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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.”
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Norway is assessing its EU options as a second Trump term looms
Increased geopolitical tensions could yet see Oslo rethink its attitude towards Brussels
CONSTANZE STELZENMÜLLER
Norwegian soldiers patrol the border with Russia. Were Trump to downgrade the US role in Nato, Oslo would feel much more vulnerable to pressure from Moscow and Beijing © Maxim Shemetov/Reuters
The writer directs the Center on the US and Europe at the Brookings Institution
European capitals are contemplating the return of Donald Trump on January 20 with a degree of unease. The US president-elect is known, after all, to harbour less than warm-and-fuzzy feelings towards Nato and the EU.
All European capitals? Not quite. Consider Oslo, where senior Norwegian politicians like to remark reassuringly that “our bilateral relationship with the US will always be safe”. And they do have some excellent points in their favour.
Norway, a founding member of Nato and its eyes and ears in the Arctic, is the guardian of the North Atlantic exit route for the Russian submarine fleet based on the Kola Peninsula. It plans to overshoot Nato’s defence spending goal of 2 per cent of GDP by 2025, and its long-term defence plan will nearly double the defence budget by 2036; a “civil defence brochure” tells citizens how to stock up for emergencies, including war. It is a major supporter of Ukraine. Fifty-two per cent of Norway’s $1.8tn sovereign wealth fund is invested in North America. It even has a trade deficit with America. These are all things the president-elect likes.
Ask around in Oslo, though, and concerns quickly surface. Trump’s enthusiasm for tariffs is a particular source of anxiety, as Norway is not a member of the EU. “If the US levies tariffs on Europe, and the EU retaliates with countertariffs, we’ll be hit with a double whammy,” sighs one official.
Apprehensions about security are also rife. Russia and China have been muscling into the Arctic. They are especially keen on the archipelago of Svalbard, which is Norwegian territory, but under a century-old international treaty allows other countries to exploit resources and conduct research. Were Trump to downgrade the US role in Nato, Oslo would feel much more vulnerable to pressure from Moscow and Beijing. And what if Russia’s president Vladimir Putin, in return for a ceasefire in Ukraine, were to demand US support for tweaks to the European security order — say an expanded Russian and Chinese foothold on Svalbard?
Could all this make the EU appear in a new light? Norway said no to joining in two referendums in 1972 and 1994, joining the European Economic Area (EEA) instead. A November poll still has only 34.9 per cent of Norwegians saying their country should join, with a plurality of 46.7 per cent against. Still, that is down from more than 70 per cent against in 2016.
Policymakers in Oslo note the EU’s competitiveness struggles and the rise of the far right, as well as their own domestic obstacles like fishery or agricultural interests. But they have also been watching the speed and determination with which Finland and Sweden have integrated into Nato. One points out that Helsinki is about to get its own Nato land command in 2025, and Stockholm gained a director-general position in the alliance’s international civil service, “while we have neither!”
Indeed, Norway’s global commitment to diplomacy, international institutions and law, its military seriousness, its generous development aid, its position as one of Europe’s key energy suppliers following the near-complete decoupling from Russia, and finally its stupendous wealth fund would all make it a prime candidate for expedited membership in the EU.
So the dilemma for an interdependent and exposed Norway is — as the newspaper Aftenposten put it memorably after Trump’s re-election — whether to become “the 51st state of the US, like a kind of Puerto Rico” or the 28th member state of the EU. The appeal of the latter option is that Norway would be moving in at the top floor. At a time when both Paris and Berlin are barely able to lead, it could not just shift the balance of power in Europe, but initiate a restart.
For Norway is not the only European country that is quietly weighing its options. Pro-EU parties won Iceland’s November parliamentary election. Switzerland is wrapping up negotiating a treaty package with the EU, and its hallowed neutrality is the subject of a vibrant national discussion. Ireland is not a Nato member, but it too has been tightening its ties with the alliance. Sweden’s debate on swapping the weak krona for the euro has remained inconclusive; but war in Europe could make joining the Eurozone look like additional political insurance.
A sceptical Norwegian banker contends it would take a political “meteorite” to shift his country’s posture on joining the EU. Given the experience of the first Trump administration, that is hardly unimaginable. But it would be ironic if the 47th president were to become a great unifier of Europe.