Predator aerial vehicles at General Atomics, a defense contractor, in Poway, California, March 13, 2009. (Photo: Jim Wilson / The New York Times)When I spoke with Shahzad Akbar recently, he reflected on the objectives of the upcoming first international drone summit in Washington DC, and on his concerns about drone operations in South Asia and the Middle East

Shahzad Akbar can no longer travel to the United States.

Akbar is a Pakistani lawyer who founded the human rights organization Foundation for Fundamental Rights in 2010 and represents the family members of noncombatant victims of US drone strikes.

Columbia University invited Akbar to speak at a law school forum in May 2011, but he couldn't get a visa, even though he has been to the United States multiple times and used to work as a consultant for US agencies.

Akbar is scheduled to speak at the upcoming first international drone summit in Washington DC, on April 28 and 29. The State Department, however, says that there is a problem getting the necessary authorization from the "Homeland Security structure."

Given that Akbar wants to talk about the CIA's clandestine drone operations and the military's Joint Operations Intelligence Centers (JOIC), keeping him out of the United States and far away from the US public and the US media might seem to make good sense from the point of view of the Obama administration.

Why, after all, would the US government facilitate an open dialogue at home while it mounts these extensive, clandestine operations overseas?

Yet it is Akbar's contention that the fundamental issues are not about security, but rather, they are about the constitutional right of due process, upholding the rule of law and ensuring proper Congressional and judiciary oversight.

The organizers and sponsors of the summit contend that, unless the Obama administration subjects its extensive drone operations to the rule of law, it is effectively undermining the very US interests and values that the CIA, the military and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) are supposed to be protecting.

In an op-ed Akbar penned for The Guardian after he was denied a visa to speak at Columbia last year, he wrote: "Instead of preventing me from speaking with American colleagues about these legal cases, the US government should support our attempt at justice within the law - even if it disagrees with our view of the facts. Let us debate and sometimes disagree; after all, that is how American justice is supposed to be done."

Leili Kashani of the Center for Constitutional Rights, one of the sponsors of the upcoming summit, said, "By refusing to grant Shahzad Akbar a visa to speak at the Drone Summit, the Obama administration is further silencing discussion about the impact of its targeted killing program on people in Pakistan and around the world."

Here's what Akbar has to say.....

INTERVIEW HERE

Also see: "Predators on the Border, Hawks Across the Border and a Homeland of ... and "Obama Administration Silencing Pakistani Drone-Strike Lawyer."