The White House has issued a statement of support for a bill circulating in the Senate that would give the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security limited authorities to detect, track and mitigate potential threats from small drones, they kind that typically can be purchased commercially by anyone.
The statement from the White House press secretary expressed the Trump administration’s support for integrating unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) into the national airspace while balancing the needs for public safety and security.
“Achieving that goal requires the development of a legal framework that protects the public from nefarious uses of this technology, such as facilitating terrorist attacks, conducting espionage, or facilitating other criminal activities such as illicit surveillance, interfering with the safe operation of aircraft, interfering with law enforcement operations, delivering contraband inside prisons, or smuggling drugs or other harmful materials across our Nation’s borders,” the statement says. It also says the legislation will boost growth of the commercial drone industry and help with integration of small UAS into the national airspace.
The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee last month approved the bipartisan Preventing Emerging Threats Act of 2018 (S.2836) bill introduced by several members of the panel that gives DHS and the Justice Department limited legal authorities to counter threats posed by malicious drones. Last week, companion legislation (H.R. 6401) was introduced in the House by Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, and Rep. Steve Chabot (R-Ohio), a member of the Judiciary Committee.
The White House says that current laws limit the government’s ability to test and use counter UAS technologies, specifically for detecting, tracking and mitigating systems that may pose a threat. It is illegal to down an aircraft in the national airspace. The Senate and House bills would enable testing and evaluation of these technologies, including for disrupting and disabling potentially malicious UAS systems.
The Federal Aviation Administration has tested counter UAS systems for detecting, tracking and identifying UAS operating near airports but like the Homeland Security and Justice Departments, is prohibited from testing mitigation technologies. Congress has provided the Defense and Energy Departments with limited authorities to protect certain of their facilities from drones, including the use of mitigation systems, which can be used to defeat UAS.
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.), chairman of the Senate Homeland Security panel and one of the sponsors of the counter drone legislation, warned last month that jurisdictional disputes within the Senate were hindering the bill from getting to the floor for consideration.
Islamic State fighters in Iraq have used small commercial drones to drop small munitions, such as grenades, on Iraqi forces with precise effects. U.S. officials are concerned that small UAS could be used domestically in similar ways by terrorists. Transcriminal organizations are using drones to smuggle drugs across U.S. borders.
DoD Efforts Creating Framework for Homeland
Work done by the Defense Department to thwart potential threats posed by remotely piloted aircraft to its facilities in the U.S. is laying the “foundation” for the Departments of Homeland Security and Justice to rollout similar capabilities in the homeland once they’ve been granted authorities to do, says an official with the Federal Aviation Administration.
Since receiving its own authorities from Congress in Dec. 2016 to counter UAS, the Defense Department has deployed these capabilities in two locations over the past year, Steven Mucklow, a DoD official, tells a House panel. He says the rollout has been “deliberate” in part because of the close work with partners and to ensure the capabilities are “safely” introduced,
Angela Stubblefield, the deputy associate administrator for Security and Hazardous Materials Safety at the FAA, says DoD has only deployed CUAS systems to two locations because the department, which is working closely with her agency, is being “deliberative” and is creating a “foundation” that is being applied to the Department of Energy (DoE), and if granted authorities, DHS and Justice. Like DoD, the DoE also has limited authorities to deploy CUAS capabilities.
In response to a question from Rep. Rick Larsen (D-Wash.), who commented that the slow rollout of CUAS capabilities by DoD at its U.S. facilities might suggest it will take decades for the department and eventually DHS and DoJ to protect domestic facilities from UAS threats, Stubblefield replied that with the “hard work” by DoD, “that will hopefully be able to expedite” efforts by other agencies.
“With the foundation in place, we should be down to working on the more site specific stuff, and even with DoD, once we lock in those foundational pieces of guidance, concepts of operations, notification procedures, then moving site to site goes much more quickly,” Stubblefield told Larsen during a roundtable on CUAS issues held by the House Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Aviation.
Mucklow, who is special assistant to the deputy assistant secretary of defense for Homeland Defense Integration and Defense Support of Civil Authorities, and Stubblefield, says DoD and FAA collaborate closely, often daily, on potential impacts of domestic CUAS deployments on the national airspace. Mucklow also said the same CUAS systems are being used at the two facilities and that additional capabilities are about to begin testing at other domestic installations.
“What we’re moving to is that combination of capabilities at our installations because no one capability is going to do the job for us,” Mucklow told the panel.
Most of the CUAS technologies on the market have been developed for DoD use and there are concerns that as these capabilities—in particular those used to mitigate or disrupt threats posed by drones—are acquired and deployed for domestic applications, they could interfere with existing electronic systems used in everyday operations and life. While the CUAS technologies are non-kinetic, they typically work by jamming or spoofing UAS control signals or by disrupting GPS signals.
David Silver, vice president for Civil Aviation at the Aerospace Industries Association, tells the panel that there have been instances where radio wave technologies have caused the loss of autopilot systems on manned aircraft and recently a grocery store’s door was opening and closing due to radio wave interference.
“We have a lot of concerns anytime we’re talking about the use of jamming technology,” Silver says, noting that these technologies can continue traveling for a ways before dissipating. “So without understanding how those radio frequency waves are going to affect aircraft, we put the aircraft at risk.” He also said that with the blocking and jamming of GPS technology, it’s important not to do spoofing, which can lead to “pilots getting bad information.”