Preventing Emerging Threats Act (2018) — Federal Drone Kill Authority

• Law: Preventing Emerging Threats Act of 2018; passed as Section 1602 of the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018
• Signed: October 5, 2018; signed by President Trump
• Authority granted to: Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice
• Core power: Seize, take control of, confiscate, and destroy private drones — without a warrant, without judicial authorization, without compensation required

Congress handed DHS and DOJ the authority to shoot down your drone because they decided it might be a threat. No warrant. No court. No compensation. Not "near the White House" — near a prison, a sports stadium, a disaster zone, a federal building, any facility a DHS official designates as a "covered asset." The terms are vague by design, defined internally by the same agencies that get to exercise the authority. What you built, what you paid for, what you were flying legally — gone, because someone in a federal agency decided it posed an "unacceptable security risk." And the kicker: this law also exempts the government from the wiretap laws when intercepting your drone's signals. They can listen to your communications, jam your frequency, and seize or destroy your property — all without asking a judge for anything.

How It Passed

The Preventing Emerging Threats Act did not receive a standalone floor vote. It was inserted as a provision — Section 1602 — into the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018, a large aviation policy bill that attracted wide bipartisan support because its main provisions dealt with routine FAA authorization. The drone authority provision was debated in committee and received less public scrutiny than it would have as standalone legislation.

The stated justification was the threat of weaponized drones — the scenario of a drone being used to attack a crowd, a government building, or a prison. The intelligence and law enforcement community pointed to incidents in which drones had been used by criminal organizations to smuggle contraband into prisons or to surveil sensitive locations. The terrorism framing was front and center: drones as potential weapons of mass disruption.

What passed under that framing was a law with vague definitions, no judicial oversight requirement, no warrant requirement, no compensation requirement, and an explicit exemption from the federal wiretap laws. The terrorism justification was used to create authority that extends far beyond anything resembling a terrorism scenario — authority that covers any drone the government decides it doesn't like, near any facility the government decides to designate, based on standards the government defines for itself.

The authority has been reauthorized and extended repeatedly since 2018. It has not been narrowed. It has expanded.

What It Does To You

The Government Can Destroy Your Property Without a Warrant

Under the Preventing Emerging Threats Act, DHS and DOJ can seize, take control of, confiscate, and destroy a private drone that poses what the agency determines to be an "unacceptable security risk" near a "covered facility or asset." There is no requirement to obtain a warrant before destroying the property. There is no requirement to obtain a court order. There is no requirement to notify the owner before the drone is destroyed.

Your $2,000 drone — legally purchased, legally registered, legally operated — can be shot out of the sky based on an internal agency determination that it posed some undefined level of risk. You are not a party to that determination. You have no opportunity to be heard before it happens.

"Covered Facility or Asset" — Defined by the Agencies Themselves

The law authorizes the designation of "covered facilities or assets" — the places near which drone operations can be treated as security threats. The categories in the statute include: the White House, the Vice President's residence, military bases, certain federal buildings, disaster response areas, major sporting events, and other facilities that DHS or DOJ determine require protection.

The agencies are not required to publish the full list of designated facilities. The definition can expand by agency determination without further congressional action. "Disaster response areas" alone could cover enormous swaths of the country in the aftermath of any significant event. A federal agent responding to a hurricane, a wildfire, or a civil unrest situation can declare the area a covered facility and destroy any drone in it.

The Wiretap Exemption — They Can Intercept Your Drone's Signals

This is the provision that received almost no coverage. The Preventing Emerging Threats Act explicitly exempts DHS and DOJ from the Wiretap Act and the Pen Register Act when intercepting drone control signals and communications. This means the government can listen to, intercept, jam, and disrupt your drone's communication signals — the radio frequencies linking your controller to your aircraft — without obtaining a wiretap warrant.

The Wiretap Act requires a court order for the interception of electronic communications. The Pen Register Act requires a court order for collecting metadata about communications. Both of these requirements are waived when the government decides your drone might be a security risk. They can intercept your signals, monitor your communications, and jam your equipment based on their own determination — no judge involved.

"Credible Threat" — Another Standard the Agencies Define

The trigger standard for exercising drone seizure and destruction authority is a "credible threat." DHS and DOJ determine internally what constitutes a credible threat. There is no requirement to document the basis for a credible threat finding before acting. There is no external review of whether the finding was accurate. After the fact, when your drone has been destroyed, you may attempt to seek legal recourse — but you will be arguing against the government's post-hoc characterization of the threat it claimed to perceive.

Rights It Strips

Fourth Amendment — Property Destruction Without Judicial Authorization

The Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable seizures covers property as well as persons. The government cannot walk into your house and confiscate your computer without a warrant. It cannot seize your car without a warrant (outside of certain defined exceptions). The Preventing Emerging Threats Act creates an expansive exception to the warrant requirement for drone seizure and destruction — one that is not tethered to any specific, imminent threat but to a bureaucratic risk determination made unilaterally by the seizing agency.

The "exigent circumstances" exception to the warrant requirement — which allows warrantless searches when there is an immediate threat — does not justify a statutory scheme under which the government can destroy property based on a vaguely defined risk assessment. Exigent circumstances require a genuine emergency. The Preventing Emerging Threats Act creates standing authority that does not depend on any specific emergency — just an agency determination that a drone is near a covered facility.

First Amendment — Destroying Accountability Journalism From the Air

Activists, documentarians, and journalists have used drones to document government conduct that authorities would prefer remained unseen. Drone footage documented conditions at the Standing Rock pipeline protests in 2016. Drone footage has documented wildfire response, flood damage, environmental contamination, and law enforcement operations in public spaces.

