like Jeffrey S. Thurnher and Michael Schmitt, counter that it’s hard to imagine any scenario where a robot could commit a war crime without the person who ordered it into combat knowing that atrocity was a possible outcome of their order, suggesting that a person could always be responsible for the machine’s actions.

These issues have yet to be resolved as a matter of law, philosophy, or even robotics. Yet one thing is clear: the launch of the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots won’t end the end of debate about the use of robots in war. If anything, it’ll escalate it.

Tensions within the Republican Party on foreign policy reemerged on Thursday with Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) taking a broad shot at the vision of Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) and his allies.

At an event at the Center for New American Security (CNAS), McCain took several not so subtle swipes at Paul’s recent attempts to take on the GOP’s foreign policy orthodoxy and singled out the anti-drone filibuster Paul led in March as an example of Republicans yielding to political pressure to back something easy rather than asking tough questions about foreign policy:

McCAIN: Last month, most Republican senators joined a filibuster to protest the President’s policies on the use of armed drones. Rather than debating the very real issues associated with targeted killings, my colleagues chose to focus instead on the theoretical possibility that the President would use a drone to kill Americans on U.S. soil, even if they’re not engaged in hostilities. As misguided as this exercise was, the political pressures on Republicans were significant and many ultimately did — including many who know better.

While he did not name names, among the more senior Republicans who joined in the filibuster were Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Minority Whip John Cornyn (R-TX). McCain in the immediate aftermath of the drones filibuster referred to Paul and co-filibuster leader Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) as “wacko birds,” a phrase he later apologized for using.

McCain admitted that the GOP needs to change its positions on counter-terrorism and other policies, listing several measures he would be putting forward in the coming weeks and months, including an update to the the 2001 Authorization of the Use of Military Force, which his fellow Republicans are likely to embrace. Others, like revisions to U.S. foreign aid strategy towards Egypt and reining in Defense Department spending on costly and underperforming projects will likely earn him more enmity from various blocs within his party.

The Iraq War debacle and much of the Bush administration’s counter-terror policies led Americans to realize that Republicans were selling junk national security policy. Yet at the same time, the neocon stranglehold on the GOP remains alive and well (a sticking point Mitt Romney was faced with during last year’s presidential election).

Since the election, the Party’s soul-searching on foreign policy has broken into the public as struggles for the future of the party on foreign affairs have been frequent. Various sides have been loosely led by Paul, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and McCain and none seems ready to yield. And at present, it appears that the fight can only be overcome by adhering to a very slim set of neocon-esque foreign policy principles, or, as Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel discovered during his nomination battle, face accusations of apostasy and risk internal isolation.

So far, McCain is fine with having the debate, but appears to be wondering whether there is room for his views in the GOP. “Right now the far left and far right in America are coming together in favor of pulling us back from the world,” McCain warned at CNAS. “The President and I have had our differences, many of those differences will persist. But there are times these days when I feel I have more in common on foreign policy with President Obama than I do with some in my own party.”

A searing op-ed in the New York Times on Monday broke open the floodgates of public interest in the remaining detainees at the U.S. Guantanamo Bay detention center. Combined with news of a violent clash between the guards and the detainees on Saturday, Guantanamo is in the spotlight like it hasn’t been in years. Here’s what you need to know:

Who is left in Guantanamo?

Despite pledges to close Guantanamo Bay’s detention facilities in his first year in office, the base still remains quite open and recently received a new commanding officer. Human Rights First has a look at the numbers of who remains in Gitmo, including those who have been approved for release but still remain behind bars:

• Detainees currently held at Guantánamo: 166.
• Remaining detainees approved for release: 86.
• Detainees convicted by military commission before 2009 and still held at Guantánamo: 1
• Detainees Obama Administration designated for trial or commission including those tried since January 2009: 36.
• Detainees Obama Administration has designated for indefinite detention without charge or trial: 46.

Of those remaining, the U.S. military says that 42 detainees are currently on a hunger strike under military guidelines, which includes nine missed consecutive meals, with 11 force-fed via nasal tube to keep them alive.

Is this the first hunger strike in Guantanamo?

No, this is not the first time detainees have launched hunger strikes to protest mistreatment. A similar case occurred in 2005, when as many as 200 detainees refused food and water while maintaining their innocence and protesting their handling while in detention. Another such case took place in 2007 and yet another in 2010. Each of those incidents also included detainees’ force-feeding through nasal tubes.

Why are the detainees striking this time and for how long?

The strike goes back to early February, launched against guards at Guantanamo searching for weapons hidden in detainees’ copies of the Quran. Word spread among detainees that these searches involved possible mistreating of the Quran, leading them to forgo meals in protest.

Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense William K. Lietzau wrote in a letter in response to the Center for Constitutional Rights’ inquiries about the searches, denying that any mishandling had occurred. In his letter, Lietzau insisted that incidents have occurred with detainees “storing contraband in their Qurans; items found have included improvised weapons, unauthorized food and medicine” and other other items deemed able to harm themselves, other detainees, or Gitmo personnel.

