Despite repeated assurances from federal law enforcement agencies that the recent wave of reported drone sightings along the East Coast and elsewhere in the U.S. pose no danger, concerns remain about the issue and a lack of transparency regarding what is happening. President Joe Biden addressed the issue on Tuesday, stating that there is 'nothing nefarious' and that the administration is 'following it closely'.
FILE - In this April 29, 2018, file photo, a drone operator helps to retrieve a drone after photographing over Hart Island in New York. Repeated assurances that the sudden wave of reported drone sightings along the East Coast and other places in the U.
S. from federal law enforcement agencies has done little to soothe concerns about the issue and accusations the government isn’t doing enough to deal with it or transparent about what is happening.of drones over the last month in a phenomenon that initially started in New Jersey and spread to other states as the oddity picked up traction in headlines. President Joe Biden addressed the issue himself on Tuesday as his administration has continued to face repeated questioning about what is happening in the skies. “Nothing nefarious, apparently," Biden told reporters at the White House. "We’re following it closely. So far, no sense of danger.” Biden’s statement follows appearances by other administration officials on television and repeated statements from major government agencies like the Department of Homeland Security, FBI, Federal Aviation Administration and Department of Justice that the drones pose no danger to national security or public safety. The overwhelming majority of the sightings have been determined to be planes, licensed drones and other ordinary aircraft that are frequently in the skies. Federal law enforcement has also said it has not identified anything “anomalous” or that presents a threat to national security or public safety., which comes after Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio had to close its airspace for several hours over the weekend. “Such sightings near or over DoD installations are not new. DoD takes unauthorized access over its airspace seriously and coordinates closely with federal, state, and local law enforcement authorities, as appropriate. Local commanders are actively engaged to ensure there are appropriate detection and mitigation measures in place,” the statement said. Some lawmakers and President-elect Donald Trump have suggested that the government knows more than it is saying publicly. On Monday, Trump said the Pentagon knows with certainty where drones are taking off from and where they went but are not commenting on it for some reason. “As this has gone on and on, I've become more concerned, especially about the transparency from the government. When you come out with statements that say ‘we know what it is, don't worry about it’ or ‘it's just this, and it's licensed. Don't worry about it.’ Then why can't you divulge what it is if you know?” said Mark Chandler, a former Defense Department executive and professor of practice at Coastal Carolina University. The criticism the government has received over its handling of the sightings highlights the difficulty of keeping the public calm when there are fears about national security. New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said drone-detection equipment being supplied by the federal government has not yet unveiled any new information about the issue, another example of the tricky nature of cooling public tensions about an issueState and local lawmakers have also asked Congress and the federal government to implement stricter rules about who can fly unmanned aircraft and asked for more authority to shoot them out of the sky as the sightings have stayed consistent. Federal officials were grilled on Tuesday about the drones during a closed-door meeting on Tuesday. Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., told CNN that authorities insisted there’s no evidence they are posing a threat. “What confuses me is, if I have this information, why am I taking it into a classified setting to brief the Congress? That tells me there's something the government doesn't want to reveal either because we can't address it or there's something that these things are doing that they don't want to create that secondary concern on the populace,” Chandler said. But the frequent assurances that the objects being reported in the sky are nothing nefarious has not yet limited. There are also questions as to why the government has not identified what led to the outbreak of reported sightings or divulged more about what they know.
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