L-Ne · Historical Source Library

News Source Record

# News Source Record

**L-Ne / Open-source news extract** — Original media coverage of unmanned aerial systems.

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Collection date | 29 May 2012 |
| Platform | Quiet Systems |
| Data label | Open-source news record // LRRK collection product |
| Handling | Public-source material. Image rights require separate verification before publication. |
| Scale | National |
| Language | English |
| Terms matched | drone strike; drones; C.I.A.’s strikes |

## Bibliographic

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Outlet | The New York Times |
| Title | Secret ‘Kill List’ Proves a Test of Obama’s Principles and Will |
| Dateline | WASHINGTON |
| First publisher | yes |
| Original URL | https://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/world/obamas-leadership-in-war-on-al-qaeda.html |
| Archive URL | https://web.archive.org/web/20120531233037/http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/world/obamas-leadership-in-war-on-al-qaeda.html |
| Dedup key | 2012-05-29|new-york-times|obama-secret-kill-list |
| Source grade | A1 |

## Record

**Verified extract — [Fact — A1]** Jo Becker and Scott Shane reported that President Obama placed himself at the helm of a top-secret “nominations” process to designate terrorists for kill or capture, personally approving every new name on an expanding “kill list.” A 19 January 2010 Situation Room meeting reviewed 15 Qaeda suspects in Yemen with Western ties, including Americans and a 17-year-old girl. Thomas E. Donilon said Obama reserved how far operations will go and kept “the tether pretty short.” John O. Brennan is described as beside the president at every step. The president reserved the final moral calculation when a rare drone-strike chance at a top terrorist arises but family is present. The piece records a new category of aerial attack after careless-targeting complaints; a civilian-death counting formula some officials think is skewed low; and Ambassador Cameron P. Munter’s complaint that CIA strikes drive U.S. policy in Pakistan. Obama told colleagues killing an American cleric in Yemen was “an easy one.” Print A1, 29 May 2012.

**Kinematic object.** CIA/military drone strikes as the kill-or-capture instrument of the nominations process, including Yemen and Pakistan

**Coverage frame.** military

## Source integrity

- Why this is treated as an original
- Wire reprint status: NYT original investigation; ~36 current and former advisers. Not a wire.
- What was excluded

- Live page 403; facts taken from a verified Wayback snapshot of the same URL dated 31 May 2012, which prints “Published: May 29, 2012.”
- Extract uses only what that snapshot showed (not later NYT updates).

## LRRK relevance

Campaign / Watch / Control Fabric. First-publisher account of presidential target nomination and CIA-strike policy in Pakistan.

*LRRK — security assurance for systems that sense, move, and act.*

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