Federal law enforcement agencies are urging Congress to give them greater authority to handle drones in the United States.
While the request has preceded the recent surge of unexplained drone sightings on the East Coast, the ongoing situation has highlighted their request.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said on ABC News’s This Week that they need Congress to provide them with “additional authorities to address the drone situation” because “our authorities currently are limited, and they are set to expire.”
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The authorities Mayorkas mentioned permit DHS to detect, identify, monitor, and track an unmanned aerial vehicle without prior consent, warn the operator, disrupt control of the drone, seize or confiscate it, and/or use reasonable force to destroy it. These authorities are set to expire on Dec. 20, later this week.
“We need them extended and expanded,” he added. “We want state and local authorities to also have the ability to counter drone activity under federal supervision. That is one important element that we have requested, and we’ve heard it echoed by the state and local officials themselves.”
Government agencies have not attributed the drones to a specific party but several have said they do not pose a threat to civilians. Officials are still investigating who is responsible for them and where they came from. A Pentagon official did reject claims from a New Jersey lawmaker that the drones were of Iranian origin.
“While there is no known malicious activity occurring in New Jersey, the reported sightings there do, however, highlight a gap in current authorities,” a DHS official told the Washington Examiner. “We urge Congress to pass important counter-UAS legislation that will extend and expand existing counter-drone authorities so that we are better equipped to identify and mitigate any potential threats to airports and other critical infrastructure, and so that state and local authorities are provided the tools that they need to respond to such threats as well.”
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The FBI’s Newark division opened an investigation into the mysterious drones on Wednesday, Nov. 20. An FBI official told reporters on Saturday that since the bureau established a tip line, they have received approximately 5,000 tips, fewer than 100 of which have been “deemed worthy of further investigative activity.”
The FBI official also shared support for legislation to expand their authority.
The proliferation of drones over the last several years has raised concerns over how the U.S. would defend itself from such an attack.
In 2022, Samantha Vinograd, then-acting assistant secretary for counterterrorism, threat prevention, and law enforcement, told the Senate Homeland Security Committee that there were “major gaps in authority that impede DHS’s mission to protect national security and public safety.”
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President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming national security adviser, Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL), also said the lack of answers about the mysterious drones represents gaps within the various agencies’ authorities.
“I think what the drone issue points out are kind of gaps in our agencies, gaps in our authorities between the Department of Homeland Security, local law enforcement, the Defense Department,” he said on CBS News’s Face The Nation. “I think Americans are finding it hard to believe we can’t figure out where these are coming from.”