CIA signature strike targeted killings: understanding the effect of patterns of life analysis on the principle of distinction

Abstract

This thesis analyses the CIA’s employment of signature strikes. Signature strikes are a type of drone strike that target individuals whose behaviour resembles pre-identified signatures of terrorist behaviour, while the identity of the individual remains unknown. The strike is executed on the basis of a patterns of life analysis; surveillance footage and data are analysed in order to establish whether someone’s behaviour indicates whether he or she is a potential terrorist. Through incorporating Foucault’s concept of biopolitics, this thesis illustrates how signature strikes are underpinned by a biopolitical rationality that renders the body fully intelligible and vindicates the use of ‘technologies of life’ in order to protect the population. The thesis argues that the incorporation of this biopolitical rationality into patterns of life analysis, has increased the potential for civilians to become the object of attack in drone strikes. The rationality generates and justifies the additional category of the potential combatant/terrorist that infringes the criteria set by the principle of distinction and as a result opens the door for the CIA to make fatal targeting mistakes.