Seeing how drone warfare has become the new hot front in 21st century conflicts like Ukraine, it's hard not to speculate on the implications of this as political unrest continues to rise in the U.S.
It's no secret that the current U.S. regime views a sizeable portion of its own civilian citizens as enemy combatants. They are already shooting people in the face and not even putting up a pretense of acting shocked at the act. Historically, it is easier to win elections than revolutions; limiting access to game-changing technology puts the power advantage even more firmly in the corner of the regime.
Merely the documentary function of small drones is a threat to the current US government - their game changing effect on the battlefield in Ukraine is (one hopes) less relevant here. Just the threat of people taking pictures of what's happening is enough for them to restrict flight over an entire large city when ICE moves in.
I feel like the normal reaction is to see it in both and maintain a distinction between these two entirely different contexts without ignoring the crimes of the lesser.
They did murder a woman, but I agree that one murder is far short of a civil war. Even understanding that a single murder can be the spark that starts a fire, I don't think we're even close to that kind of scenario (contrary to the hyperbolic rhetoric which has become normalized from both sides over the past 10ish years.)
Protestors and cops having tussles in the streets falls short of my bar for "brutal violence"; shooting a woman in the face certainly qualifies, but I am not seeing anything like that so widespread that it could motivate a drone ban like some people in this discussion are asserting. The political violence in America right now doesn't even come close to what was normal in living memory in the 20th century. America today is very peaceful, not that you'd think it from following the media.
The DJI ban is about China, not domestic protests.
I think you are correct about the political violence being higher in 20th century USA. For anyone doubting it, just look at the black experience in the south during the civil rights movements. Where I am concerned is that the violence we are seeing today from the federal authorities is being endorsed by the federal government. In fact all leadership is doubling down and turning up the rhetoric whereas during the 50's and 60's it was the federal government stepping in if things got out of hand. With what is happening today, who will step in to cool things down?
What's lacking authenticity is your assertion a well informed political cult engaged in gaming the system for its own benefit is not working multiple narratives.
If it was just about China they would not be turning TikTok, CBS into right wing platforms. They would not be announcing intent to violate 4th Amendment and go door to door without warrants.
Trump doesn't actually care about China. He prays on idiots fears with xenophobia. Trump is Palpatine. He's afraid of losing power. See also Steve Bannon at CPAC going on about how, if Dems win midterms a lot of them are going to prison.
Occam's Razor suggests it's not 12D chess they're playing. Just boring biological self selection. Someone in meeting brought up risk to them from drones.
Was working in EE designing motherboards for telco when manufacturing was offshored. It was plainly described as protectionism. Fear Americans with such skills could threaten Intel or copyright cartels. Educated and capable Americans capable of being manifold people who do not kowtow readily to political memes are greatly feared by the generation in charge. They've been working for years to maintain the historical narrative that serves.
Control the imports of technology to control the economy.
Are you enjoying the taste of the boot so much your eyes are closed in ecstasy? You think it is not brutal state violence to go door-to-door, kicking some in and extracting people who are, at worst, suspected of misdemeanor? Have you ever been the victim of a Kavanaugh stop? I have, and I live in Minneapolis and have personally witnessed ICE jumping out of SUVs, chasing someone who simply pointed at them, knock them down and get back into their SUV to go on terrorizing people.
I wouldn't want illegal aliens in my country. They're criminals. Norway doesn't allow it, we control our borders. We could do a better job, but at least we don't have a backlog the size of the US'
It's mostly in Minnesota at the moment, but has been present in many other states that didn't vote for President Trump. You can see it in news coverage, or if you're near Minneapolis you can go see it in person.
You don't need a revolution narrative to criticize this ban. It's already bad policy on its own merits: it freezes innovation, hurts hobbyists and small businesses etc
These things are true, but they don't explain why the u.s. government would make it a priority to ban such technologies. saying "well, republicans are bad so they do bad things" robs us the ability to understand the world.
Probably so. Having the software and hardware built in the US facilitate installation of backdoors. This comes handy to control the population just at the moment when the population feels they had an hedge over ICE, the regime, etc.
My takeaway is that all previous U.S. administrations had pretense of morality and rules in both international and domestic politics (even when they did dubious stuff). The new administration has realized that there is no need for such pretense to stay in power. Previously Venezuelan attack would have been about "democracy" and "freedom" and "peace". Trump has made it clear that it is for oil.
Overall it is probably better for the world society in general that pretense is gone and the realpolitics is laid bare. The risks are no longer ambiguous but real and clearly stated and the world can plan mitigation accordingly.
No. That is excessively cynical. Even GW Bush and the neocons really thought toppling Hussein would benefit Iraqis more than just Americans. That invasion turned out to be a complete disaster that probably benefited Islamist radicals more than anybody else. But it's a mistake to think that the neocons didn't believe their own bullshit. The top leadership really believed they could turn Iraq into a liberal democracy at gunpoint.
