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Secret Service Testing Drones, How To Disrupt Their Flying

WASHINGTON (WJZ)—The flight from novelty to potential threat has been a short one for private drones. It reportedly has the Secret Service doing its own test flights in the middle of the night over Washington D.C.

Alex DeMetrick looks into what the Secret Service may be doing with their drones.

What makes drones appealing? Inexpensive, small and highly maneuverable--are the same things that keeps law enforcement up at night.

"They don't know what's coming at them until it's actually there. So it's a time issue, a size issue, because some of these platforms are very, very small," said Matt Scassero.

And it hit home for the Secret Service this past January, when a drone being operated over D.C. ended up crashing onto the White House lawn. That sent agents searching for more, although the drone's owner quickly admitted he was flying it for fun when he lost control.

"This is something law enforcement and the Secret Service have been planning for and dreading for decades," said Dan Emmet, former Secret Service agent.

According to the Associated Press, over the next few months, the secret service will be flying its own drones late at night, to develop defensive strategy.

There are three basic ways to stop a drone.

  1. Jam the radio signals controlling it
  2. Hack into the signals and take it over
  3. Or shoot it out of the air.

 

"They have to figure out how they do it without collateral damage; dropping on people, dropping on cars or traffic, creating a worse problem than it already is."

A drone covering a sporting event highlighted that.

Imagine if it carried explosives.

Police worry about that wherever crowds gather, the Secret Service worry about the president.

A retired agent with 20-years of experience wrote about the challenges he faced and for agents today, dealing with a drone threat.

"I really don't know how the secret service is going to prohibit this from happening in the future, short of closing down every street that surrounds the white house."

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