Review - S 1443 Introduced – Border Counter UAS Activities

Earlier this month, Sen Lankford (R,OK) introduced S 1443, the Protecting the Border from Unmanned Aircraft Systems Act. The bill would require an interagency strategy for creating a unified posture on counter-unmanned aircraft systems (C–UAS) capabilities and protections at international borders of the United States. There is no spending authorized in the legislation.

Moving Forward

As I reported Monday, this bill is included in the agenda of today’s business meeting of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. This typically means that there is bipartisan support on the Committee for the bill, but there may be amendments made to the bill to appease concerns among certain members.

Commentary

Missing from this bill is any discussion of the legal constraints under which any C-UAS actions can be taken. While those legal restrictions only apply to UAS operating in US airspace, additional political and international legal constraints would apply to any over-the-boarder actions. There should have been an additional subsection added to the bill requiring GAO to prepare a report to Congress on the existing legal constraints on cross-border and wholly internal counter UAS operations.

 

For more details about the provisions of this bill, including a brief look at the potential political complexities facing effective C-UAS regulations, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/s-1443-introduced - subscription required.