America has always been at its best when it lives up to its ideals, and at its worst when it discards those ideals. America has often been in the wrong, but on balance, the world has been better off for having a great champion of liberal democracy.
With Trump, it's not a question of believing things that are right or wrong. For the post-truth mindset, right and wrong don't matter. Democracy doesn't matter. There is only power. The second Trump presidency is the first time in modern history that America is no longer a great nation.
I can understand that point of view from a U.S. citizen's (and allied West) point of view that you think US is really ideological. But as a non-US person, even when US pretended to be ideological, there is an underlying reality of maintaining hegemony, access to resources, etc.
When there was a large scale genocide in Bangladesh by Pakistan, US not only implicitly supported Pakistan, but also attempted to block/attack India (not clear the intentions, but Soviets got involved). There are many such cases.
For rest of the world to believe that US has only best intentions, they have to be really naive. In case Saddam, would US have the same enthusiasm for democracy if it was not for oil? US has toppled democratic governments when they were not aligned to its interest.
To put it in personal terms, would anyone trust someone with their money to person who only cheats 70% of times, while is honest 30% of times? The conclusion to be had is that those in incidents of honesty aligned with the interests of the person. Not because he or she was actually a good person.
> My takeaway is that all previous U.S. administrations had pretense of morality and rules in both international and domestic politics
This is a perspective that continues to boggle my mind.
Every record of the United States acting internationally has been either:
Explicitly horrific (Invasion of Grenada, Vietnam, Firebombing then nuking Tokyo, Iraq etc…)
Attempts to Subvert or ignore international law (IPCC, ICC, UN…)
Or benefits some major industrial corporation (NAFTA, WTO etc…)
Please point to any type of transcendent “morality or rules” that isn’t just straight up large scale international realpolitik and propaganda around maintaining global capitalism on behalf of American based owners.
Ah yes I'm sure it has nothing to do with the drones running closed proprietary software via OTA updates, with encrypted data connections back to China, while being outfitted with 8k cameras, gps, lidar, etc.
Much like the TikTok ban this seems like something that could be handled through actually regulating what tech companies are allowed to do, rather than just picking on specific products and saying ‘stop that, it’s making us nervous’.
Federal laws about data collection and retention, export, and algorithmic usage… as well as laws about software update channels for hardware devices, eg requiring that it be possible to replace firmware yourself… all sorts of regulations could be put in place that leave the software and hardware markets open, by making it clear where the boundaries are. If DJI or TikTok are doing something bad, prosecute and fine them and enjoin them from doing it again… but make it clear what specific behavior you have a problem with.
What do you present it as? He’s in front of her vehicle, in uniform. She sees he is there, puts it in drive, and pulls forward. The legal standard for him to use force doesn’t require that he ends up under the wheel before he can shoot.
“The officer has a reasonable belief that the subject of such force poses an imminent danger of death or serious physical injury to the officer or to another person”, and someone gunning an SUV at you is imminent danger.
Its obvious that she was resisting arrest and trying to flee. But as for the ICE agent being in front of the car... barely. I don't believe he genuinely feared for his life, he could have simply stepped out of the way. I think he saw the woman fleeing, figured he was close enough to being in harms way to justify himself, and shot the woman because he was mad at her.
I've been in situations like that in Walmart parking lots, where a car jolts forward and I have to jump out of the way, and maybe I say "That crazy bitch just tried to kill me" but while saying that I understand it to be a hyperbolic albeit justified anger at reckless driving, and that nobody was actually trying to kill me, and shooting the driver in the face instead of diving out of the way would be a suboptimal survival strategy even if homicidal intent was there.
I don't understand what jurisdiction ICE has to enforce traffic laws. We see other vehicles drive around her vehicle, so at most it was a minor inconvenience for ICE. Call the local LE on her if you don't like how she's parked in the road and they can issue a ticket.
It’s reassuring to know the courts don’t apply your perfect hindsight standard.
Graham V Connor:
“The calculus of reasonableness must embody allowance for the fact that police officers are often forced to make split-second judgments—in circumstances that are tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving.”
It’s wild to think you can drive towards a Fed, inches from your bumper, and not get shot because “you weren’t intending to hit him”.
Law enforcement is trained not to shoot at a moving vehicle because you risk public safety if the driver is incapacitated. Also LE is trained not to put themselves in front or back of the vehicle, since you can get run over that way. Agent Jonathan Ross did not follow his training, despite being dragged by a vehicle months earlier.
You also have to ask why Renee Good decided to leave her wife behind who tried to get in the locked passenger door. Another agent was grabbing the driver door and reaching his hand inside. What was Mr. Ross doing with his free hand? He was holding his phone in the other hand to video the encounter for some reason, even though they're supposed to have body cams.
There's no way a judge or jury looks at this and thinks the agents involved followed proper training.
> You can't take one tragic mistake or bad-apple cop and draw conclusions about the fate of the country from it.
