Lawmakers seek to protect U.S. assets from unmanned surveillance systems

Senate Armed Services Committee members are looking to protect U.S. assets by calling for a Pentagon report on suspected or confirmed intrusions by unmanned underwater vehicles on or near U.S. military installations.

Speaking Friday at a press conference, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA), who chairs the Senate Armed Services seapower subcommittee, said that language in the Senate version of the defense authorization bill calling for the analysis reflects recognition that the technology is available and may be used by adversaries.

“I would say that it's more based upon an awareness of the technology and how it can be used, than it is a response to a particular incident,” Kaine said. “It would be malpractice not to make sure that our own assets are protected.”

The committee’s bill also asks for a briefing on the Army’s joint counter-small unmanned aerial systems (C-sUAS) initiatives. C-sUAS systems detect, track and disable small unmanned aircraft.

The bill also “extends authorization for protection of certain facilities and assets from unmanned aircraft,” according to a summary of the legislation.

“The ability with a fairly simple technology to get an [unmanned system] in or near a military base . . . is becoming more patently obvious every day, and we must make sure that we have the right warning systems for them,” Kaine said.

The senator noted that an incident in February involving a Chinese surveillance balloon shot down off the South Carolina coast revealed that “a lot of our technological capacity to observe and identify aerial threats were based upon assumptions about what the speed of the threat would be.”

“And if you fly a balloon at a really low speed,” Kaine said, “it is not necessarily showing up or it wasn’t. I think we have made a lot of appropriate corrections.”

Kaine said incidents involving unmanned systems are “becoming more frequent.”

“And they don't have some of the signatures that we have traditionally looked for, as we have watched for aerial threats to U.S. positions,” he said. “So, we have to recalibrate what it is that we are looking for.”