• Drone sightings have been reported in the eastern United States in recent weeks.
• Officials say they are investigating the mystery plane, many of which were actually crewed planes.
• But federal agencies stress they need more authority to address the drone threat.

Federal agencies say they need more authority to better manage drones, amid a surge in unexplained drone sightings that have sowed confusion across the eastern United States in recent weeks.

Department of Homeland Security and FBI officials said Saturday that they are currently limited in how they can respond to drone sightings reported which extend from Maryland to Massachusetts since mid-November.

Much of the mystery centers on New Jersey, where drones have been reported around military installations and critical infrastructure sites. The Biden administration has emphasized that these drones are not the work of a foreign adversary and do not appear to pose a threat to public safety. A White House spokesperson said many of the suspect drones are believed to be manned aircraft operating legally.

“While there is currently no known malicious activity in New Jersey, the sightings reported there highlight a gap in our current authorities,” a DHS official said in a telephone interview with journalists on weekends.

The official said they urged Congress “to pass our important anti-UAS legislation that will extend and expand our existing anti-drone authorities.”

This legislation would leave DHS “better equipped to identify and mitigate any potential threats at airports or other critical infrastructure,” but would also provide state and local authorities “with the tools they need to respond to such threats,” added the responsible.

An FBI official agreed with that argument and said any investigation into drones was “limited in scope.” They said legislation is pending that, if lawmakers pass it, would expand the agency’s legal authority over counter-drone tools and technology.

The official said the legislation would “help us quickly identify or mitigate some of the threats.”

A bipartisan billThe Safety, Security, and Anti-UAS Authorities Reauthorization Act, sponsored by Tennessee Rep. Mark Green, would expand drone oversight by federal agencies.

Federal law enforcement officers told House lawmakers at a hearing this week, the current legal authorities they are working with are not sufficient to deal with the threat posed by drones.

These restrictions are also being felt by the military, as the US Northern Command said earlier that it was aware of reports of unauthorized drone flights near two military installations in New Jersey: the arsenal of Picatinny and the Earle Naval Weapons Station.

A Defense Department official said the military was limited in what it could do outside its base and had to coordinate with local and federal law enforcement to take action.

“We are also significantly limited — and rightfully, in fact, prohibited — from intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance here in our country,” the official said on the call with reporters Saturday.

“We don’t have the same capabilities and the same methods that we would employ in other locations outside the country to determine points of origin and very quickly identify where these operators are and then intervene there,” he said. added the manager. “We just can’t do that here in our country.”

The recent sightings follow similar incidents over the past year with drones spotted. near sensitive military sites in the United States and abroad. Acknowledging that there is a drone problem, the Pentagon recently announced a new anti-drone strategy as he seems to discover better ways to defeat the threat.

While the ongoing “mystery drone” saga on the East Coast has caused confusion among civilians and officials, federal agencies say many of the reported sightings only involve crewed aircraft that are misidentified as drones. drones. However, the FBI acknowledged that while only a small percentage of the information it received ultimately warranted further investigation, there is certainly unexplained drone activity over New Jersey.

“We are doing our best to find the origin of these drone activities,” the FBI official said. “But I think there was a slight overreaction.”