As per a sibling comment:
> The bad apples metaphor originated as a warning of the corrupting influence of one corrupt or sinful person on a group: that "one bad apple can spoil the barrel". Over time the concept has been used to describe the opposite situation, where "a few bad apples" should not be seen as representative of the rest of their group. This latter version is often used in the context of police misconduct.
> The bad apples metaphor originates from the proverb "A rotten apple quickly infects its neighbor", first recorded as used in English in 1340.[1]
And the real problem is that the highest levels of government is defending the actions of the bad-apple cop.
It is the fact that these crazy high quotas that ICE agents must meet are a high-level government policy that are 'forcing' the agents to do these crazy things (if they want to keep their jobs); of course some ICE thugs enjoy doing this and like the power trip(s).
Regardless of all the rest, what a saying meant 1000 years ago is irrelevant. I find it bizarre anyone is providing historical usage as if proves something.
You could pick endless words and sayings in English from 1000 years ago, which are entirely different now.
idk if you know about bad apples, but the idiom isn't "one bad apple is fine and can be successfully isolated and removed."
If we're speaking about the same incident, there was no mistake. it was intentional. there has been no apology from any official source, as one would expect in the case of a tragic mistake.
We don't even have to go that far to realize how quickly the democratic establishment would roll over in the face of a civil war. I don't think Chuck Schumer is going to be leading an armed resistance movement anytime soon.
Change my mind, but everyone's assumption that the Senate Minority Leader, of all people, is the de facto head of the democrats and would "lead" the opposition in a civil war is asinine – whether it's Chuck Schumer or whoever replaces him.
I guess you haven't read how the government reacted to the incident. Let's put it mildly and say: is wasn't treated as a mistake or bad-apple cop.
Just an example: "Vance said the ICE officer was clearly justified in shooting Good. The officer was clearly acting in self-defense, Vance said. He framed Good as "a victim of left-wing ideology" who was spurred by an alleged network of politically motivated groups to interfere with law enforcement."
> You can't take one tragic mistake or bad-apple cop and draw conclusions about the fate of the country from it.
Do you have any citations for that? Jonathon Ross's entire chain of command including Sec of DHS and the President has justified the killing in multiple public statements. There has not been any official admission that it was a mistake, tragic nor description of Jonathan Ross as a "bad" apple or anything.
And anyone who has seen more than just the one the video the Trump administration wanted everyone to see knows the Trump admin is lying though their teeth.
I have seen multiple high level leader say that the shooting was warranted and ok. They expressed happiness over the killing. That includes Trump, Vance and Kristi Noem. They praised the shooter and threatened others.
> You can't take one tragic mistake or bad-apple cop and draw conclusions about the fate of the country from it.
It was not bad apple. It was logical conclusion of ICE tactic and strategy. They also kidnap people, beat them up, throw them out somewhere else on the street. They throw tear gas into insides of cars or just randomly as bye package to citizens. They intentionally ram cars and cause traffic accidents.
Also, concretely, the lower level ICE members have seen to:
1.) do stuff like pointing a gun at a woman and saying "you did not learned from it".
2.) Destroyed memorial of the killed woman.
3.) Been heard to say she was "fucking bitch".
It was not bad apple. He is their hero and exactly where their tactic will go.
It's not just one bad apple. There have been 16 ICE shootings resulting in four deaths during Trump's 2nd term and 32 people died in ICE detention during 2025. There are multiple videos out of Minneapolis & St. Paul since Renee Good's shooting where ICE have broken down the door of someone's home, beat a man and left him bleeding in another part of town, accosted someone at a gas station, tried to enter the home of a family where the DoorDash lady had fled for safety, threatened the death to drivers whom they accused of following them, posed for a picture with an influencer yelling about how they executed one of the protestors, and caused chaos at a high school leading to public schools temporarily shutting down.
This is officially sanctioned domestic terrorism against the citizens of Minnesota and no American should stand for it.
It's no secret that VC's are profiting massively from this administration. And all comments critical of the current regime are getting downvoted on HN. Something adds up.
Reminder: when you are logged out, HN will show static cached content. Since there's no login session it doesn't have to compute parts of the page unique to the user.
When huge stories hit, and HN is overloaded, browing while logged out is the way to get through.
Trump will be gone in 3 years. Maybe fewer depending on his health. It's unlikely that this change will have any meaningful effect on US democracy.
On the other hand, little drones are effectively munitions now. That means drone manufacturing capacity is effectively munitions manufacturing capacity. We're giving potential adversaries economies of scale building things that may be used to kill us.
I'm generally a pretty free market guy but the war in Ukraine has changed some things. My main complaint with this law is that it is so US focused; I'd be fine with drones built in Europe or Japan or other allied nations.
I don’t know if we should be so sure that he will be gone in three years. There is no incentive for him to relinquish control peacefully. We’ll have to give him a plea bargain, or a pardon of sorts, to incentivise him stepping down. Without one his back will be against a wall (or iron bars in this case), and he will gladly escalate to stay in power to avoid incarceration.
No, you can think of them more like unarmed artillery shells. Can you walk down the street to buy some artillery munitions?
