2022

Speakers: Lisa Ling & Cian Westmoreland

Title: The Kill Cloud: Real World Implications of Network Centric Warfare

Photo: Maria Silvano

From #DNL26 The Kill Cloud: Networked Warfare, Drones & AI, Berlin, March 25–27, 2022

Keynote by Lisa Ling (Whistleblower, Former Technical Sergeant, US Air Force Drone Surveillance Programme, US), Cian Westmoreland (Whistleblower, Former US Air Force Drone Technician, US). Moderated by Daniel Eriksson (CEO of Transparency International, SE/DE).

This keynote presentation introduces what Lisa Ling and Cian Westmoreland have come to call the “Kill Cloud,” a rapidly growing networked infrastructure of global reach with the primary intent of dominating every spectrum of warfare. There is a need for a critical analysis of how the “Kill Cloud” operates, from its ideological underpinnings, its ambitions, to the technological approach being pursued to achieve global military dominance over all battlespace dimensions including, space, cyberspace, and the electromagnetic spectrum itself. Modern network centric warfare has been hidden behind the captivating image of the drone, yet these systems are vastly more complex, insidious, ubiquitous, and inaccurate than the public is aware, and its colonial underpinnings continue to bring endless war to societies across the globe. The Kill Cloud has emerged as an immense and evolving system of systems hastening the expansion of the Global War on Terror. This talk pays close attention to the US military drone programme’s contribution to the framing and evolution of modern network centric war. This Kill Cloud has far-reaching consequences beyond those of what have been traditionally considered in warfare. Read the full chapter in the book Whistleblowing for Change (Tatiana Bazzichelli, Ed. Transcript Verlag, 2021).