Trump’s Drone Ban Is Corrupt, Protectionist Nonsense Dressed Up As A National Security Fix

For years we had to listen to a bipartisan roster of lawmakers insist that TikTok was one of the greatest national security threats to ever face the nation. In reality, they were mostly just interested in protecting Facebook from a short-form video company it couldn’t out innovate. And ultimately, it was about transferring TikTok ownership and its revenues to Trump’s billionaire buddies so they can do all the stuff they’d spent years accusing China of (surveillance, propaganda).

The same nonsense is playing out again with the Trump FCC’s ban of Chinese drones, which quietly went into effect during the Christmas holiday, intentionally ensuring that a lot of people missed it.

In short, the Trump administration added Chinese drones to its Covered List, which it says are communications equipment and services “deemed to pose an unacceptable risk to the national security of the United States or the security and safety of United States persons.” Soon Americans will no longer be able to buy new drones from some of the most successful and popular companies in the space, like DJI.

The Trump fact sheet explains it this way:

“UAS [unmanned aircraft systems] and UAS critical components, including data transmission devices, communications systems, flight controllers, ground control stations, controllers, navigation systems, batteries, smart batteries, and motors produced in a foreign country could enable persistent surveillance, data exfiltration, and destructive operations over US territory, including over World Cup and Olympic venues and other mass gathering events.”

To be clear, you can continue to use DJI drones you already own. And you can buy DJI drones currently approved by the FCC already for sale. But you soon won’t be able to buy new versions of these drones as they’re released. Which is a shame because DJI generally leads the drone field with a 70 percent market share and their drones are very good, very popular, and less expensive than U.S. alternatives.

The ban was imposed with zero transparency after “an Executive Branch interagency body with appropriate national security expertise that was convened by the White House.” Which is gibberish when you consider the Trump administration is stacked to the rafters with odd zealots and unqualified weirdos who are basically just propping up a wide assortment of shady grifts.

DJI urged lawmakers to conduct audits of its devices for years, and was ignored. The normal comment period for public input was ignored. Folks in the aerospace industry say they were neither consulted, nor given any advance notice of the quick ban. Drone and RC hobbyist organizations are annoyed and dismayed, and state the ban was shadow dropped during Christmas to lessen scrutiny.

You’re supposed to believe this is about protecting Americans from nefarious Chinese drone surveillance. In reality, this is about protecting U.S. drone manufacturers from having to compete with better, more popular technology. But because it’s so easy to get xenophobic lawmakers and our lazy press so ginned up about China, that truth gets buried in news reports and the policy weeds.

I’ll just randomly note here that Donald Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., coincidentally owns stock in and advises several aspiring drone startups that have received billions in loans and subsidies from the Pentagon. That’s before you get to the countless other MAGA orbit folks and tech companies with personal investment in military drone and surveillance hardware.

I think in their heads guys like Junior probably think they’re cleverly building functional, domestic alternatives to Chinese tech, but their corruption and incompetence generally blinds them from reality and our broader failures on privacy and national security.

Truly shoring up national security and U.S. privacy requires standing up to domestic corporations first and foremost (with say, data broker regulation and a privacy law that holds execs personally accountable for lax security), which none of them want to actually do. Because in their heads, government should only exist to make them personally richer at other peoples’ expense.

As with the “TikTok ban,” the drone ban is being applied in a country that’s too corrupt to functionally regulate privacy and security. Congress is too corrupt to pass even a baseline internet-privacy law or regulate data brokers, which routinely hoover up endless troves of sensitive American data and then sell access to that surveillance data to any random nitwit, including foreign intelligence.

While the Trump administration professes to be super worried about Chinese threats to national security, with its other hand it has gutted government cybersecurity programs (including a board investigating the biggest Chinese hack of U.S. telecom networks in history), dismantled the Cyber Safety Review Board (CSRB) (responsible for investigating significant cybersecurity incidents), and fired oodles of folks doing essential work at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).

FCC boss Brendan Carr is also engaged in a massive effort to destroy whatever is left of the FCC’s consumer protection and corporate oversight authority, despite the fact that the recent historic Chinese Salt Typhoon hack (caused in large part because major telecoms were too incompetent to change default administrative passwords) was a direct byproduct of this exact type of mindless deregulation.

In addition to rolling back oversight of U.S. telecoms and they’re lax security, Carr has been stalling programs designed to bring better security and privacy standards to the internet of things space, which is dominated by Chinese companies with few if any security and privacy standards.

Superficially the Trump administration loves putting on a veneer that it’s protecting U.S. interests and national security, but as we’ve seen elsewhere this is hollow cack. Trumpism is just pay-to-play kakistocracy and a bottomless well of assorted lazy hustles and grifts. These are not serious people.

Some U.S. drone makers asked daddy to protect them from global market competition and he did. Now U.S. consumers have to pay twice as much money for much shittier technology, and instead of translating the proceeds into new jobs, better tech, or lower prices, the executives at the companies responsible will simply pocket the proceeds. All while the New York Times and large corporate media blows smoke up your ass about this being good for national security and American labor.

Filed Under: china, donald trump, donald trump jr., drone ban, drones, national security

Companies: dji