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Yesterday advocates from all over the world met in Washington DC to discuss the growing threats posed by drone warfare and surveillance. If you missed our marathon tweeting from the event, check out this Chirpstory for an archive. It was a long day packed with information filled presentations from lawyers, organizers, journalists and activists.

Lawyers from the ACLU and the Center for Constitutional Rights spoke about their attempts to get information from the government about a devastating drone strike in Yemen that killed dozens of civilians. Pakistani, Yemeni and Somali journalists and activists spoke of their heroic efforts to shine a light on what is happening in remote regions of their countries. Chris Woods of the Bureau for Investigative Journalism gave series of horrifying statistics about the drone war, facts that are largely kept out of reach of most Americans because the mainstream media doesn’t talk about them.

Among the highlights of the day was investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill’s closing talk, during which he described a devastating lack of transparency, accountability and honesty in the Obama administration’s pursuit of not-so-secret drone wars in Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan. Thanks to Kevin Gosztola for recording the interview and posting it on his blog.

I’m traveling today and tomorrow and so posting here will be sparse, but look out for more in depth coverage of the Drone Summit in the week to come. Meanwhile, the drone war grinds on, absent any Congressional debate or authorization of the strikes or the larger, ‘covert’ war operation.