Mysterious drones in New Jersey raise oversight questions What can be done?
For months, people have reported drones flying near US military installations — most recently in New Jersey.
An FBI official said there has been a “slightly overreaction” to drones, but the federal government’s inability to offer specific explanations and solutions has led to alarm, skepticism and calls for action.
Why did we write this?
A spate of unusual drone sightings in the United States raises questions about oversight. Shooting down drones is illegal unless they are deemed a threat to national security. But many wonder if there is a lack of options beyond that. Just what to do?
The Federal Aviation Administration notes that it is illegal to shoot down drones, unless they pose a direct threat to national security. But the lack of fewer options has led to questions about whether oversight of US skies is too lax. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has guidelines for hobbyists and commercial drone pilots, but some lawmakers say they’re not enough.
The proposed legislation would give state and local officials more authority to track and combat drones. The FBI supports that, an FBI official told lawmakers.
Security expert Stacey Pettyjohn says the Department of Defense needs to bolster its sensor system to detect and track drones over military bases and secret government installations.
Or, says Dr. Pettyjohn, GPS jamming or spoofing could allow defenders to hijack control of a drone and land it.
A Pentagon official said the flights are not necessarily criminal, but they are irresponsible at this time.
Last month, drones flying over two military installations on the East Coast prompted “thousands” of phone calls to report them, raising the latest in a series of questions that have swirled for months about mysterious drones spotted over US military bases and other locations. sensitive all over the world. The country.
Most recently in New Jersey, including the Department of Defense research center, Picatinny Arsenal, which specializes in developing weapons, some classified, for future wars.
This follows reports of drones flying over Langley Air Force Base in Virginia intermittently for about two weeks. There were more sightings earlier this month at Ramstein, the Pentagon’s main hub in Germany, and at US military facilities in the UK late last month.
Why did we write this?
A spate of unusual drone sightings in the United States raises questions about oversight. Shooting down drones is illegal unless they are deemed a threat to national security. But many wonder if there is a lack of options beyond that. Just what to do?
Rep. Jeff Van Drew, a Republican from New Jersey, assumed that the drones at US sites were deployed by an Iranian “mother ship” in the Atlantic Ocean, drawing some surprise and denial from the Pentagon. But the concerns are bipartisan, with some Democrats pointing to the possibility of Chinese interference.
The Biden administration tried to allay fears. “I think there was a little bit of an overreaction,” an FBI official said in a background call with reporters on Saturday.
But the federal government’s inability to provide definitive explanations and solutions has sparked alarm, doubts and calls for action.
“Let the public know, now,” President-elect Donald Trump wrote on his social media platform, Truth. “Otherwise, shoot them!!!”
The FAA was quick to point out that shooting down drones is illegal, unless they pose a direct threat to national security, but the lack of fewer options has led to growing questions about whether oversight of US skies is too lax — and whether Censorship of the American skies has been very lax – and whether this is the first step. Just what can be done about it.
Robert Wheeler Jr., assistant director of the bureau’s Critical Incident Response Group, told lawmakers earlier this month that legislation is in the works to give state and local officials more authority to track and combat drones — a move the FBI “strongly supports.”
Right now, a Pentagon official said on a weekend back call: “We don’t know what the activity is. We don’t know… if it’s criminal. But I will tell you it’s irresponsible.”
It is legal to fly a drone at an altitude of less than 400 feet in most places. There are a few “simple rules” that those “flying for pleasure” must follow, the FAA noted in an online media release Friday.
These include “keeping the drone in sight, avoiding all other aircraft, and not causing danger to any persons or property.”
Amateurs must also be at least 16 years old and pass a free online “Basic Safety Knowledge Test,” which can be taken through FAA-certified test administrators such as Boy Scouts. There is another set of regulations for flying drones commercially.
In all cases, “flying near airports typically requires an FAA permit,” the post notes.
These rules — and terms such as “usually” — have led some lawmakers to describe U.S. drone laws as lax.
There are stricter rules for people who want to fly drones near US military bases, which are generally designated as “no-drone zones,” and other locations deemed important to national security.
Chinese citizen Yinbiao Zhou violated these regulations last month when a drone he appeared to be flying hovered for an hour at an altitude of about 5,000 feet above Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
When authorities tracked down Mr. Chu and confronted him in a nearby park, he tried to hide the drone — which was later found to contain sensitive images of Al Qaeda — under his jacket. He was arrested before boarding a flight to China on a one-way ticket.
However, going after drone pilots is difficult – with some saying in Mr Chu’s defense that he must be the “worst spy ever” to be caught.
What would be more reliable would be to develop a sensor system to detect and track drones over military bases and secret government facilities, says Stacey Pettyjohn, director of the defense program at the Center for a New American Security think tank in Washington.
Such systems exist in Ukraine during its war against Russia, but “the US military doesn’t have many of them – it needs to get more of them,” says Dr. Pettyjohn. The Pentagon is working to put it into practice.
Most radars focus instead on faster, high-flying objects, such as missiles or jets, rather than slow, low-flying drones.
Even when they pose a threat, Dr. Pettyjohn says, “We don’t want to be shooting things out of the sky.” There is the problem of drone fragments exploding and crashing, causing casualties on the ground.
It is better to put in place a GPS jamming or spoofing system so that defenders can, for example, hijack control of a drone and land it.
The Pentagon has limited authority to take military action in the United States, but there are privacy considerations when it comes to tracking drones, so federal agencies will have to work together to better define the threshold for considering a flying vehicle suspicious, and to determine the threshold for considering a flying vehicle suspicious. Set intention, says Dr. Pettyjohn.
For now, defense officials are working to quell what is referred to in some quarters as drone hysteria.
Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, the Pentagon’s press secretary, told reporters at a news conference about a relative who “flies his drone all over the place and does amateur photography.”
He noted that winds could blow a drone “very close to the facility.” “And is this a drone incident, or are we talking about something more serious, like the Langley incident, where there are multiple drones operating over a facility for several days?”
“It’s a balancing act,” Major General Ryder added. He said that “many of the cases seen” were actually of manned aircraft. “How do we make sure that we are responsibly protecting our assets while at the same time not assuming that every single aircraft is going to pose a threat?”