IN OCTOBER, FRENCH forces were training Kurdish fighters outside the Iraqi town of Dohuk when a drone crashed to the ground. As they inspected the device, it exploded, killing two Kurdish soldiers and wounding many others. A Kurdish official later reported that the drone had been “booby-trapped” with a bomb disguised as a battery case.
With little fanfare, ISIS has debuted a new, easy-to-obtain weaponized drone employable by terror groups and other non-state actors. No doubt ISIS’s magazine Dabiq will soon include instructions for how to make one. But there’s little need: cheap, commercially available drones are a problem and are now a tool for terrorists. We need an effective counter-strategy, yesterday.
We might have seen this coming. In 2011, a Massachusetts man was arrested before he could fly a model airplane rigged with explosives into the Pentagon. Since then, drones have come within inches of crashing into important targets. They’ve landed on the White House lawn, on top of the Sydney Opera House, and flown over packed stadiums. And last year, in an eerie anti-nuclear power protest, a man landed a drone carrying radioactive sand from Fukushima on the Japanese prime minister’s residence.
Meanwhile, everyone from companies like Amazon to junior-high science teachers are extolling the virtues of small drones to deliver packages and teach science skills. There are more than 325,000 drone users in this country. PwC estimates the global market for commercial applications of drone technology is $127 billion. In an attempt to rein in the drone craze, the FAA this summer took a step toward creating a framework for commercial drone use by releasing updated regulations. Too little, too late. What prevents someone from breaking the rules?
As a co-author of the SAFE Ports Act in 2006, I remember visiting a massive port facility and asking what measures they had in place to prevent an attack, similar to the one on the USS Cole, in which a small boat rams or explodes into the side of a big ship. The facility director told me they didn’t need countermeasures, because there was a law preventing small boats from coming within a certain perimeter of cargo ships. And what terrorist would comply, I asked.
Laws are also unlikely to deter someone intending massive harm from attempting a drone/bird-style strike on airplanes or targeting civilians as they walk down the sidewalk.
That’s before even considering concerns raised by the privacy community. What’s left of the Fourth amendment, which guarantees Americans the right not to be subjected to unnecessary search and seizures, if a drone is dwelling over your house, capable of using infrared to see into your bedroom and sophisticated technology to listen to your conversations?
So as we recover from the madness of this presidential campaign, let’s think about how to pair effective common-sense regulations with counter-drone capabilities.
The best place to start is with the drone makers. They know best the incredible opportunities drones hold for us, but also want to make sure their products are not used by bad actors.
Let’s work with them to develop a few manufacturing protocols, such as limiting payload capacities. For example, right now, the popular DJI Phantom 4 can carry a little less than a pound, which puts a limit on the damage that it could cause should it be weaponized.
We could also require drone makers to extend “no-fly zones,” meaning that the devices would have to be hardwired not to fly into certain GPS ranges (typically around airports or sensitive locations). This would limit the opportunity for lone wolves without sophisticated technical skills to carry out attacks on critical infrastructure.
While laws for users are unlikely to prevent bad actors, they can deter them. If users need a valid remote pilot license to purchase a drone or operate one, many will decide to opt out. To get a license, applicants should be trained to avoid critical infrastructure, not to fly drones in formation, or to dwell over private homes.
But, clearly, regulations are not enough. We also need preemptive and reactive measures to thwart drone attacks. Preemptive measures might include early warning systems that react to drone-controlled frequencies or signal jammers that try to confuse the drone’s geolocation. For example, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department deployed detection and counter-drone equipment during the October presidential debate, enforcing a “no-drone zone” around the University of Las Vegas campus. High-risk locations must also plan for drone attacks if preemptive measures fail. Anti-drone weapons include projectiles (nets, rubber bullets, light missiles), lasers that confuse the drone’s sense of space, and defensive drones that attack offensive drones.
That ISIS successfully weaponized a drone is a wake-up call. Without effective counter strategies, drones are a game changer for the battlefield and for our constitutional rights. We fail to act at our own peril.
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