Even if they were considered arms for the purpose of 2a this isn’t a ban on drones but a specific manufacturer. They government can definitely refuse to grant a manufacturer license to sell on this country.
After Mcviegh, shouldn’t all U-Haul’s be seen as unarmed vehicular large IEDs? A drone isn’t like an artillery shell because an artillery shell is for putting in an artillery gun. A drone is for flying. Just because something can be modified to serve as some sort of weapon, does make it basically a weapon.
It was quite common in the wake of McVeigh and other large vehicle attacks that they should be seen as weapons and licensing strengthened.
The fact you can drive a 26,000 lb GVWR truck without any special license is something special we have in America compared to most of say, Europe. It's actually pretty mind blowing anyone can just rent 26 ft diesel 26,000 lb truck and get in and drive it on the highway.
It is testament to the fact there are a few vestiges of freedom left in America. Not much, but a few vestiges, since such trucks were around before the regulation hysteria of the late 20th century and 21st century.
>Trump will be gone in 3 years. Maybe fewer depending on his health.
He incited an insurrection last time he had power, in a desperate attempt to stay in power. Congress impeached him for it, but spineless Republicans refused to convict him for it. Then when he got power again, he pardoned everyone who took part in the insurrection. He's talked about having a 3rd term, so if you think he's just going to go away at the end of this term, you are mistaken.
Maybe, or maybe it’s just good policy to not import a network of drones from an adversary to democracies across the world, which includes the EU most importantly as China helps Russia with its invasion of Ukraine and is gearing up for some activity in Taiwan.
People can just record all this stuff on their iPhones that they already have. You don’t need a DJI drone to record police malfeasance. Maybe you do in China or Iran though. In Iran they are just mowing people down. In China you get disappeared. Interesting that there are no protests about those things though. I guess they just have better social media marketing.
I think propping up the domestic small drone industry is clearly in America's national strategic interest. Hobbyists may not like it, but their toys have become potent weapons of war, so it's important for America that we don't count on importing all of them from China.
Even as recently as this past week the United States Navy has tracked down and seized Russian "shadow fleet" tankers which are operating despite American and European sanctions, and did so with Russian naval vessels nearby and despite strong protests and anger from Moscow. Hopefully Europe can step up its game and do so too.
But do you know who is helping Russia besides China? India. Iran, South America (Brazil, &c.), plenty of other countries. They've given no money, no aid, and are all too happy to buy illicit Russian oil.
By only giving Ukraine $175,000,000,000, instead of $500B? Or $1T and American boots on the ground? When has American done enough to fight Ukraine’s war for them?
It was 30 years of rot, neglect, theft and corruption that did the majority of the damage to Russia's post-USSR military. The army they have today in Ukraine is only a fraction of what they were capable of in the 1980s.
Most of the money "given" to Ukraine was older stockpiled weapons that were approaching EOL or at least "refresh cycle" anyway and needed to be replaced. Instead of throwing it away or selling it, they gave it to Ukraine, and most of the actual money spend went to US armaments companies.
The price tag you quote is the same as the "an $X value thrown in for free" you see in "deals" from shady companies.
We have neither the money (see national debt) nor production capacity (see 155mm shells, missile production, howitzer barrels, etc) to give billions away for somebody else’s war.
Furthermore, the weapons had a cost when they were new, and replacing them now carries a higher cost.
Saying the price tag is fictional is like saying my dinner is free because the steak was already in my fridge.
The money that was paid to build those weapons went into the American economy, to all the companies that built them, to the employees that work for those companies, etc. Nobody is saying they were "free", but the military industrial complex has always been a jobs program. It employs plenty of Americans, it pays the bills when weapons get made. So we had a bunch of old stock that needed to be replaced, and giving them to Ukraine is an easy win, for a lot of reasons. If Ukraine fell quickly and then Putin goes after Poland and other countries, it's going to cause a lot worse problems for the US and the world. So, giving these older weapons to Ukraine is saving money in the long run. Some people have no ability to see how actions (or inaction) have consequences, and they never think about the wider perspective, only their own little pocketbooks, so it might appear that giving weapons to Ukraine is somehow stealing money from you personally. And if that steak in the fridge is already freezer burned, do you really want to eat it? We're not talking about a brand new steak here.
Yea but those weapons are still highly valuable and effective. If you need help you aren't going to be super picky whether the apples and potatoes come from Whole Foods or Kroger.
> The price tag you quote is the same as the "an $X value thrown in for free" you see in "deals" from shady companies.
So I don't think this is very accurate. Unless you want to suggest that funding, equipment, and more given under the Biden Administration, never mind US actions like sanctions, are the product of "shady deals".
>I'm inclined to think Ukraine is fighting our war for us.
Is there a war we needed to fight with Russia in this decade, the next decade, or the last, and if so, is Ukraine even damaging the parts that matter?
