Posted on 11/23/2022 7:49:45 PM PST by SeekAndFind
Hundreds of Chinese-manufactured drones have been detected in restricted airspace over Washington, D.C., in recent months, a trend that national security agencies fear could become a new means for foreign espionage.
The recreational drones made by Chinese company DJI, which are designed with “geofencing” restrictions to keep them out of sensitive locations, are being manipulated by users with simple workarounds to fly over no-go zones around the nation’s capital.
Federal officials and drone industry experts have delivered classified briefings to the Senate Homeland Security, Commerce and Intelligence committees on the development, three people privy to the meetings said. A spokesperson for the Intelligence Committee — which has been kept closely apprised of the counterintelligence risks — declined to comment on the briefings. The other two committees did not respond.
This story is based on interviews with seven government officials, lawmakers, congressional staffers and contractors. They were granted anonymity because they're not authorized to speak publicly about private and sometimes classified discussions involving government officials.
The officials say they do not believe the swarms are directed by the Chinese government. Yet the violations by users mark a new turn in the proliferation of relatively cheap but increasingly sophisticated drones that can be used for recreation and commerce. They also come as Congress debates extending current federal authorities and adopting new ones to track the aerial vehicles as potential security threats.
“This is part of a trend of commercial drones for potentially nefarious reasons,” said Rachel Stohl, vice president of research programs at the Stimson Center think tank who closely tracks global drone markets. “We’re seeing in conflict zones, in other theaters, the reliance and use of commercial drones.”
“These may be just innocent data collection — or really just looking around, seeing what’s happening — and not in a systemized way,”
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
Uh, huh. Are they?
I hope they are scared sh*tl*ss
Thats just mcconnels inlaws dropping in for the holidays.
.
But they’re not concerned with Chinese paying the Biden family - and bringing $125,000 Diamonds to Hunter’s room, and providing Hunter with a Secretary that unprompted provided Joe with Opposition research on Trump?
One word:
Come on, man!
If the drones are over the White House they’re most likely just dropping cash for Joe.
Safe and effective.
Espionage? What would give them that idea?
They have emp guns that could take them down. Easily.
Not totally buying into these ‘hundreds of drone intrusions’ as being just an espionage threat.
As has been repeatedly shown in the Ukraine-Russian war/conflict, cheap drones equipped with explosives can pretty much wreck high end expensive military hardware, equipment, etc.
With swarm logic incorporated, the amount of something being wrecked increase exponentially.
Therefore, the concern(s) should be more than simply a focus on the espionage aspects of these ‘hundreds of drone incursions,’ but also be on the possible destruction/destructive value they pose if equipped/armed with explosive drone warheads, chemical or biological agents within drone warheads, etc.
Yes, they do, indeed.
Russians are using their own version on the battlefield in Ukraine.
That said, those EMP guns/weapons will have to be backed by various types of anti-air systems.
Senators are alarmed ... that their connections to the CCP might be found out.
House reps too.
We’re in for years if not decades of back-and-forth in the drone wars, between various advances in drone defenses and sneaky drone work-arounds for those new defenses.
In the end it will be necessary to festoon all critical infrastructure and outdoor gathering places with netting and other physical barriers, and it will be ugly, and we will be sadly nostalgic of the world before drones and netting all over the place.
They will soon determine that it is the MAGAites doing this and FISA the hell out of any of us still walking & talking free...
Once they get their reserves in place (87,000 new IRS police), they will be loading us into trucks and trains very efficiently...
There will be minimal resistance, as has been proven by the minimal resistance to the communist onslaught over the past 60 years...
The American serfs are properly trained, educated, and psychologically submissive so that the operations should go very smoothly...
So, there is Geo Fencing around DC, but no kind of fencing on the border?
I don’t believe they are scared of chinese spy drones, unless they are afraid that direct spying might cut into their payoffs from Xi.
I’m actually surprised that they aren’t saying that they fear the drones are being controlled by white supremacist Trumpsters.
Let’s hope those drones knock off a few of those U.S. Senators, starting with McConnell.
They also have rifle sized, smal arms size emp guns.
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