{"id":8512,"date":"2023-10-12T16:34:43","date_gmt":"2023-10-12T11:04:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/nfl-members-of-congress-alarmed-by-drone-incidents-over-packed-sports-stadiums\/"},"modified":"2023-10-12T16:34:43","modified_gmt":"2023-10-12T11:04:43","slug":"nfl-members-of-congress-alarmed-by-drone-incidents-over-packed-sports-stadiums","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/nfl-members-of-congress-alarmed-by-drone-incidents-over-packed-sports-stadiums\/","title":{"rendered":"NFL, members of Congress alarmed by drone incidents over packed sports stadiums"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Cathy Lanier, the NFL\u2019s chief of security, told NBC News that since 2018, when the FBI and DHS were granted drone mitigation authority, there have been 121,000 requests for them to send teams to stadiums and other venues. \u201cThey\u2019ve been able to approve 77,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And even that limited \u201ctakedown\u201d authority is tenuous \u2014 it is set to expire Nov. 17 when the current congressional spending bill does. Peters and\u00a0other lawmakers, backed by a coalition of sports leagues, including the NFL, NCAA, MLB and NASCAR, are pushing legislation that would give state and local law enforcement agencies the authority to bring down rogue drones.<\/p>\n

FBI Director Christopher Wray has endorsed that concept,\u00a0saying\u00a0in 2022 that the FBI investigated multiple instances of people trying to weaponize small drones.<\/p>\n

Lanier said that federal law already prohibits drones from flying over major sporting events. But often there is no way to stop that from happening.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey enter that restricted airspace, they are violating the law,\u201d she said. \u201cAll we\u2019re asking for is the ability to take control of that drone and move it out of our airspace.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lanier said there were around 2,500 drone incursions over NFL stadiums last season, up from 1,300 the year before. Last year, a Seattle Seahawks-Atlanta Falcons game was\u00a0interrupted\u00a0for 10 minutes when a drone flew over Lumen Field in Seattle.\u00a0In 2018, a man modified a drone to drop\u00a0leaflets\u00a0over NFL games in Santa Clara and Oakland, both in California.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat could have been anything,\u201d she said. \u201cTo me, it feels like a big hole in our fence.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

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A drone over a stadium could cause mayhem even if it wasn\u2019t fitted with explosives, experts said. If spectators believed it was a threat, a panicked rush to the exits could cost lives.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have 70,000 people in these stadiums and arenas,\u201d Lanier said. \u201cIf you introduce panic to that scenario, then it becomes a lot more difficult to manage. And then you have people that can be injured. So we don\u2019t want anybody introducing anything that causes panic in the stadium.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2017, a drone\u00a0crashed\u00a0within inches of a spectator during a MLB game between the Arizona Diamondbacks and the San Diego Padres at Petco Park in San Diego.<\/p>\n

Lanier, who served as the police chief of Washington, D.C., from 2007 to 2016, spoke during an interview at FedExField, the Washington Commanders stadium in Landover, Maryland, a few hours before game time.\u00a0Anyone trying to access the stadium had to get through a police vehicle checkpoint, and then pass through metal detectors on the way into the building. But no such security measures protected the airspace.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI think the closest call we\u2019ve had since I\u2019ve been here is at the Super Bowl in Atlanta (in 2019),\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Just before six Air Force F-16s were set to conduct a flyover before the game, an FBI team spotted a drone. There wasn\u2019t time to take it down.<\/p>\n

\u201cFortunately, the FBI team was able to communicate that with the flyover team and the flyover team elevated their altitude to make sure that there was no possibility of a collision.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just stadiums: DHS told Congress in July 2022 that there had been almost 2,000 drone sightings near U.S. airports since 2021, \u201cincluding incursions at major airports\u00a0nearly every day.\u201d<\/p>\n

And Peters said Mexican drug cartels are increasingly using drones to move illegal drugs across the border.<\/p>\n

\u201cA wall doesn\u2019t stop a drone from flying over with narcotics,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got to stop kicking the can down the road,\u201d Lanier said. \u201cPolicy is not keeping pace with technology, and that\u2019s a problem.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n[ad_2]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[ad_1] Cathy Lanier, the NFL\u2019s chief of security, told NBC News that since 2018, when the FBI and DHS were granted drone mitigation authority, there have been 121,000 requests for them to send teams to stadiums and other venues. \u201cThey\u2019ve been able to approve 77,\u201d she said.\u00a0 And even that limited \u201ctakedown\u201d authority is tenuous …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8514,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8512"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8512"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8512\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}