Russia nukes hold America at threat, not a bunch of conscripts and some old BMPs. America isn’t safer if Ukraine scores another 100K Russian casualties, and there’s even an argument that a destabilized, volatilized Russia would be more dangerous for America.
> America isn’t safer if Ukraine scores another 100K Russian casualties
Europe is safer though, so there's that at least. Russia can't invade the United States of course, but it can invade other countries in Europe, and it is actively taking action to do so.
Good thing NATO has consistently hit the 2% funding target, and Europe more broadly hasn’t neglected to maintain their defense spending in favor of profligate social welfare spending.
Depends. Is he actually fighting 450,000,000 in the EU? Is Portugal going to send troops to the front lines in Estonia? Will Germans accept being drafted to go fight in Ukraine? These are serious questions. Meanwhile Putin is very much able to draft Russians to fight wars, and god-forbid he takes over Ukraine he'll send Ukrainians too.
It's this now, but 3D printers, Meshtastic, and the ESP32 all seem likely to catch the ire of the administration if some deal is not done in the coming years.
I've been saying it for ages, but a decent easily available western equivalent to the ESP32 (meaning easy WiFi) needs to happen, and until it does there will be a giant hole in the middle of the entire maker universe, which increasingly acts as the prototyping stage for commercialized gadgetry.
I agree on the need to create an ESP32 equivalent. But the ESP32 doesn't really correlate to DJI here. DJI collects a massive amount of telemetry data and terrain data, forces the average user to upload this data, and isn't exactly forthcoming about what is collected or how it is used.
An ESP32 can, for the most part, be fully audited in what it is sending. Yes, the wireless drivers are binary blobs, but the developer has extensive control over the device, and it is easy to monitor/filter/firewall the data sent.
3D printers, as a general category, are also more similar to the ESP32 than to DJI.
I'm in favor of tighter regulation on drone imports, both for national security reasons and to try to jumpstart a US drone industry.
Not allowing _any_ foreign made components, however, is insane, as is not even auditing DJI when they didn't put up a fight. They have to know they're just killing the small drone industry completely.
There’s currently nobody in the us small drone market to get complacent. Is there a single company that designs and builds sub $10,000 drones in the US?
Both making and removing regulation boosts my business, as my clients care about changes. That said, I assure you that one regulation getting made out of millions has no effect on my bottom line.
The drone thing is a personal opinion. If the US ends up in a war (whether it’s one I agree with or not, likely not), I don’t want millions of drones to be remote controllable by the folks we’re fighting.
I build hobby scale drones for fun, mostly sub250g micros with no military value.
I’d pay more for domestic parts, because I think the capability is strategically valuable, and the quality of Chinese stuff is super variable.
There’s basically no industry here because the aliexpress parts are so cheap, so I support some protectionism, understanding that it will make the hobby more expensive.
I think you’re probably right, but I think going for million dollar drones from anduril while wiping the rest of the market is a miscalculation.
Not surprising. Asymmetrically-powerful personal technology is a threat to the State's monopoly of force and power. Same reason for US juristictions banning hardware "hacking" devices, firearms manufacturing, 3D printing - hell, even building and maintaining a PC is becoming untenable. The writing is on the wall for what is next.
The impact is more for bind and fly drones that are FCC approved so you don’t need a HAM license to operate them.
To me it also looks like there are also loopholes you could drive a truck through in terms of importing partially assembled drones that can be assembled by the end user as well as approving components by making their use not exclusive to UAS.
What actually happens remains to be seen because it really depends on what the enforcement actually looks like and how well work arounds work.
I think the real goal of the regulators is to ensure an onshore supply chain for government use and there won’t be a focus on civilian usage.
Yeah, with parts from China...but that's banned too.
Homegrown factories and supply chains don't just pop up overnight though. So in the near term this just means zero drones and a disorderly transition.
Intentionally triggering that only really makes sense if you think a major confrontation is imminent and chaos is an acceptable price to pay to force speed.
They don't need to be that hard to develop. It's not like you need a return to base feature. Sort of like wanting to learn how to fly a plane, but not take off and land the plane. You don't need to have the full feature set of a DJI drone to make it a weapon. You also don't need to worry about the battery life of coming back, so you've essentially doubled your distance capabilities, so maybe a stronger radio. Do you need the video return signal too? I guess that would be some decent PR footage on the nightly news propaganda stations though, so might be worth the expense??? You also don't need to be burdened with the GeoFencing features of a DJI, but would be funny to see a bunch of attack drones all hover just outside a map boundary because the target has their base listed in the GeoFence library!
So while not duct-taping a GoPro (we'd use Gaff tape anyways), they could use bailing wire with a grenade or c4 bundle to attach it.
I think you're pretty confused about what most of these drones are doing.
DJI drones aren't being used as weapons platforms in the US...
They're being used for industry (agriculture, real estate, land surveillance, fire monitoring)
No one gives a shit that it's not difficult to make a flying grenade. They care that all the features you're in here mouthing off about as "not important" are actually important.
