Drone Beat: Nigeria's Broken UAVs, Capturing a Sainthood Procession and More

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The RQ-4 Block 20 Global Hawk unmanned aircraft in an undated photo released by aerospace technology company Northrop Grumman.

Image: Courtesy of Northrup Grumman/Associated Press

By Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai2014-05-21 19:48:45 UTC

The U.S. government uses them to bomb alleged terrorists in far-away places. Tech companies like Amazon, Google and Facebook are all toying with the idea of using them, and now they're a photographer's secret weapon. Drones are a big part of our lives, whether we see them or not. Drone Beat collects the best and most important stories every week.

Drone Beat's coverage areas this week

Last update: Wednesday, May 21, 10:14 a.m. ET

Obama set to release drone killings memo

The White House is finally going to release the controversial memo that details the legal justification behind the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, an American cleric who allegedly became a prominent Al-Qaeda spokesperson, according to the Associated Press.

The Justice Department has reportedly decided not to appeal a a Court of Appeals ruling that requires the administration to publish a redacted version of the memo per a Freedom of Information Act request by The New York Times and the American Civil Liberties Union. It's still unclear, however, when the memo will actually be released.

Nigeria's old drones won't help find kidnapped girls

Nigerian authorities, with the help of other countries like the United States, are still looking for the more than 200 schoolgirls kidnapped by the extremist group Boko Haram. The U.S. sent manned aircraft as well as a Global Hawk drone to help in the search last week, but Nigerian drones won't join the operation, according to Reuters.

The drones, bought from an Israeli company, are apparently grounded due to poor maintenance.

"To the best of our knowledge, these systems aren't operational," said Tsur Dvir, the marketing officer for the Israeli firm Aeronautics Defense Systems, which supplied Nigeria with Aerostar unmanned aerial vehicles. "They (drones) are probably parked in a yard somewhere."

God and drones

Drones are so mainstream that even priests own them now. The Archdiocese of Washington, located in Maryland, has recently bought a drone to capture video, as reported by The Washington Post . The archdiocese has already used it to record aerial footage of a sainthood procession, as well as to make a video of its property.

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Topics: dronebeat, Drones, U.S., US & World, World