The Preventing Emerging Threats Act gives the government authority to destroy the tools of aerial accountability journalism without a warrant. A drone filming a law enforcement operation near a designated "covered facility" — which could include a disaster response area, a major public event, or virtually any federal installation — can be seized or destroyed. The government can eliminate the camera before the footage exists.

This is not a theoretical risk. The authority exists. It has been exercised. The EFF stated explicitly: the law "raises significant First Amendment concerns" because it gives the government "unchecked power to destroy newsgathering equipment and silence protected speech."

Due Process — No Pre-Deprivation Hearing

The destruction of your drone without a warrant and without prior notice deprives you of property without any pre-deprivation hearing. The government's position is that the urgency of drone threats justifies this — that there is no time to go to a court before acting. This argument might be defensible in a genuine emergency involving an actively hostile drone. It is not defensible as a standing statutory authority applicable to any drone near any covered facility.

Documented Harms

Standing Rock and the Precedent for Accountability Drone Suppression

The Standing Rock protests in 2016 occurred before the Preventing Emerging Threats Act was passed, but the legal framework that followed has retroactively formalized the authority that law enforcement claimed then. Drone operators were arrested at Standing Rock for flying near the protest area. With the 2018 Act, the legal infrastructure to destroy accountability drones without arrest, warrant, or court involvement is now in place.

EFF Analysis — Unchecked Authority

The Electronic Frontier Foundation's analysis of the Preventing Emerging Threats Act concluded: "Vague, unchecked government authority intrudes on the Fourth Amendment right to private electronic communications... The bill authorizes DHS and DOJ to take a 'targeted' or otherwise 'reasonable' action against a drone, including 'seize[ing] or exercis[ing] control of' the unmanned aircraft system' or 'us[ing] reasonable force to disable, damage, or destroy' the UAS... These powers are granted without a warrant, without suspicion of criminal wrongdoing, and without limitation to instances of genuine emergency."

Contraband Prison Interdiction — Used Broadly

The prison interdiction justification used to pass the Act has resulted in drone destruction authority being exercised near correctional facilities throughout the country — including cases where hobbyist pilots flying legally outside designated restricted airspace had their drones disabled or seized. The geographic scope of "near a correctional facility" is determined by the agency, not a neutral magistrate.

No Compensation Requirement

There is no statutory requirement that the government compensate drone owners whose aircraft are destroyed under this authority. A takings claim under the Fifth Amendment is theoretically available but requires expensive litigation against the federal government — an impractical remedy for the owner of a consumer drone who has already lost their equipment and faces no practical means of proving the agency's threat determination was pretextual.

Who Pushed This

DHS and DOJ are the primary architects and beneficiaries of the authority. Both agencies lobbied for the provision during the FAA Reauthorization process, citing prison contraband interdiction and event security as the primary use cases. Both agencies have opposed any narrowing of the authority in subsequent reauthorizations.

The Federal Bureau of Prisons and ICE have operational interests in drone interdiction around correctional and detention facilities and provided use-case justifications for the Act.

Defense contractors and counter-drone technology companies — including DroneShield, Dedrone, and Fortem Technologies — sell counter-drone systems to DHS, DOJ, and military agencies. These companies have a direct commercial interest in the legal framework authorizing counter-drone operations and have lobbied for expanded authority. The Preventing Emerging Threats Act created the legal market for their products.

The Senate Commerce Committee and House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee included the provision in the FAA Reauthorization with bipartisan support. Members of those committees who shepherded the provision through did so with minimal public debate about the civil liberties implications — particularly the wiretap exemption and the absence of a warrant requirement.

Key Votes

FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018 — Senate 93–6; House 398–23; signed October 5, 2018:

The Preventing Emerging Threats Act provision was Section 1602 of this bill. The overwhelmingly bipartisan vote obscures that most members voting for the FAA Reauthorization were voting for aviation policy — the drone surveillance authority was one provision among hundreds. The six senators who voted NO: Blumenthal (D-CT), Booker (D-NJ), Collins (R-ME), Gillibrand (D-NY), Hassan (D-NH), and Markey (D-MA).

FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024 — Signed May 16, 2024:

Reauthorized and extended the Preventing Emerging Threats Act drone authority without narrowing the warrant-free seizure and destruction powers or the wiretap exemption.

Members who voted YES on both the 2018 and 2024 FAA Reauthorization Acts have a documented record of twice supporting warrantless drone seizure and destruction authority and twice supporting the wiretap exemption.

Why This Matters for We The Citizens

The Preventing Emerging Threats Act is the government's answer to citizen accountability from above. For the first time in the history of the republic, ordinary people could document government conduct from an aerial perspective that had previously required expensive helicopters or aircraft only the government and major media could afford. That changed everything.

Drone footage of protest policing. Drone footage of environmental violations. Drone footage of detention facility conditions. Drone footage of public land mismanagement. The government noticed. The Preventing Emerging Threats Act is the legal infrastructure for eliminating that accountability — destroying the camera before the footage can be taken, without a warrant, without compensation, and with explicit exemption from the wiretap laws.

This is not about safety in the air. It is about safety from visibility on the ground. Any candidate who voted YES on the FAA Reauthorization Acts of 2018 or 2024 voted to give the government authority to destroy citizen accountability tools without a warrant. Check the vote. The record is public.

See also: Bad Laws Overview | FAA Remote ID — Drone Tracking | CISA 2015 | HR 347 Restricted Buildings