{"id":14797,"date":"2012-06-26T12:42:59","date_gmt":"2012-06-26T16:42:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=14797"},"modified":"2012-06-26T12:42:59","modified_gmt":"2012-06-26T16:42:59","slug":"domestic-drones-turned-into-terrorist-missiles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/14797\/domestic-drones-turned-into-terrorist-missiles\/","title":{"rendered":"Domestic Drones Turned Into Terrorist Missiles?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Previously, I\u2019ve agreed<\/a> with Charles Krauthammer\u2019s concerns<\/a> about unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs or drones) being allowed into domestic airspace because of the threat to privacy from so-called \u201ceyes in the sky.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, Todd Humphreys<\/a>, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, is showing how tech savvy terrorists can, and very likely will, exploit a \u201cgaping hole\u201d in the government\u2019s flight security structure.<\/p>\n

Last Tuesday, in the barren desert of the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, officials from the FAA and Department of Homeland Security watched as Humphrey\u2019s team repeatedly took control of a drone from a remote hilltop. The results were every bit as dramatic as the test at the UT stadium a few days earlier.<\/p>\n

DHS is attempting to identify and mitigate GPS interference through its new \u201cPatriot Watch\u201d and \u201cPatriot Shield\u201d programs, but the effort is poorly funded, still in its infancy, and is mostly geared toward finding people using jammers, not spoofers.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

According to Humphreys, \u201cSpoofing [a drone\u2019s GPS receiver] is just another way of hijacking a plane.\u201d<\/p>\n

For about $1,000 and with a little bit of technical training a terrorist could take control of any civilian-operated drone and wreck havoc.\u00a0 Without a human pilot at the controls, the drone\u2019s onboard computer will simply follow whatever commands it is given, regardless of where they originate.<\/p>\n

And while some terrorists may be interested in taking over surveillance drones for intelligence gathering purposes, the real danger is if a drone as large as a cargo plane \u2013 which FedEx plans to use when domestic drones are approved \u2013 is overtaken and flown into planes carrying people or into crowded buildings.<\/p>\n

As Humphreys says, \u201cIn 5 or 10 years you have 30,000 drones in the airspace.\u00a0 Each one of these would be a potential missile used against us.\u201d<\/p>\n

So not only would a terrorist hacker not need to buy a drone in order to fly one, he wouldn\u2019t even need to go through an invasive TSA screening to reenact the 9\/11 tragedy.<\/p>\n

Because of pressure<\/a> from the military and drone manufacturers, Congress is requiring<\/a> the Federal Aviation Administration to fast-track regulations as part of the FAA\u2019s reauthorization act.\u00a0 Significant rules that will impact every American are to be conceived, written, and finalized within weeks of each other, and an entire regulatory scheme is mandated to be implemented in less than a year.<\/p>\n

If you think that kind of statutory mandate translates into greater bureaucratic efficiency, think again.<\/p>\n

The time-crunch \u2013 and the deliberate lack of oversight from Congress by pushing the rule writing onto an agency \u2013 means that everyday Americans will not be privy to the decision making process that will dramatically impact their safety in the air and on the ground.<\/p>\n

Congress needs to rein itself and this process in.\u00a0 With arguably illegal waivers being given to certain groups to avoid provisions of ObamaCare<\/a> and No Child Left Behind<\/a>, we\u2019ve seen how arbitrary and capricious federal regulators can be when it comes to expedited rulemaking.\u00a0 There\u2019s no reason to expect a more coherent approach from an FAA trying to balance competing interests like privacy, profit, and public safety on an irrational deadline.<\/p>\n

We need open debate and deliberation from our elected<\/em> officials about the costs and benefits of domestic drones.\u00a0 If Congress won\u2019t engage the issue because it\u2019s too politically painful, then the American people shouldn\u2019t suffer a lapse in safety and privacy because their representatives would rather pass the buck than take responsibility.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Previously, I\u2019ve agreed with Charles Krauthammer\u2019s concerns about unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs or drones) being allowed into domestic airspace because of the threat to privacy from so-called \u201ceyes in the sky.\u201d Now, Todd Humphreys, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, is showing how tech savvy terrorists can, and very likely will, exploit […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1773,1138,84,2200,3657,3659,35,3658,300,2965,683],"class_list":["post-14797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-1773","tag-bureaucracy","tag-congress","tag-drone","tag-faa","tag-no-child-left-behind","tag-obamacare","tag-oversight","tag-regulation","tag-rulemaking","tag-tsa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14797"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14797\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14800,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14797\/revisions\/14800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}