Federal officials and lawmakers are working to give the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security the authority to shoot down drones that may be used by terrorists or criminals in the United States.
Officials from those departments made a push for that authority at a Wednesday hearing of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, and senators from both parties indicated support for legislation granting it.
Recommended Stories
“The bill broadly allows DHS and Justice Department personnel to shoot down the drone if the drone threatens a covered facility,” Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., said during the hearing.
Committee chairman Ron Johnson, R-Wis., who is shepherding the bill through the committee, emphasized that the legislation provides limited powers to federal officials. But federal officials indicated support for the idea to help them fight back against the use of drones by hostile forces.
“Overseas, terrorist groups and criminal organizations use commercially available [unmanned aircraft systems] to drop explosive payloads, deliver harmful substances, and conduct illicit surveillance,” a pair of DHS officials wrote in their joint testimony to the committee. Drones could even be used “to conduct an attack” on the president, according to the officials.
“Already, the Secret Service has had several instances where special agents and Uniformed Division officers were called upon to respond to UAS observed at or near protected locations,” they wrote. “The threat presented by these devices is not hypothetical or in the future. It is here and now. The Secret Service needs all available tools, both technological and legal, to counter the threat posed by malicious UAS.”
DHS and DOJ would only be allowed to interfere with a drone when it was judged “necessary,” as opposed to merely “reasonable,” DHS deputy general counsel Hayley Chang said. “[O]nce that threat is over, our authority ends,” she said. “We’d have the authority to disrupt that threat, get that drone down.”
Under current law, they aren’t allowed to take any action. “Right now, our research and development, we can’t even research this technology, because it’s illegal,” Chang said. “And therefore we are going to have to build on our counterparts at [the Defense Department] in order to hit the ground running if and when we get this authority.”
Hassan argued that the legislation should allow state and local law enforcement to respond to parent drone threats. “Is it possible for the DHS and Justice department to confer their authority temporarily to a state or local law enforcement officer in order to neutralize a potential threat?” she asked. “Suppose there is an imminent threat, the only people there are state and local law enforcement.”
But Johnson said the law had been written narrowly to avoid provoking strong opposition. “This is incredibly limited authority,” he said. “This does not give DHS authority to knock down drones in your back yard.”
