The police were worried that US cities wouldn’t be ready for drones

The New Homeland Security Investigation (NDAA) memo released in December 2015 by the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), a national security advocacy group

The document states that the DHS has been instructing local agencies to scout for launch sites near and around critical assets, as well as offering several recommendations designed to minimize a threat that the agency insists is growing by the day. Local officials have been advised to reposition CCTV cameras to aid in capturing evidence of airborne threats, and to start training local police on how to handle downed drones believed to carry hazardous and explosive materials. The agency has called on local agencies to provide legal,sensors which can detect and identify commercial drones.

The memo, first obtained by Property of the People, a nonprofit focused on transparency and national security, was circulated roughly three months before the recent flurry of alleged drone sightings along the East Coast—growing national interest in which has been driven in part by the government’s own nebulous response.

The memo states that violent extremists in the US are increasingly searching for ways to modify “off-the-shelf” drones to ferry dangerous payloads, including “explosives, conductive materials, and chemicals,” with major advancements in the area being propelled largely by rampant experimentation on foreign battlefields, including those in Ukraine.

The company states that this will prevent it from launching new products in the US market through no fault of its own but simply because no agency chose to study its products. It wants congress to pick a technically focused agency to assure the assessment is evidence-based and give the company the chance to reply.

It wouldn’t restrict the US from using their existing DJI gadgets, just banning new drones from entering. Every DJI product with a radio or camera, like the Verge favorite DJI Osmo Pocket 3, would technically be banned. NDAA doesn’t specify just drones, but rather communications and video surveilling equipment.

White Labeling and a Proposed Defense Authorization Act (NDAA): Is It Legal for DJI to Explicitly Harness the White Label Loophole?

The bill was already approved by both Houses of Congress and is currently in the hands of the president, which would cause a partial government shutdown if he doesn’t sign it.

The bill that’s being written should make it illegal for DJI to exploit the loophole of whitelabeling its drones and also licensing its technology, as it seemed to be doing with the Anzu Robotics Raptor and Cogito Specta. The bill explicitly tells the FCC to add “any subsidiary, affiliate, or partner” and “any entity to which the named entity has a technology sharing or licensing agreement” to the covered list, too.

The US Senate has passed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the annual defense spending bill, and it may have major consequences for the world’s largest drone company — though not necessarily the immediate ban that China’s DJI feared.