Rep. Dan Crenshaw urges Congress to address 'lack of legal framework' surrounding drone security

Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, warned of the "real problem" Congress must tackle regarding drone security on Tuesday, following a House Intelligence Committee classified briefing on the mysterious sightings. 

"I think it's inaccurate for the Biden administration to say that they're absolutely sure that there's [sic] no problems here – they're not absolutely sure," Crenshaw told Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum on "The Story" Tuesday. "There's about 100 cases of these sightings that are still under under active investigation. Now, keep in mind, there was like 6,000 before a lot of them had been assessed to just be planes, manned aircraft, things like that… satellites. And they're investigating every single one of them." 

As a member of the House Intelligence Committee, Crenshaw emphasized that one of the "biggest problems" in addressing drone security is the lack of a clear "legal framework."

"Since 2017, 2018, we've given the federal government authority to detect and mitigate drone activity across the United States, but that tends to be pretty limited," said Crenshaw. "So DOJ has authority, DOD has authority, DOE - Department of Energy - has authority, DHS has some authority. But all of these authorities are pretty specific to, say, government facilities and even some government facilities don't even fall under it. And so, you know, you might find some government facilities, that, if they shoot down a drone that's overhead, they're actually criminally liable. So this is a real problem that we have to solve in Congress." 

Crenshaw noted that a few bills in Congress addressing this issue have been circulating for some time, and he believes they will now receive "a lot more attention."

"There's really, like, no criminal penalties for these people who are maybe flying unlicensed drones, flying them in an airspace they're not supposed to be in. There's not a legal framework to deal with that," said Crenshaw. "And then to me, from my understanding, there's just no lead agency. There's no 911 button that you call and say, okay, these are the people who come and deal with the drone. However it is you deal with the drone – whether you shoot it down, capture it, use a jamming signal – however it is, it's not clear to anybody who's actually in charge of that. And state and local authorities don't really have the capabilities or the authorities to deal with it either."

"That's why you're seeing this understandable breakout, I think, in the American public, because everyone's like, wait, who do we call for this?" he added.

The DHS, FBI, FAA, and DOD released a joint statement on Monday ahead of their briefing with lawmakers regarding the recent drone sightings.

DRONES SPOTTED ACROSS NORTHEAST LIKELY COMING FROM ‘INSIDE THE US,’ MILITARY EXPERT SAYS

In the statement, the federal agencies explained that the mysterious sightings to date include a "combination of lawful commercial drones, hobbyist drones, and law enforcement drones, as well as manned fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, and stars mistakenly reported as drones."

The agencies also noted that they have not identified anything "anomalous" and "do not assess" the activity to date to pose a national security or public safety risk over civilian airspace in New Jersey or other areas in the northeast.

The statement further mentioned a "limited" number of "visual sightings" of drones over military facilities in New Jersey and elsewhere, including in restricted airspace. However, the agencies also reassured that such sightings nearby or above DoD installations are "not new."