'Why Was It Published?': Adam Schiff Presses DHS Official On Releasing Drone Footage Of ICE Protestors

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During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing prior to the congressional recess, Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) questioned Deputy Director for the Department of Homeland Security's Counter-UAS Program, Steven Willoughby about the DHS releasing footage of anti-ICE protestors in LA.

Transcript

00:00Senator Schiff, I'm calling on you now if you're ready, and we can wait a couple seconds

00:12if you aren't ready, but when you start asking your questions, I'll ask you to adjourn the

00:18meeting when you're done, because I have to go to another meeting.

00:22Mr. Chairman, thank you for the courtesy of holding the hearing open for me.

00:28Greatly appreciate it.

00:30And I will be ready in one moment.

00:35Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

00:48I recognize both the great value that UAV and drone technology have for law enforcement,

00:56and I can imagine innumerable productive important uses, as well as the risks that drug cartels

01:05and others are using drones for their own nefarious purposes.

01:09But Mr. Willoughby, I want to ask you about a different kind of concern, and that is, we

01:14saw drones being used by DHS over Los Angeles during protests.

01:22And my understanding is that DHS policy requires that there be privacy protections when drones

01:29are used and may capture people engaged in First Amendment protected activity, among other things.

01:35And that drone footage is not allowed to be released without a law enforcement purpose or some other legitimate analyzed and approved function.

01:52Nonetheless, drone footage that was captured over Los Angeles was published by the agency.

01:58Why was it published?

02:02Who made that decision?

02:03And how is that consistent with DHS policy that is supposed to protect the privacy of those

02:10that are caught by drone footage?

02:12Thank you, Senator, for the question.

02:14I'm not familiar with the use of drones for the positive law enforcement uses.

02:20My portfolio is strictly on countering the drone threats here in the homeland.

02:24But I can circle back and get you an answer to those questions with your permission.

02:28Yes, if you would, I would appreciate that.

02:31As I said, I can more than understand the legitimate law enforcement purposes, but also deeply concerned

02:37about privacy interests and chilling First Amendment protected speech.

02:43As this technology proliferates, we're going to have to make sure that we protect those vital

02:48interests of the American people.

02:50Let me ask you about a different issue then, and I'll open this up to the whole panel.

02:56We've repeatedly seen, as we've battled wildfires in California, that spectators using drones

03:03have interfered with the firefighting efforts.

03:05There have been collisions with aircraft.

03:08There have been other times where aircraft had to be brought out of the fight until they

03:15could disable a drone or find its owner or whatnot.

03:20How recurrent is that particular challenge?

03:22What is the state of the technology to be able to disable a drone in flight or to identify

03:30where the user of the drone may be?

03:33Maybe I'll start and then turn it over to my colleagues afterwards.

03:38The use of drones in these emergency response areas, whether it's firefighting or disaster

03:43relief or search and rescue, is prolific.

03:46And nearly every national incident that we hear about, most in the recent past, there

03:51have been unauthorized drones flying in the space, interrupting authorized manned or unmanned

03:57operations.

03:59And for the most part, out of an abundance of caution, those manned operations are halted

04:05when there's an unauthorized drone detected in the area, which can severely debilitate

04:10our ability to respond in a timely fashion.

04:13And the ability to stop or prevent a drone from going somewhere is really restricted by the

04:19current authority that we have that's limited to just certain federal entities.

04:24And unless one of those entities is there providing a counter-UAS protection mission, we would not

04:29be able to stop an unauthorized drone from proceeding into a restricted area, even if there was

04:33a flight restriction in place, which is often the case during these emergency responses.

04:37But I'll pause to see if my colleagues have anything else.

04:40That's an excellent point, Senator.

04:41And I think it illustrates the need to expand these authorities to state and locals.

04:46I'll give you an example.

04:47In the Los Angeles field office has developed over many years a robust relationship with the

04:52L.A. County Fire, L.A. County Sheriff, LAPD, with regard to protection of wildfire areas

04:58from drones.

05:00But there, as you know, can be multiple wildfires in the greater Los Angeles area at any given

05:06time.

05:06And as we stated, the FBI cannot be everywhere.

05:09So the time is now for these agencies to get these authorities to protect wildfires and

05:15other public safety events.

05:17And if you could speak to the sort of the state-of-the-art in terms of geofencing of drones,

05:23how capable is that of dealing with commercially available drones?

05:30If you're referring to the geofencing on the drones themselves from the pilots, that is

05:35no longer really an applicable technology.

05:38Previously, some of the drone manufacturers did have some attempt to prevent people from

05:43flying into areas they shouldn't.

05:45And that has changed quite dramatically in the past nine months.

05:48As far as our capabilities, you know, we do have effective technologies, but there is

05:54no silver bullet in counter-UAS.

05:59Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

06:00I was supposed to adjourn, but I'm happy to turn it back over to Senator Cruz.

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