At present, no data has been provided to the media regarding confiscated contraband supposedly hidden within the searched Qurans. Defense lawyers also insist that their clients would not hide weapons within their own holy books, as that would itself be desecration. There is also no sign that the hunger strike will voluntarily end in the near future.

What’s the story behind this weekend’s violence?

The clash this weekend began following the decision to move the hunger-strikers currently being force-fed into single-cell, rather than communal, facilities. According a media statement from U.S. Southern Command on the incident, the decision was not well met among detainees:

In order to reestablish proper observation, the guards entered the Camp VI communal living spaces to transition detainees into single cells, remove obstructions to cameras, windows and partitions, and medical personnel conducted individual assessments of each detainee. The ongoing hunger strike necessitated these medical assessments. Some detainees resisted with improvised weapons, and in response, four less-than-lethal rounds were fired. There were no serious injuries to guards or detainees.

The “weapons” wielded included “batons, broomsticks, and plastic water bottles” precisely how many detainees and guards were injured has yet to be provided to the media.

Why is Guantanamo still open?

Despite President Obama signing an Executive Order in 2009 to have Gitmo closed within a year, several Congressional acts have prevented the transfer of detainees from the Cuban base to the United States. In light of accusations of torture, however, the Central Intelligence Agency lost its ability to hold and interrogate suspects in detention centers around the world, also stemming the flow of new detainees into Guantanamo.

The result has been a broken detention policy, seen in a sharp fall-off in the number of captured foreign fighters and a sharp increase in the use of armed drones to kill suspected terrorists. The Obama administration has recently warily begun to send suspected terrorists to civilian courts, rather than trying them in military tribunals in Guantanamo, but Republicans have heavily derided even this small step towards reforming detention policy.

A new poll from Gallup is out today showing wide support for the Obama administration’s use of drones in counter-terrorism operations overseas. But what this poll — and many others on the subject — doesn’t tell us, however, is what Americans think about a far more significant aspect of the administration’s counter-terrorism program: targeted killing.

Taken in the weeks after a new surge of interest in drones, the new Gallup poll finds that 65 percent of respondents agreed the U.S. “should use drones to launch airstrikes in other countries against suspected terrorists.” Only 28 percent disagreed with the question, with 8 percent professing no opinion on the matter. Sixty-six percent disapproved of using drones against terror suspects on American soil. An even greater number — 79 percent — felt that the U.S. should not launch airstrikes on American citizens in the U.S.:

Gallup’s results are similar to findings from both a Washington Post poll taken in 2012 and one conducted by Fox News earlier this month. In those polls, the support for drone use was even higher, but all three do not ask whether respondents agree with the Obama administration’s targeted killing program — the policy for which drones are just one tool used to carry out the policy.

Indeed, what’s more controversial is not drones themselves — as evidenced by the fact that these polls’ results line up with the Obama administration’s position — but the underlining policy that mandates their use: targeted killing of suspected terrorists. Unfortunately, because of that singular focus, none of these polls tell us much about how Americans feel about this program.

Most of the focus in the debate about the Obama administration’s policies has been on the use of new technology in the form of drones, rather than on the killing program itself. In actuality, the program extends far beyond drones, also incorporating the use of Special Forces as well as missile strikes from naval vessels and manned aircraft.

These omissions are significant because we fail to learn what the respondents feel about the targeted killing program in its entirety. There is no mention of so-called “signature strikes” to target military-aged males without knowing precisely who the targets are. Nor are respondents asked about the lack of transparency surrounding the only recently acknowledged program and the unknown number of civilians included in the still disputed number killed under it.

Reports that elements of the targeted killing program may move from the CIA’s control to the Department of Defense likewise seems to build on the focus on the technology over the policy. In making the move, the administration on the surface seems to be responding to public pressure for more transparency related to the program. However, the result may be even more secrecy under the Pentagon’s many clandestine programs.

The Central Intelligence Agency may be out of the armed drones business soon, according to a report out Wednesday morning, possibly granting more visibility to the Obama administration’s targeted killing program.

According to The Daily Beast, the White House is ready to approve a plan transferring authority to launch lethal missions in areas such as Pakistan from the CIA to the Department of Defense. Both DOD and the CIA currently have access to unmanned aerial vehicles, as drones are formally known, but use them in different ways for different purposes under different congressional authorities and different rules of transparency.

Should President Obama sign-off on the idea, the shift that would take place would not likely be immediately apparent to the public, but would go a long way to formalize the procedures in which drones are used. The process known as “institutionalization” has been in motion for over a year now, according to The Daily Beast, headed by newly-confirmed CIA Director John Brennan:

Brennan, who has presided over the administration’s drone program from almost day one of Obama’s presidency, has grown uncomfortable with the ad hoc and sometimes shifting rules that have governed it. Moreover, Brennan has publicly stated that he would like to see the CIA move away from the kinds of paramilitary operations it began after the September 11 attacks, and return to its more traditional role of gathering and analyzing intelligence.