Just looking at the injection molded shell of my Mavic Mini makes me cringe when thinking about the startup cost. It's the plastic shell; not the motors, nor the circuitry, nor the optical parts...and to think you could build that in the USA is laughable. DJI releases 2-3 models every 2-3 years... if you could even find a company in the USA machining the steel molds at that frequency (i don't think it exists) how are you going to afford the bill?
We'll just let Boeing build them. They have the know-how.
Plus, if we're talking military drones vs civilian drones, they wouldn't need plastic shells. That'd just be more weight reducing distance. Then again, military industrial complex would probably try to make them stealth capable, be designed by committee from 22 nation states, be micro-USB mandated to comply with EU standards, blah blah. Yeah, you're right, we'd never be able to build them here.
I think the US military itself relies on big, sophisticated and expensive UAVs. Is there any US-only supply-chain to build millions of cheap drones for military applications? I don't agree with the ban, but if it forces a domestic supply chain, even for civilian use, that might be more tenable. But last I looked, I couldn't find any US vendor that makes similar quality drones, even if they manufacture overseas.
Reading through the notice from the FCC, it sure feels like they've also banned a lot of the critical components that go into line of sight RC airplanes. It really sucks, I kind of wonder if this won't crush the hobby and cause a lot vendors like Horizon or Hobby King to go under if they can't bring in planes or parts. Maybe they think someone is going to do a terrorism with their foamie Crack Yak or Turbo Timber..
This ban has more to do with how much geodetic data is being transmitted to China and less to do with the actual drone technology. People flying DJI drones are mapping the US on China's behalf, and that too with great fidelity.
Satellite synthetic aperture radar can have a resolution of like 6 inches. I can't imagine consumer grade drones are significantly improving on this, and even if they could do better I would question the utility of higher resolution data for anything military related.
I always thought the risk was more that such a drone fleet could be remotely commandeered for real-time updates on target locations. It's something that could only be done once, but wow, it would be a real advantage to the attacker.
Do we think anything secret is being conveyed when it comes to US terrain? It's not like there are too many secrets of that kind remaining. The Chinese can probably just buy any maps they need in any case. (perhaps a drone's potential to map or even affect the wifi landscape is more interesting as a security threat)
The potential for industrial espionage is perhaps more interesting, as drones are used for security, agriculture, and pretty much everything else you can shake a stick at.
The lesson learned from Ukraine is that importation of drones is a terrific asset, rather than a liability. Maybe you think that lesson would not apply to the USA, but that wouldn't be a lesson learned from Ukraine, rather the lesson learned would be the opposite.
The lesson learned from Ukraine is that a robust drone supply chain is very important. For some countries it doesn't matter if this supply chain is rooted in China, for others it matters a lot.
The lesson from Ukraine is the importance of having access to drones. It doesn't take any remarkable mental feats to realize that if your primary source of drones is China, then that access may not be reliable in the event of conflict with China.
> then that access may not be reliable in the event of conflict with China.
Some might call that poor pre-planning. If you're about to go to war with your biggest supplier, you'd be well advised to stock up on supplies before firing the first shot.
Reducing the diversity of your supply chain and instead making your self so incredibly vulnerable that all an adversary has to do is fubar your own domestic supply chain (because imports have long been banned) is way less robust than maintaining imports. If you actually wanted what you claim, you'd allow imports while taxing or subsidizing until they look roughly break even with domestic offerings.
Your position is completely untenable here and relies on it being easier to destroy multiple 'industrial bases' plus the US drone industry rather than your straw man of just the "entire" US industrial base.
Even going off your theory that the US drone industry is not easily sabotaged, it can't possibly be easier to sabotage the US drone industry plus all the import pathways (which you would otherwise have to re-establish). That is why you chose this dismissive fake-quote rather than address what I've said.
How does this interact with this[1] recent decision? Maybe I'm stupid but I don't think the article really explains the US Commerce Dept. decision outcome when the FCC ban is still in effect.
That these are banned but Chinese made robot vacuums and other appliances are not points to this not being about protecting individual Americans and more about protecting national interests (drones can map out terrain in a lot more detail and are mobile outside of your bedroom, and can be trivially weaponized)
My Chinese made robot vaccuum can't get from one end of a room to the other without bouncing off the walls multiple times. Makes it kind of hard to deliver ordinance like that. I really don't think these Chinese made robot vacuums you're afraid of are much of a threat.
Hard to ignore the parallel with other tech bans: vague data-risk claims, no public evidence, no transparent threat model, and zero nuance between consumer toys and critical infrastructure. If this logic were applied consistently, half of consumer electronics would be in trouble
News next week : "Donald Trump Jr opens US Drone company with exclusive import license from China."
> DJI responded publicly that month that they had nothing to hide, and subsequently spent a year trying to convince the U.S. government to begin the audit. But no federal agency even began
There's your answer. There was never any concern over Americans data being sent to China.
Also they didn't "Follow through", they simply let the clock run out without even evaluating DJI's reponse to the claims.
