Will Congress Empower Local Police to Counter Unauthorized Drone Flights?

By DRONELIFE Features Editor Jim Magill

The National Football League has reported that during the 2023 season it detected more than 2,800 improper drone flights at its stadiums in violation of FAA-imposed temporary flight restrictions.

With the growing number of incidents involving drone flying where and when they shouldn’t, local law enforcement agencies and drone security companies are lobbying Congress to pass legislation that would extend the authority to conduct counter-drone measures – currently held by a handful of select federal agencies – to local-level police officials.

Mary-Lou Smulders, head of government affairs of drone security company Dedrone, said that under current law, police agencies at the state and municipal levels have very little authority to interdict drones that are violating the airspace of critical infrastructure sites, jails and prisons, and public gathering places such as sports arenas.

“What police can do today using Dedrone is detect that drone from far away, track it, locate the pilot, and identify the type of drone,” she said. “When it comes to mitigation, the thing that they can’t do today is affect the drone in some way.”

The most that local law enforcement personnel can do to bring down a UAV that is being flown — either foolishly or maliciously — in airspace it has no right to be in, is to locate the pilot and instruct him to bring the drone down to earth.

Under current law the only agencies empowered to employ mitigation techniques to bring down a threatening drone are: The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Department of Justice (DOJ), Department of Defense (DOD), and Department of Energy (DOE). However, there are several bipartisan bills pending in Congress that would extend such mitigation authority to state, local tribal, and territorial (SLTT) law enforcement agencies.

These bills include: SB 1631, the Safeguarding the Homeland from the Threats Posed by Unmanned Aircraft Systems Act, introduced by Democratic Senator Gary Peters, of Michigan last year and recently reintroduced; and its companion House bill, sponsored by Democratic Representatives Chrissy Houlahan, of Pennsylvania and Troy Carter of Louisiana, and Republicans Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin and Mike Johnson of Louisiana.

Another pending piece of legislation, House Bill 8610, has been introduced to “reauthorize and reform counter-unmanned aircraft system authorities, to improve transparency, security, safety and accountability related to such authorities.” That bill, sponsored by the leading lawmakers from both parties representing three important House committees — Homeland Security, Transportation and Infrastructure, and Judiciary – would create a pilot program for selected local law enforcement agencies to exercise mitigation authorities over drones.

Smulders said she is “laser focused” on efforts to encourage Congress to pass some form of legislation this year to give SLTT agencies a greater ability to mitigate incursions from errant drones.

“We’re trying to change two pieces of the law. The one that everyone gravitates towards, that’s really easy to understand, is to mitigate the drone in a different way, be it to jam the drone, or shoot the drone down, or laser the drone and fry its insides,” she said.

Another potential for drone mitigation, and one that’s currently prohibited by federal law, involves advanced detection, or reading the transmissions that pass between the pilot and the drone to determine the exact location of the drone in the sky. Dedrone’s offers technology to conduct such advanced detection to customers outside of the borders of the U.S., but not to its domestic customers. “Even though it’s more complicated, it’s almost crazy that it’s not allowed today,” Smulders said.

In March the FAA finalized its rule for requiring drones to be equipped with Remote ID software, creating an electronic license plate, broadcasting the drone’s location and other identifying data.

“Every drone is obligated to put up their license plate now, their remote ID,” she said. “So, all the well-behaved drones are doing it. But the whole point of this is to catch the unauthorized ones. And the law currently does not allow for taking that remote ID information if it’s not actively being sent out.”

There are subtle differences among the three main drone mitigation bills pending before Congress, which will have to be ironed out during the legislative process. “The Senate bill is a little more generous in terms of mitigation authorities. But they’re all aiming at the same thing. My take is if we can get something passed, it’ll be a huge step in the right direction,” Smulders said.

She added that said there is broad bipartisan support in Congress for passing some form of drone mitigation legislation this year. In addition to the previously mentioned bills, several lawmakers have proposed amendments to the National Defense Authorization Act to address the issue of providing greater drone mitigation authority to SLTT agencies, she said. The NDAA is considered to be one of the few bills that Congress must pass every year, so amendments that are attached to the final version of that legislation are virtually assured of becoming law.

With the recent conclusion of the presidential election “it’ll be a sprint to the finish,” to pass some form of bipartisan drone mitigation legislations by the end of the year, she said.

Dedrone was recently involved in a merger in which it was acquired by technology and weapons development company Axon.

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Jim Magill is a Houston-based writer with almost a quarter-century of experience covering technical and economic developments in the oil and gas industry. After retiring in December 2019 as a senior editor with S&P Global Platts, Jim began writing about emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence, robots and drones, and the ways in which they’re contributing to our society. In addition to DroneLife, Jim is a contributor to Forbes.com and his work has appeared in the Houston Chronicle, U.S. News & World Report, and Unmanned Systems, a publication of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International.

Miriam McNabb is the Editor-in-Chief of DRONELIFE and CEO of JobForDrones, a professional drone services marketplace, and a fascinated observer of the emerging drone industry and the regulatory environment for drones. Miriam has penned over 3,000 articles focused on the commercial drone space and is an international speaker and recognized figure in the industry.  Miriam has a degree from the University of Chicago and over 20 years of experience in high tech sales and marketing for new technologies.
For drone industry consulting or writing, Email Miriam.

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