Remember the drone attack on Venezuelan President Maduro? On Lawfare, Nicholas Weaver discusses the legal vs practical implications for the United States. This bit sparked a couple of thoughts:
The effort was unsuccessful. One drone crashed into a building while the other appeared to explode in mid air; Maduro was unharmed. But amazingly, should someone try a similar attack in the United States, federal officers do not have sufficient legal authority to stop the drone in progress. The current version of the bill to reauthorize the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) contains language that would enable federal authorities to directly counter these threats.
The threat is significant. The drones used in the Venezuelan attack, for example, are available commercially for $5,000 each. They weigh less than 25 pounds and can be controlled from five kilometers away over a short-range radio link, essentially the computer equivalent of an old-fashioned walkie-talkie. These are standard drones used for professional aerial photography or similar activities, but modern racing drones are even scarier. One particular $300 drone has a flying weight of less than a pound, can travel at over 100 miles per hour, carry a 200 gram payload—the mass of a 40 millimeter grenade—and yet is agile enough that a skilled pilot can fly it under trees.
It is incredibly hard to intercept and disable small drones like these, even in a military environment and with a military budget—so hard that DARPA is still trying to solve this problem. Disabling drones like these is even harder in a civilian environment, with added budgetary constraints and concerns over collateral damage.
The threat from these drones has been obvious since well before the Maduro assassination attempt. The Islamic State has already shown an ability to weaponize commercial drones; a gang reportedly used swarming drones to disrupt an FBI operation; and at least one Mexican drug cartel has developed bomb drones. Yet under current law, it is illegal for law enforcement to counter such drones: To do so would be interference with an “aircraft,” as the FAA defines even a lightweight toy drone.
Inevitably, weaponizing a drone will result in calls for making such drones illegal. Will we see interference from adversaries such as Russia, attempting to sway public opinion concerning whether weaponized drones should be generally available? How can the NRA become even more shrill than it is these days?
Technically, to my mind there are two sorts of drones, remotely controlled and autonomous, and they may require separate approaches. Neither would be easy to hit with a kinetic weapon. Concussion weapons may cause too much collateral damage. Electromagnetic weapons of a primitive sort will work against remotely controlled drones, but taking out autonomous drones with an electromagnetic weapon such as an EMP may, again, result in too much collateral damage unless an EMP could be tuned to only destroy devices operating on a particular part of the spectrum. But what if the weapons are using commercial parts, thus causing collateral damage again?
This could be morbidly interesting.
