Intel Officials Warned Police That US Cities Aren’t Ready for Hostile Drones

In a previously unreported August memo, the Department of Homeland Security urged state and local police to conduct exercises to test their ability to respond to weaponized drones.

Dell Cameron Dec 17, 2024 11:31 AM

Photograph: Anton Petrus; Getty Images

The Department of Homeland Security issued warnings to state and local law enforcement agencies this summer regarding the “growing illicit use” of commercial drones, internal documents show. Among the recommended steps was to conduct “exercises to test and prepare response capabilities.”

A DHS memo from August, which has not been previously reported, paints US cities as woefully underprepared for the “rising” threat of weaponized drones. The capabilities of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) are “progressing faster” than available countermeasures offered under “federal prevention frameworks,” the memo says, adding that it’s common for state and local authorities to observe “nefarious” and “noncompliant” flights but still lack the authority to intervene.

The memo states that violent extremists in the US are increasingly searching for ways to modify “off-the-shelf” drones to ferry dangerous payloads, including “explosives, conductive materials, and chemicals,” with major advancements in the area being propelled largely by rampant experimentation on foreign battlefields, including those in Ukraine.

The document indicates that DHS has been urging local agencies for months to scout for possible launch sites near and around critical assets, while offering a slew of recommendations designed to mitigate a threat that the agency insists is growing by the day. Local officials have been advised to reposition CCTV cameras to aid in capturing evidence of airborne threats, and to start training local police on how to handle downed drones believed to carry hazardous and explosive materials. Additionally, the agency has urged local agencies to generously deploy, where legal, sensors capable of detecting and identifying commercial drones.

The memo, first obtained by Property of the People, a nonprofit focused on transparency and national security, was circulated roughly three months before the recent flurry of alleged drone sightings along the East Coast—growing national interest in which has been driven in part by the government’s own nebulous response.

New Jersey residents have been steadily reportingbright lights and flying objects in the sky over the past few weeks. At the same time, federal authorities have worked to downplay the significance of the reports. While Homeland Security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas conceded in an interview on Sunday that “people are seeing drones,” DHS had issued a statement days earlier declaring that “numerous detection methods” had failed to corroborate “any of the reported visual sightings.”

In the memo obtained by WIRED, DHS displays less confidence in its ability to detect menacing drones. The document, which authorities were instructed not to make public, states that “tactics and technology to evade counter-UAS capabilities are circulated and sold online with little to no regulation.” In reality, the ability of police to track errant drones is hindered by a range of evolving technologies, the memo says, including “autonomous flight, 5G command and control, jamming protection technology, swarming technology, and software that disables geofencing restrictions.”

The mystery in New Jersey and similar phenomena in Pennsylvania, New York, and Maryland, among other states, have put a spotlight on the ongoing efforts of state and federal legislators to expand the government’s access to counter-UAS technology. Speaking to reporters via Zoom on Saturday, a DHS official said the agency is urging Congress to “extend and expand existing counter-drone authorities,” and ensure “state and local authorities are provided the tools they need to respond to such threats as well.”

Currently, only a handful of federal agencies—including DHS and the Departments of Energy, Justice, and Defense—are legally permitted to bring down a drone inside US airspace.

Property of the People’s executive director, Ryan Shapiro, says the August memo makes clear that DHS is working steadily to obtain new technologies and legal privileges for law enforcement. But any impact to Americans’ civil liberties, he says, should not be justified by simply pointing to a “nebulous, misleadingly constructed threat.”

While terms like “violent extremists” conjure images of neo-Nazis and domestic terrorists hoping to incite a second US civil war, Shapiro says the government has also deceptively applied such labels to help undermine animal rights groups at the behest of corporations. Activists have relied heavily on drones over the past decade, he says, to help gather evidence of cruelty on factory farms—where recording undercover has been criminalized under so-called “ag-gag” laws.

During Saturday’s briefing, FBI officials said authorities had received roughly 5,000 drone tips in connection with the East Coast sightings, ultimately generating around 100 viable leads. Most of the reports appeared consistent, they said, with misidentified flights landing and taking off from major airports in the region.

While the FBI worked to allay concerns stemming from the recent sightings, it also urged Americans not to wholly dismiss the idea that rogue drones pose a serious threat. “It is well known to us that criminals breaking the law do, in fact, use [drones] to support their actions,” an official said, adding that, in contrast, the recent widespread sightings appear largely benign.

In a statement to WIRED, a DHS spokesperson said the agency is continuing to “advise federal, state, and local partners to remain vigilant to potential threats and encourages the public to report any suspicious activity to local authorities.”