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Comment by throwaway0q5347 | Hacker News Reader

> Who among us hasn’t, at some point, mistaken a party balloon for a cartel drone? Let him cast the first stone.

Firstly, how is the world's most powerful military afraid of "cartel drones"? Don't they already have some sci-fi laser/EW gizmos to take care of those considering how much taxpayer dollars go to the defense sector?

Secondly, contrary to popular belief, cartel leaders are smart enough to know not to directly mess with and attract the wrath of the US military when that's not good for their core business.

The laser gizmo is central to this story.

Reading between the lines, it sounds like the FAA maybe did not trust CBP to "test" operate the high powered laser near civilian aviation, in part given that they mistakenly identified a balloon for a cartel drone.

I am not sure how much the average person realizes that drones in both a reconnaissance and observation role or an attack role have changed the nature of warfare and have threatened localities.

We don't have good tools to deal with them, especially groups.

It would be trivial, right now, for a few fpv drones to cause extreme chaos somewhere like a popular highway in Los Angeles, and the amount of economic damage that could do.

It's a technological shift in how warfare is conducted, but from a protection standpoint, the tools aren't great to counter them yet.

If we had tools, the airport would never have been shut down.

Yeah the answer to

> Don't they already have some sci-fi laser/EW gizmos to take care of those considering how much taxpayer dollars go to the defense sector?

Is pretty much a flat "no". Or at least "not yet".

It wasn't the military it was DHS.

This wasn't the military. It was DHS, who is lead by the cosplaying cowboy hat lady, so this sort of incompetence should be completely expected.

Really making you wonder why does DHS have direct access to this hardware?

It's pretty directly relevant to "homeland security", anti-terrorism, etc. I wouldn't say that's the problem.

Make no mistake, the actual drone terrorism is coming. I guess you could say that only the actual military should handle it, but... Why?

Nuclear weapons are also directly relevant to "homeland security" (at least as a deterrent), yet I doubt many would be in favor of putting them under DHS as well.

Nuclear weapons are controlled more specifically by law. Lasers are not.

That both of those are labelled "homeland security" is almost a coincidence. Strategic security vs a fancy brand name for counter-terrorism.

I may have foolishly accepted the premise of incompetence in posing my question. Basically it seemed to me like the complaint was untrained/experienced (incompetent) people were deciding/deploying the fancy laser munition. That seemed worth of rebuke. After some brief searching I'm less clear about who took what action.

It seemed more like giving police forces (or allowing them to buy) APCs, armored Humvees, etc. Less trained/experienced people using things made for a different use case, ultimately exposes the people to more risk. Instead of say coordinating with the DOD to deploy the system and personnel accepting requests or being the decision maker for "take action" after some level of expertise in the area of evaluating targets and whatever else need be considered has also contributed to the process.

I don't know how it does work, let alone have enough context to imagine how it should. While I do agree "things to deter drones are appropriate border defense tools," the rest of the details painted a picture that seemed less reasonable.

Mostly agree. I wouldn't give high powered lasers to local police forces either. My point is that the problem is less to do with lasers and anti-drone tech in particular than with incompetence and abuse of power generally. Lasers are just the way it manifested in this instance.

https://youtu.be/uo63QQsm5Dw?si=SvD7JZrpJbVXF7nf&t=91

Lasers are not particularly controlled by regulation. Most people in the US can own a class 4 laser if they want.

Also, most laws that do restrict weapons specifically exempt government law enforcement anyway.

Okay, but they're not like styropyro on YouTube here... presumably the DHS people are using the whatever government weapons contractor made device, which is going to come with more nuance, controls, targeting system, etc. than whatever someone might buy off the shelf or cobble together independently.

I think it might have actually been DOD people operating the system even, but there's conflicting reporting and I'm not sure. Either way it seems like there was at the very least some kind of coordination failure.

Pentagon gave it to them. The heads of both these orgs are incompetent and should be impeached.

I thought I read that they borrowed it from the actual military, which tends to be a little bit more cautious with these things.

The former TV personality slash alcoholic slash sexual predator that is running the DoD probably gave it to DHS at the request of the cowboy hat wearing psychopathic domestic animal killer that runs that agency.

hey friend, this comment is better suited for Reddit than here, even though likely agree with you.

Using absurd language to describe absurd people is a rhetorical device that is suitable for HN.

If the administration hired serious people who don’t wear costumes and act ridiculous to get publicity, I wouldn’t have to write absurd descriptions about them.

Jim Mattis and John Kelly were serious people who did not wear costumes and treated their offices and the people below them with respect. They were Trump’s first SecDef and DHS Secretary, respectively.

This absurd language idea is good. Let me have a try...

Clearly everyone except the nerdy web developers that populate HN is completely incompetent. The aforementioned web developers though - they know everything due to all the time they spend on Twitter. I wonder why they aren't in charge of the country, must be a great conspiracy.

Customs and Border Patrol is not the military. They weren't "afraid" of it, their job is to control the border. They do have laser gizmos, that's what they used.

>their job is to control the border

Thank god they’re here defending us from rogue party balloons. Where would we be without their vigilance?

I think it's clear they were mistaken, I don't really think the sarcasm is adding to the conversation.

Fair enough

The problem isn’t the mistake, it’s the recklessness.

I never said otherwise.

so why are you defending instead of condemning them?

I'm not defending anything? Replying to someone doesn't mean I hold an opposite viewpoint. You don't have any clue what my opinion is because I haven't posted it.

Yes, you can get a lot more mileage out of hinting and indignation than taking a public position.

I think the real question here is why after this many comments you still haven’t taken a position other than generally arguing with other people. When people do that, especially online, it generally means they are being deliberately opaque with their opinions. It’s intentional. So the reasonable thing to conclude is that you disagree until you say otherwise. If that’s not your goal then try a different approach here.

I agree that it’s frustrating to be misinterpreted or misrepresented, but if you fail to represent yourself at any stage (which you seem to agree you haven’t done) then that’s what’s going to happen. So say what you think or just move on. I think at this point we can stop playing these rhetorical games.

Don't they already have some sci-fi laser/EW gizmos to take care of those

Isn't that the problem? Someone (but apparently DHS, not the military though there were military staff present, maybe?) had one of those sci-fi laser gizmos and used it without authorization or proper notifications.

I don't think we'll ever learn the real details about exactly what happened, the audit trail (if there was one) is probably in shredder baskets by now

> Firstly, how is the world's most powerful military afraid of "cartel drones"?

They sent an aircraft carrier to fight "cartels". /s

What can drones do to a civilian airport? A lot of damage and it’s not easy to stop at all. There are a lot of CombatFootage subreddit videos showing how bad it can go.

I don’t want to image how forcefully the US will respond if that type of terror attack were to happen.

The military isn't afraid of them. And they do have the capability to take them down and are always developing new methods, including lasers like this. The issue is that cases of mistaken identity of sensor glitches or ambiguity do happen, and if you have trigger-happy people at the wheel (like the DHS in this case, and the DOD who stepped in to help lie to cover it up) it can spiral out of control.

It's a shame the F-22 wasn't publicly allowed to get its second A2A kill! ;)

Fyi, the f-22 logged a second kill shortly after the first:

https://apnews.com/article/pentagon-shoots-down-unknown-flyi...

Which is generally believed to have been a radiosonde launched by hobbyists in the US:

https://www.npr.org/2023/02/18/1158048921/pico-balloon-k9yo

I once mistook a Scottish lake monster for a narcosub, but can’t say I’ve ever mistaken a party balloon for a narcodrone.

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