The US Secret Service Must Rethink Their 'Total No-Drone Zone' Policy

A study in contemporary tactical evolution

This was preventable

UPDATE: Thomas Matthew Crooks used a drone to reconnoiter the rally area. From the Wall Street Journal:

“The gunman who tried to kill Donald Trump was able to fly a drone and get aerial footage of the western Pennsylvania fairgrounds shortly before the former president was set to speak there, law-enforcement officials briefed on the matter said, further underscoring the stunning security lapses ahead of Trump’s near assassination.”

The drone flew a programmed flight path. I had not expected such validation the same day I published this post. Clearly, the USSS must develop a new focus on drone supremacy rather than continue to fail at enforcing no-fly zones for small UAVs.

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The Secret Service urgently needs to start using tactical quadcopter drones for low-aerial coverage of public outdoor events like the one last Saturday. Even if they have nothing to do with the attempted assassination, reports that Iran is “actively working on plots to kill former President Donald Trump, potentially in the lead up to the election in November” (and the conspicuous silence of said regime) add to the impetus for immediate reform. Questions have been raised, some fair and others unfair, about women in the Secret Service. Fair: a woman who is five and a half feet tall cannot cover the body of a president who is over six feet tall. Unfair: anyone, male or female, can fumble a holstering in the heat of the moment. Drones, on the other hand, are an uncontroversial role for female Secret Service agents. (After all, Ukrainian women kill Russian men with them every day. Slava Ukraini.)

Having viewed and reviewed every available photo or video, listening to experts and reading transcribed interviews with specialists, I have concluded that Thomas Matthew Crooks likely succeeded in his tactical use of a ‘reverse slope’ because the Secret Service had no overhead observation in place and no good way to mark the target for the sniper on the roof. The agency has chosen a total no-drone policy that will prove impossible to maintain, in time. A non-expert analysis and argument, based on a modest understanding of the contemporary tactical drone environment, including the role of electronic warfare, follows. I am putting it behind a paywall for a few weeks because the Secret Service is not asking my opinion, and they can afford a premium subscription if they want to know what I think. (Which, consider it, guys. I am way cheaper than a DEI consultant.) The people of the United States of America want their presidents, and presidential candidates, protected. God bless America.