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Federal agencies are arguing they need more authority so they can better deal with drones amid the surge in unexplained drone sightings that have caused confusion throughout the eastern US in recent weeks.
Department of Homeland Security and FBI officials said on Saturday that they are limited right now in how they can respond to the reported drone sightings that have stretched from Maryland to Massachusetts since mid-November.
Much of the mystery has centered on New Jersey, where drones have been reported around military facilities and critical infrastructure sites. The Biden administration has stressed that these drones are not the work of a foreign adversary and do not appear to be a public safety threat. A White House spokesperson said many of the suspected drones are believed to be crewed aircraft that are operating lawfully.
"While there is no known malicious activity occurring in New Jersey right now, the reported sightings there do highlight a gap in our current authorities," a DHS official said during a weekend background call with reporters.
The official said that they urged Congress "to pass our important counter-UAS legislation that will extend and expand our existing counter-drone authorities."
That legislation would leave DHS "better equipped to identify and mitigate any potential threats at airports or other critical infrastructure" but also provide state and local authorities with" the tools that they need to respond to such threats," the official added.
An FBI official agreed with that argument and said that any investigation into the drones is "limited in scope." They said there is pending legislation that, if lawmakers passed it, would expand the agency's legal authority regarding counter-drone tools and technologies.
The official said that the legislation would "help us quickly identify or quickly mitigate some of the threats."
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A bipartisan bill, the Counter-UAS Authority Security, Safety, and Reauthorization Act, sponsored by Tennessee Rep. Mark Green, would expand federal agencies' oversight of drones.
Federal law enforcement officials told House lawmakers at a hearing this week that the current legal authorities they are working with aren't enough to deal with the threat that drones pose.
These restrictions are felt by the military as well, as US Northern Command said earlier that it was aware of reports of unauthorized drone flights near two military installations in New Jersey: the Picatinny Arsenal and Naval Weapons Station Earle.
A Department of Defense official said the military is limited in what it can do off-base and needs to coordinate with local and federal law enforcement to take any action.
"We're also significantly restricted — and rightfully so, in fact, prohibited — from intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance here in the homeland," the official said during the call with reporters on Saturday.
"We don't have the same capabilities and the same methods that we would employ in other locations outside of the homeland to determine points of origin and identify very quickly where these operators are located and then respond to that location," the official added. "We just can't do that here in the homeland."
The recent sightings follow similar incidents over the past year, with drones spotted near sensitive military sites in the US and overseas. Recognizing it has a drone issue, the Pentagon recently announced a new counter-drone strategy as it looks to uncover better ways to defeat the threat.
While the ongoing East Coast "mystery drone" saga has confused civilians and officials alike, federal agencies say many of the reported sightings are just crewed aircraft that are being misidentified as drones. However, the FBI has acknowledged that while only a small percentage of the tips it received ended up warranting further investigation, there is definitely some unexplained drone activity above New Jersey.
"We're doing our best to find the origin of those drone activities," the FBI official said. "But I think there has been a slight overreaction."
