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White House Drone Incident Exposes Key Security Gap
HughPickens.com writes The Washington Post reports that the intrusion by a recreational drone onto the White House lawn has exposed a security gap at the compound that the Secret Service has spent years studying but has so far been unable to fix. Commercial technology is available that can use a combination of sensitive radar and acoustic trackers to detect small drones, though coming up with an effective way to stop them has been more elusive. "To do something about the problem, you have to find it, you have to track it, you have to identify it and you have to decide what to do with it," says Frederick F. Roggero. "But especially in an urban environment, it would be tough to detect and tough to defeat kinetically without shooting it down and causing collateral damage." Most recreational drones, like the one that crashed Monday, weigh only a few pounds and lack the power to do much harm. Larger models that can carry payloads of up to 30 pounds are available on the market and are expected to become more common. The FAA imposes strict safety regulations on drones flown by government agencies or anyone who operates them for commercial purposes. In contrast, hardly any rules apply to people who fly drones as a hobby, other than FAA guidelines that advise them to keep the aircraft below 400 feet and five miles from an airport. "With the discovery of an unauthorized drone on the White House lawn, the eagle has crash-landed in Washington," says Senator Charles Schumer. "There is no stronger sign that clear FAA guidelines for drones are needed."
Because nobody with bad intentions defies FAA guidelines.
The Secret Serpents need X millions of dollars to provide a 100% effective defense against a $50 toy. Because terrorists!
Scruting the inscrutable for over 50 years.
I suspect you could also use an unregulated trebuchet to launch something over a fence, or perhaps an unauthorized weather balloon with a payload to drop something on your neighbor's lawn from altitude. Or a slingshot (although those might be illegal within city limits). The notion of a serious "security gap" is farcical because any reasonably intelligent person could come up with a number of clever ways to outwit fences and exclusion zones.
I'm sure they can figure out a way to shoot a net with weighted ends that could probably knock one of these out of the air, and not cause any or too much damage if it misses.
Seriously, regulate the entire country because somebody's toy landed on the lawn at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave ?
TFS says that they don't have a good way to stop a small drone or remote-control plane.
Therefore, we should make it illegal to fly a hobby toy _______. (Fill in the blank with your favorite regulation).
I guess they didn't notice that the bad guys don't CARE whether or not it's illegal to use this toy in the city / at night / near Washington / without permission / whatever. The vexing thing about terrorists is that they don't follow the rules, so hanging the rules doesn't effect them - it only effects us.
It's a toy helicopter. We don't need the FAA to do anything about this - but nannies never let a good "crisis" go to waste...
Do you have ESP?
Just use a water cannon to shoot the things down. The government already consider them safe to use on crowds. It would be very effective against drones. I can't be the only person who thought of this.
Seriously, why was the person flying the drone at 3AM?
The only reason I can think of is it was someone who had a motive to embarrass the security.