We are vulnerable to drone attack and it’s going to get worse
Drones are a major national concern. There have been several reported sightings in and around New Jersey and, though the Pentagon downplays it, the technology poses a very real threat.
We’ve lost the ability to protect our own airspace. We have a complacent and incompetent Biden administration in charge that has set our drone industry back years. President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration can’t come soon enough. We need an overhaul of our drone defenses nationwide. Our national security infrastructure is not set up to defend against what’s coming. Or even what’s already here.
There have been suspicious drone sightings reported in 10 counties across New Jersey, as well as over Staten Island. The flights caused concern among residents and politicians. The mysterious aircraft have even been seen near the state's largest reservoir.
Yet, White House National Security communications director John Kirby stated Thursday, December 12, the government has "not been able to corroborate any of the reported visual sightings." He did add that the investigation "is ongoing."
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Federal and state officials aren’t helpful. The Pentagon says they aren’t U.S. military drones, and the White House says the federal government doesn’t know what the drones are. But, at the same time, they allegedly don’t pose a critical threat. What? How do they know they’re not a threat if they don’t know what they are, and who is controlling them?
Drones are hovering over some of America’s most critical infrastructure. They are even flying over our nuclear sites. The public is no longer able to separate fact from fiction, with good reason. There is paranoia. And that leads to more sightings. Citizens think everything in the air is a drone now.
Americans are right to be concerned. Drones have become a major weapon of war in Ukraine and now in Syria. Both Russia and Ukraine reportedly produce hundreds of thousands of combat drones. Iran or its proxies have repeatedly used drones to attack our ships from many nations, including the U.S., as well as our ally Israel.
That’s not the only threat. Most people don’t realize how much intelligence data can be collected with sensors attached to a drone from just a short flight. They can gather data in ways you can’t imagine. The biggest intelligence risk is that these drones are, in fact, collecting our data and sending it back to a foreign adversary.
Many people think drones are just high-powered cameras in the sky, but that’s nothing. You can put all kinds of special sensors and payloads on these drones to collect data. You can gather cell phone signals or pick up IP addresses and different frequencies in the air and track nuclear radiation. All drones have to do is fly over sensitive sites for seconds and the damage is done.
I’ve been saying for a while, we are going to have a catastrophic incident in the U.S. if we don’t fix this problem now.
My first concern is some civilians might take matters into their own hands and fire shots in the air at the next potential drone they see. It might be civilian aircraft, the moon or a legitimate drone. But what if it’s not? If a drone is flying over American cities with a bomb attached, there is not much officials can do about it as the current law stands.
In fact, the law even states that if anyone tried to shoot that drone down right now, they would go to jail. Yet the federal government refuses to take down these drones on its own. And what should we wait for, a drone to conduct an attack on our citizens?
One theory is these sightings are part of a secret military testing project that got out of hand and now the government is too afraid to admit it. If that’s the case, someone needs to be fired. I have tested numerous drones over U.S. government installations in partnership with the military before and that type of secrecy is not how we would conduct business.
Even if we don’t explain to the locals exactly what we are testing on the drones and why, there would be a ton of coordination for those flights at all levels of law enforcement. And if anything got out of hand, for example public hysteria like this, the operation would be shut down immediately.
No matter who these alleged drones belong to, our government's lack of transparency and inability to address the problem created a crisis. That’s unacceptable.
These federal, state and local government officials also need to stop saying there is no known threat unless they really know that. It’s a disservice to the American people. Because I know first-hand the damage drones can do.
Based on my personal experience working with counter-drone technology from all around the world, our law enforcement authorities lack the understanding of this technology. That’s not their fault. It’s the fault of our national leadership.
We need to give law enforcement the tools needed to detect and stop drones fast, and we should have done that years ago. It’s not good enough to increase funding for local law enforcement to obtain more radar technology to track and monitor drones. Law enforcement doesn’t even know what to buy now. They are uneducated on the drone threats we face. U.S. tech is not in a proper state to respond to this, foreign technology from our allies is.
What’s more concerning is I’ve realized from this situation more than ever now that our own law enforcement agencies don’t know the rules of engagement for monitoring and downing rogue drones over the U.S. And that’s the larger problem. No one knows who is in charge or who are the proper authorities.
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The FAA is definitely in charge of the confusion and responsible for it. Because they have hamstrung the U.S. drone and counter-drone community for years with archaic laws and mismanagement that result in this. That has to change. Those who sit at the top of these agencies have zero will to shift budgets properly to address the threat.
There is no push within the higher echelons of our government to keep up with modern-day threats and our infrastructure is not designed for it. We have the technical capacity to monitor and bring down dangerous drones. We just have arrogant people in various levels of our government think they understand until something like this happen.
Drones are not undetectable. It is easy to figure out what’s going on if the proper experts are brought in. That is what upsets me the most. We have the technology to monitor, track and defeat this threat now. Every single drone in the air has a unique fingerprint and signature. We can track all of it.
There are many available counter measures we can put in place, including layering various tactical and strategic counter drone radar systems or jamming the frequencies of the drone, or hijacking them in the air and taking control of them. We have acoustic detection systems. We have the ability to have drones strike other drones now midair. We even have directed energy systems to essentially fry a drone in the air.
But these are not widely deployed because we are unprepared for how to handle this. Our law enforcement agencies lack the tools and the understanding to protect us.
In any case, our government has a lot of explaining to do. I’d tell you that I find it difficult to believe our government doesn’t really know anything about this, but from what I’ve seen in the drone industry, it’s entirely plausible they have zero clue what’s going on and are embarrassed to admit it.
They should be.
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