It’s hard to say on this one. There is a pretty extensive history of Chinese govt spying via consumer products [0]. Having worked formerly with the intelligence community, they tend not to tip their hand when they are aware of asymmetrical information.
It’s plausible that the determination was made that there were backdoors/spy equipment/whatever in the products, so no audit or smooth talking from corp representatives would make a difference in this case, given the supply chain remains controlled by an adversary. If you don’t trust that an audit can be executed with integrity then there’s not much point in conducting one at all.
The fact that this has been extended to all foreign drones does make that feel like more of a political statement though, or at the very least the original intent is being hijacked for political theater.
Intent is of course tricky to prove, but there is overwhelming evidence that’s Chinese government views the role of Chinese companies in the consumer electronics supply chain as a strategic, exploitable asset.
> Huawei has a history of IP theft and security incidents related to backdoors and malware going back nearly 20 years.
> ZTE has been accused of including unusual backdoors in some products and was caught selling equipment containing U.S. technology
to Iran and North Korea, in violation of trade agreements. … Security researchers, however, noted that the backdoors were “highly unusual” and appeared intentional because they were supporting software updates.
It's doubtful that there is currently a backdoor or anything that would fail an audit.
The problem is the software updates. Whoever controls those keys has an entire domestic fleet a single firmware update away. Probably won't even be DJI, but some either state or non-state hacker that happens to acquire the update keys.
Until the FCC wakes up and decides to change any detail of how they certify (which can happen easily), and then everything becomes no longer certified, and you'd basically have a full blanket ban of any transmitter, receiver, esc, motor, completed drone (or anything else that even incidentally emits EMI) that wasn't built in the US. The cards are set up there that it's extremely easy for them to just "incidentally" change a few things and hey no more drones of almost any sort, or RC planes, or hell parts for a whole lot of things.
I haven't kept up to date but does the US have that much more leverage over Canada anymore? Last I checked we have tariffs on most exports, including crude, wood, steel and aluminium (probably missing a bunch). General goods are tariff'ed at 35% while China is tariff'ed at 47.5%.
They could get us to ban DJI for sure but I'd assume it'd be more through carrot than stick, because at this point we've been pretty consistently beaten for the last year.
> General goods are tariff'ed at 35% while China is tariff'ed at 47.5%.
Incorrect. General tariffs are only on goods not already covered by CUSMA, which, other than the specific items already called out (aluminum, steel, etc.), is a very small set.
> In October, Popular Information reported that the Pentagon awarded a contract to Unusual Machines, an obscure drone company that President Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., joined as an advisor in November 2024, despite having no notable experience with drones or military contracting.
[…]
> Now, another small startup funded by 1789 Capital, a venture capital firm where Trump Jr. is a partner, will receive a $620 million loan from the Defense Department, the Financial Times reported. Vulcan Elements, which currently has around 30 employees, produces rare-earth magnets, which can be used in “drones, radar systems and other military applications.” The contract was awarded just three months after 1789 invested in Vulcan.
A society in which ubiquitous, diversely-owned and operated, unlicensed drones watch the every move of police and criminals - even though that means they watch the every move of the rest of us as well - is a society in which I want to live.
The outcome of who can lawfully create and deploy eyes in the sky is the ultimate decider of the matter of who watches the watchers.
We could start health insurance companies that monitor everyone's gait and how often they exercise vs eat fast food to adjust prices. Or credit monitoring companies that watch how often you attend the casino vs. work. Or boyfriend monitoring to check for cheaters.
... the import of any foreign made drone parts is also blocked. This includes things like ESCs and flight controllers. Not just items that actually transmit radio signals like camera modules and so are traditionally regulated by the FCC re: import.
The best coverage of the FCCs over-reach attempting to regulate all parts, and then their subsequent very tiny walking of it back is Joshua Bardwell's video: https://youtu.be/Dyr87--SDuc (9m47s)
Almost all the new exceptions are for government users. The only thing relevant to human persons is the back-stepping change that as long as the components of a drone are 60% made in the USA the entire thing can be considered domestic and imported. Or US retail importers can take the risk of saying that a tx'ing camera module has alternate uses, like as a security camera, and try importing it regardless of the ban.
You're correct. The ban targets the supply chain and future imports/sales, not retroactive possession. New foreign drones cannot be certified for sale in the US market going forward. Existing drones you already own aren't being confiscated or made illegal to fly
It's no secret that the current U.S. regime views a sizeable portion of its own civilian citizens as enemy combatants. They are already shooting people in the face and not even putting up a pretense of acting shocked at the act. Historically, it is easier to win elections than revolutions; limiting access to game-changing technology puts the power advantage even more firmly in the corner of the regime.
https://chicago.suntimes.com/news/2025/10/02/faa-drone-zone-...
I picked up an older DJI model in December and am super glad I did with recent events.
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/jan/...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deaths_in_ICE_detentio...
"violence" covers more than just murder, and there's plenty of ICE violence to go around.
