According to the Huffington Post, between January 2012 and February 2013, US drone strikes killed more than 200 people. Only 35 were intended targets. During a five-month period, almost 90% of the people killed in drone strikes were not the intended targets.

You may ask: how did this happen?

After the September 11th attacks, President George W. Bush authorized the use of military drones and allowed the CIA to kill from a list of “High Value Targets” without seeking further approval from the President. The first known drone strike was on February 4th, 2002, in Afghanistan. The CIA thought that Osama Bin Laden was in a group of people and a Predator drone fired on the group, killing all targets. The group consisted of civilians who were gathering scrap metal.

There are several organizations which advocate against the use of military drones. One organization, Veterans for Peace, seeks to end the use of drones and robots as weapons and means of government surveillance. BanWeaponizedDrones, another organization, has a similar mission.

Despite many efforts to sway the government to stop the use of military drones, the Government Accountability Office maintains the stance that “The U.S. government has determined that drone development and acquisition supports its national security interests.”

Yes, there are benefits to this system and there would be drawbacks if we stopped doing these drone strikes. But we must demand accountability from our leaders. We cannot stand idly by as our government kills so many innocent civilians.

Sign this petition to show our lawmakers that we must decrease the use of military drones until we can ensure a higher accuracy rate.