Under the new structure, the CIA would still have a role in providing the intelligence necessary to identify targets, at least temporarily, but would no longer have operational control of lethal missions. That role in gathering intelligence means that the CIA’s use of unarmed drones for surveillance purposes is unlikely to be affected. While not a guarantee of greater transparency, placing the targeted killing program entirely under the Defense Department would mean that it would no longer be “covert” — or both secret and deniable by the government — but instead “clandestine” — meaning the administration would be unable to legally lie about operations.

The move mirrors an approach former Defense Department lawyer Jeh Johnson promoted in an appearance at Fordham University on Monday. Johnson is the latest in a long line of high-profile Democrats questioning the current structure of the targeted killing program and the secrecy surrounding it. In recent weeks, CAP Chair John Podesta, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), and Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) have all called for greater openness from the Obama administration about the way the program is carried out.

Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) on Thursday stressed the need for more openness surrounding the Obama administration’s targeted killing program and the drones used to carry it out.

During an appearance on MSNBC, Ellison highlighted the need to set up an open legal architecture surrounding the program currently in operation in Yemen and Pakistan. That position falls in-line with both the sentiments of Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and CAP Chair John Podesta’s recent op-ed in the Washington Post.

Ellison said he agreed with Podesta that the administration needs to go further to help set norms for the use of drones around the world:

JANSING: We should say the President did allow some members of the intelligence committee to see those memos, are you satisfied with that? Is it enough?

ELLISON: No, it’s not enough. I think Podesta is absolutely right on this issue. I don’t think the president has anything to fear. He’s the one who said let’s have a legal architecture. This is a chance for the United States to really lead the world. [...] We should lead the way. The President should not allow himself to be coming up on the backside of this. He should be helping to lead this effort.

Watch Ellison’s full interview here:

At present, the program’s full legal justification — including the administration’s interpretation of when Americans can be targeted overseas — is being held closely by the White House, which has so far ignored calls to declassify the Justice Department’s memos. While it allowed the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence view the memos as part of the deal to confirm CIA Director John Brennan, the White House sent staffers to sit with the committee members during their review, a move that Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) strongly objected to. “There was a minder who was sent in. I was unaware that that person was going to have to be there. It was an insult to me,” he said.

Speaking behind closed doors with the Senate Democratic Caucus, Obama indicated that he were he still in the Senate he would have “probably objected” to the White House’s continued secrecy as well.

Earlier this week, Ellison in his role as co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus signed onto a letter from House Democrats to President Obama calling for the release of those documents to the full Congress. Ellison also expressed wariness surrounding the use of armed drones in combat in general, stating that there are legitimate and illegitimate ways in which they can be utilized. “We should only use this sort of technology in the circumstances to protect American lives to do so,” Ellison said. “But I think that the technology has outrun the rules.” Calling back to his previously published op-ed on the matter, Ellison said that he was glad that the conversation in Washington had finally shifted to oversight over the targeted killing program.

Speaking at a panel at George Washington Law School this morning, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) indicated that his struggle with the Obama administration for more transparency on national security matters is just beginning.

Wyden was the opening speaker at a Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington event on drones, in which he laid out his position on the secrecy surrounding the Obama administration’s counterterrorism targeted killing program.

Wyden made clear during his talk that he believed that there are “certainly legitimate reasons” for the government to keep some matters secret, including the details of covert operations. Sources and methods — or the precise ways that intelligence is collected — are in a very different basket than keeping the law secret, Wyden explained. “Secret operations are different than secret laws,” Wyden said. What Wyden is firmly opposed to is secret interpretations of public laws by the Executive Branch without the conclusions being disclosed:

WYDEN: [W]e aren’t going to take a backseat to anybody — not anybody — on the question of protecting genuinely sensitive sources and operations. But I am also not going to take a backseat to anybody in the effort to try to make sure our public laws stay public. And that’s what this is, in effect, discussion is all about.

At the forefront of Wyden’s concerns is a set of classified memos from the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel laying out the justifications for when force can be used against American citizens overseas. An unclassified white paper summarizing those memos leaked to the press last month, stirring up the current debate.

Wyden indicated that he had spent the last two years asking the administration for access to the DOJ memos on targeting Americans abroad. As part of its deal to have John Brennan confirmed as CIA Director, the White House has turned over those memos to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, but has not declassified them as of yet. These memos, Wyden believes, as the official interpretation of the Executive Branch on how it reads current laws need to be made public. At present, there is no one place within the law that Americans can go to see what the standard is with regard to targeting Americans, Wyden said.

“I don’t buy that,” Wyden said when asked about whether the memos reveal too much in the way of operational details to be declassified. “That’s what we have redaction for.” Wyden was the only member of the Democratic Caucus to join Rand Paul’s nearly thirteen-hour long filibuster of John Brennan last week, though he disagreed with Paul on the forthrightness of the administration.

House Democrats earlier this week wrote to the White House also demanding the declassification of the DOJ memos, as well as answers related to the broader use of drones in warfare.