Sen. Chuck Schumer's drone bill blocked in Congress by Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul
NEW YORK — A move in Congress by Sen. Chuck Schumer that would allow towns to track drones was blocked Wednesday.
Schumer wants a law to allow local law enforcement to move quickly and give them more ways to track aerial drones. He has also called for the United States Department of Homeland Security to deploy better drone-tracking technology to identify the recent mystery drones and their operators.
"Our bill explicitly authorizes state and local authorities to conduct drone detection and helps them better coordinate with federal law enforcement," Schumer said.
The bill was blocked by Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, who says it's not clear there's an urgent threat. Schumer says he's not giving up and he will talk to Paul about changing his mind on drones.
"People in the New York-New Jersey area have a lot of questions, and they're not getting adequate answers," Schumer said.
New Jersey Congressman Josh Gottheimer, who's on the House Intelligence Committee, was given a classified briefing Tuesday.
"It reinforced the briefings I've received from the FBI and Homeland Security Department to date, which is that I do not believe at this moment there's any imminent threat posed by the drones people are seeing to anyone's public safety," he said.
But Gottheimer says the government has to tell people what they know now.
"When you don't give people information ... Then people will fill the vacuum, right? This can't be the Wild West of drones," he said.
Ocean County authorities using tethered drones to monitor mystery drones
Authorities in Ocean County, New Jersey have taken to the air, using their own drones to find the mystery drones, and they track aircraft in a command center.
"It's wild, the amount of air traffic over New Jersey and especially over Ocean County," said Sgt. Kevin Fennessy, with the Ocean County Sheriff's Office.
Some agencies are saying most of what's being spotted are planes, helicopters, planets and stars, but Fennessy says there some some things he's seen that even he can't explain.
An Ocean County Sheriff's Office lookout drone tethered to the ground captured video of one unknown object.
"We had something coming at us, and as it's coming at us, it stops, you know, does like a 180 in the air and then drives away, and then comes back and does like a giant U around us. So that's, that's not normal for aircraft," Fennessy said. "It's definitely something that whatever we're seeing, we can't figure out what it is."