Drone lands on White House lawn

Today a drone landed on the White House lawn. Luckily it was not loaded with explosives like the drones Obama has been using to kill people in the Middle East. I guess it's just a matter of time. Josh Lederman and Joan Lowy reported for the Associated Press:

Paul McDuffee, vice president at drone-maker Insitu, said of the device that crashed: "Something of that size is going to be very limited in terms of what it can carry, probably down to a few ounces in payload."

Even so, a small drone at low altitude is hard to intercept.

"There's probably nothing they have that could stop it, particularly at night," said James Lewis of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "The sniper would be shooting at the drone and his bullets would be going past it into the buildings on Connecticut Avenue. If it's a crisis or emergency, sure, that makes sense, but what goes up comes down, and that includes bullets."

The New York Times reports that

The drone, which was about two feet in diameter and weighed about two pounds, was operated by a government employee whom the Secret Service did not identify. The agency said the employee was flying the object near the White House around 3 a.m. for recreational purposes when he lost control of it. Officials did not explain why the man, who does not work at the White House and who has not been charged with a crime, was flying the drone at that hour.

The incident comes just days after the Department of Homeland Security held a conference in Arlington, Va., on the dangers that such drones pose to the nation’s critical infrastructure and government facilities. On display at the meeting was a DJI Phantom drone — the same type of drone that crashed at the White House on Monday. But the drone on display had three pounds of fake explosives attached to the payload as part of an effort to show how easily it could be used to launch an attack, according to a participant at the conference.

A counterterrorism official at the meeting warned that small drones could also be used to launch chemical and biological attacks, according to Daniel Herbert, who attended the conference.

Read more here.