Drive to ban DJI drones lurches into the ludicrous in Connecticut

The drive to ban DJI drones in the US has now crossed into the darkly comical – and ludicrously informed – with an effort reportedly afoot in Connecticut by state legislators to halt municipalities from operating the craft.

The move was revealed in a report by Connecticut news outlet CTInsider. It said two Democratic legislators had taken cues from legal moves in a growing number of U.S. states – and acts of Congress – whose general security tenor justify their central bans on DJI drone use. The company’s head of global policy, Adam Welsh, recently told DroneDJ such blacklisting risked undermining about $116 billion in economic activity.

 In this case, General Assembly Committee Bill No. 3 casts the net targeting the company wider by prohibiting municipal agencies from operating any UAVs made by in the “People’s Republic of China, the Russian Federation, and any governmental subdivision, agency or instrumentality thereof.”

Which is only prudent, since so, so, so many consumers, public services, and companies use Russian-made drones these days. You see that Orlan-10 doing an inspection of the nuclear plant last week?

While typical of such legislative initiatives in their disingenuous attempts to mask a pointed DJI ban as wider policy, the Connecticut text stands out with the muddled amateurism of its backers. Indeed, after state Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff explained his effort to CTInsider, one can’t help but assume national politicians pushing bills to effectively ban use of all DJI drones in the US are as poorly informed and nonsense-jabbering in their work as the manifestly non-geek Duff.

“At some point the software gets uploaded,” Duff told the publication, apparently referring to the way DJI Avata and Mavic drones “upload” Microsoft Office, Adobe Acrobat, and iPhone operating systems as they fly around. “Even if they say it doesn’t, it does.” 

We stand corrected.

Duff’s drone babbling wasn’t finished there.

“What we’ve seen in other states with these Chinese-made drones is where they have hacked in and frozen electrical systems in Texas hospitals, schools,” Duff said, nearly matching the unsubstantiated hysteria of the US official who in 2021 claimed DJI drones can capture and transmit people’s body temperatures and heart rates to Chinese spies. Why on earth spooks in Beijing would want that information was anybody’s guess, until Duff provided the obvious solution to the mystery.

“This is all about when China invades Taiwan, which sounds so conspiratorial,” he said, his final thought the outlier of clarity in otherwise vast expanse of poppycock. “That almost sounds ridiculous.”

Ya think?

According to CTInsider, Duff and his legislative co-sponsor have sent a letter to municipal leaders across the state, describing the security logic behind the de facto DJI drone ban drive – with the brand name specifically mentioned, the article reported. That goal earlier generated a public statement from Dayville Fire Companychief Michael Shabenas.

“Our drones are used for public safety purposes including (but not limited to): structural fires, wildland/forest fires, and search and rescue operations,” Shabenas wrote, noting if DJI drones were banned, his organization – like many others around the nation affected by such prohibitions thus far – would have to buy fewer, more expensive, and less effective alternatives on the market. “I would like to remind the committee that the vast majority of missions flown by fire department UASs are for tactical support in emergency operations, and provide a minimal threat profile for exposing infrastructure information… (M)ost likely do not expose information which would not be able to be obtained from the aforementioned satellite imagery.”

Being a reasoned, well-informed politician and evident tech maniac, Duff reassured CTInsider his bill looking to ban DJI drones wouldn’t mean radical, expensive change overnight. It would instead, ever so logically, usher in a gradual reaction to what’s being described as a clear and present danger to local, state, and national security.

“We want to make sure that we stop buying them and when the lifecycle of these current drones are done, they don’t buy more Chinese drones,” Duff said. “We’re not saying take a hammer to them tomorrow.”

If that doesn’t seem to make any sense, that makes a lot of sense.