US lawmakers have proposed several different methods for dealing with a surge in possible drone sightings after local politicians pressed federal authorities for more information.
There is anti-drone legislation being introduced in Congress. There are helicopters monitoring drones in Pennsylvania. And the U.S. government is sending drone detection and tracking systems to two military installations in New Jersey, sources told CNN on Monday (16).
At the same time, ae said that most of what are reported as drone sightings are actually legally operated aircraft, or even stars.
“We assess that sightings to date include a combination of legal commercial drones, amateur drones and law enforcement drones, as well as manned fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters and even stars that have been erroneously reported as drones,” said the homeland security spokesperson. of the White House, John Kirby, told reporters on Monday.
“We have not identified any national security or public safety risks in civil airspace in New Jersey, or other states in the Northeast,” he added.
Despite the absence of threats, Kirby emphasized that the administration is supporting state and local authorities “with technology and law enforcement support.”
States deploy drone detection technology
Several have announced that they are deploying drone detection systems.
Systems sent by the government to New Jersey are in the process of moving to Picatinny Arsenal in the northern part of the state and Naval Weapons Station Earle in the center, officials said. It was not immediately clear when the systems would arrive or be operational.
The U.S. government also needs to determine the legal authorities under which the systems can operate, officials said, which requires coordination between the secretaries of defense and transportation.
Drones have been spotted near Picatinny Arsenal and over President-elect Donald Trump’s golf course in Bedminster, according to military officials and state lawmakers. The sightings prompted the Federal Aviation Administration to issue temporary flight restrictions over the properties.
New York and Connecticut have also announced that they are using drone detection systems.
In Pennsylvania, state police are flying helicopters to try to “determine where these drones are originating from and what their purpose is,” Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said Friday.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said he is asking the Department of Homeland Security to deploy special detection systems that use 360-degree technology to detect drones.
“If the technology exists for a drone to take to the sky, surely the technology exists that can track the aircraft accurately and determine what the heck is going on,” Schumer said Sunday when discussing the technology.
While most officials have given few details about the types of systems they are deploying, Vijay Kumar, dean of engineering at the University of Pennsylvania, told CNN that there are a few methods for monitoring drones — and the best systems use multiple techniques.
Radar-based detection, radio frequency detection, acoustic detection, and optical and infrared sensors can be used to track drones in different environments.
“The main difficulties in detecting and tracking drones arise from their small size, agility and potential for autonomous operation,” he explained.
Any “realistic approach” to tracking drones has to use data from several different sensors, Kumar said. And “deep learning algorithms,” which can combine multiple types of data and improve accuracy, “are emerging as the best approach to solving this problem, he added.
Matt McCrann, CEO of DroneShield, which makes and sells anti-drone technology, told CNN that police were likely using passive radio frequency systems to monitor drones.
These systems “do not interfere with other signals out there and, depending on the methodology, could be fully compatible for use with privacy considerations,” McCrann said.
The first step when dealing with a drone that may be suspicious or in violation of the law is to “locate the pilot, if possible, get to the source,” he added.
Only if this is not possible should police use other methods, such as “jamming the drone’s signals and forcing it to return to ‘home’ or its point of origin or forcing it to land wherever it is involved,” he explained. .
“Jamming” — or deliberate interference with radio signals used to communicate between drones and their operators — can present problems of its own: It can inadvertently interfere with other electronic devices such as cellphones and Wi-Fi, said Jonathan Rupprecht, a drone lawyer. , commercial pilot and flight instructor, at CNN on Monday.
Law enforcement officers would need a warrant to jam a drone’s radio signals, according to Michelle LD Hanlon, executive director of the Center for Air and Space Law at the University of Mississippi School of Law.
She noted that intensive drone surveillance risks running afoul of privacy laws, including the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 that prohibits unauthorized interception of wire, oral or electronic communications.
Hanlon added that many drone “incursions” — such as those into restricted airspace above military sites — may be “unintentional.”
“Many drones are flown by 16, 17-year-old children,” he said.
State and local authorities, she added, are currently very limited in what they can do if they identify a suspicious drone. “Even the military doesn’t necessarily know how or if they are capable of responding,” he said.
Expanding local control
In addition to calling for more detection technology, lawmakers also proposed new legislation that could expand federal or local authority over drones.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul called on Congress to pass the Federal Anti-UAS Authority Safety, Security, and Reauthorization Act, which she said would “give New York and our peers the authority and resources needed to respond to circumstances like those we face today.”
UAS is an acronym for “Unmanned Aerial System,” another term for drones.
The bill’s draft text, sponsored by Republican Rep. Mark Green of Tennessee, says it would allow the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to “seize, exercise control over, or confiscate an unmanned aircraft system, or unmanned aircraft.”
Additionally, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, said Monday that he is planning to try to pass legislation that would empower local authorities to respond to
Schumer said local authorities in New York and New Jersey do not have the authority or resources to “get to the bottom” of sightings because it is federal jurisdiction.
Currently, drones are regulated almost entirely by the federal government.
“If it’s flying in national airspace, or really in national airspace, then that’s the sole control of the federal government,” attorney Rupprecht told CNN on Monday.
Drones weighing more than 0.24 kg must be registered with the FAA and must comply with remote identification, which allows a drone in flight to transmit identification information.
Drones that fly at night must also display anti-collision lighting. The maximum altitude allowed is 121 meters above the ground and the maximum speed is 160 km/h.
The Department of Homeland Security has authority to deal with UAS (unmanned aerial systems) through the 2018 Emerging Threat Prevention Act.
But there are also limits to federal authority over drones.
“There are only certain agencies that have certain authority to interdict and monitor drones,” Rupprecht said.
Hanlon described the current legal environment as a “real kind of turf war, if you will, between the federal government and the states.”
“The FAA is responsible for ensuring the safety of national airspace,” said the executive director. “But what we don’t have is a definition of where national airspace begins and local airspace ends,” she added.
To help give more power to local authorities, Rupprecht said he recommended “very narrow status-level restrictions” — such as requirements for drone operators to register their aircraft locally as well as with the FAA.
He noted that under USC 40103, U.S. citizens have a “federally granted right” to fly in national airspace.
About 792,000 drones are registered with the FAA, and many of the reported drone sightings could be “perfectly legal” drones, he said.
So any legislation that grants more authority to local police must also balance citizens’ right to fly drones safely and legally, he added.
DJ Judd, Josh Campbell and Michelle Watson from CNN contributed to this report.