The DJI ban is about China, not domestic protests.
It can be about both.
Two birds, one stone.
If it was just about China they would not be turning TikTok, CBS into right wing platforms. They would not be announcing intent to violate 4th Amendment and go door to door without warrants.
Trump doesn't actually care about China. He prays on idiots fears with xenophobia. Trump is Palpatine. He's afraid of losing power. See also Steve Bannon at CPAC going on about how, if Dems win midterms a lot of them are going to prison.
They need to make moves to also protect their troops: https://www.thedailybeast.com/dhs-ice-hated-under-donald-tru...
Occam's Razor suggests it's not 12D chess they're playing. Just boring biological self selection. Someone in meeting brought up risk to them from drones.
Was working in EE designing motherboards for telco when manufacturing was offshored. It was plainly described as protectionism. Fear Americans with such skills could threaten Intel or copyright cartels. Educated and capable Americans capable of being manifold people who do not kowtow readily to political memes are greatly feared by the generation in charge. They've been working for years to maintain the historical narrative that serves.
Control the imports of technology to control the economy.
You like this? What is wrong with you?
This seems like a troll?
https://xcancel.com/TheRealThelmaJ1/status/20105429076952310...
https://xcancel.com/NewYorker/status/1910856874792046893
https://xcancel.com/JusticeFwdVa/status/1914987893652705475
You can do it by following the rules non-violently.
Trump/Right, enjoy seeing people in pain. That's the problem, the methods and glee in seeing the pain.
We have a very healthy FPV community here in the states perfectly capable of building drones from parts just like Ukraine is doing.
Overall it is probably better for the world society in general that pretense is gone and the realpolitics is laid bare. The risks are no longer ambiguous but real and clearly stated and the world can plan mitigation accordingly.
America has always been at its best when it lives up to its ideals, and at its worst when it discards those ideals. America has often been in the wrong, but on balance, the world has been better off for having a great champion of liberal democracy.
With Trump, it's not a question of believing things that are right or wrong. For the post-truth mindset, right and wrong don't matter. Democracy doesn't matter. There is only power. The second Trump presidency is the first time in modern history that America is no longer a great nation.
When there was a large scale genocide in Bangladesh by Pakistan, US not only implicitly supported Pakistan, but also attempted to block/attack India (not clear the intentions, but Soviets got involved). There are many such cases.
For rest of the world to believe that US has only best intentions, they have to be really naive. In case Saddam, would US have the same enthusiasm for democracy if it was not for oil? US has toppled democratic governments when they were not aligned to its interest.
To put it in personal terms, would anyone trust someone with their money to person who only cheats 70% of times, while is honest 30% of times? The conclusion to be had is that those in incidents of honesty aligned with the interests of the person. Not because he or she was actually a good person.
This is a perspective that continues to boggle my mind.
Every record of the United States acting internationally has been either:
Explicitly horrific (Invasion of Grenada, Vietnam, Firebombing then nuking Tokyo, Iraq etc…)
Attempts to Subvert or ignore international law (IPCC, ICC, UN…)
Or benefits some major industrial corporation (NAFTA, WTO etc…)
Please point to any type of transcendent “morality or rules” that isn’t just straight up large scale international realpolitik and propaganda around maintaining global capitalism on behalf of American based owners.
Federal laws about data collection and retention, export, and algorithmic usage… as well as laws about software update channels for hardware devices, eg requiring that it be possible to replace firmware yourself… all sorts of regulations could be put in place that leave the software and hardware markets open, by making it clear where the boundaries are. If DJI or TikTok are doing something bad, prosecute and fine them and enjoin them from doing it again… but make it clear what specific behavior you have a problem with.
checks notes
software privacy than political disobedience
“The officer has a reasonable belief that the subject of such force poses an imminent danger of death or serious physical injury to the officer or to another person”, and someone gunning an SUV at you is imminent danger.
I've been in situations like that in Walmart parking lots, where a car jolts forward and I have to jump out of the way, and maybe I say "That crazy bitch just tried to kill me" but while saying that I understand it to be a hyperbolic albeit justified anger at reckless driving, and that nobody was actually trying to kill me, and shooting the driver in the face instead of diving out of the way would be a suboptimal survival strategy even if homicidal intent was there.
> She sees he is there, puts it in drive, and pulls forward.
The fact that her steering was cranked to the right is proof enough that she was not intending on hitting him.
Graham V Connor: “The calculus of reasonableness must embody allowance for the fact that police officers are often forced to make split-second judgments—in circumstances that are tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving.”
It’s wild to think you can drive towards a Fed, inches from your bumper, and not get shot because “you weren’t intending to hit him”.
You do know that’s a lie easily refuted by all the video evidence, right?
You also have to ask why Renee Good decided to leave her wife behind who tried to get in the locked passenger door. Another agent was grabbing the driver door and reaching his hand inside. What was Mr. Ross doing with his free hand? He was holding his phone in the other hand to video the encounter for some reason, even though they're supposed to have body cams.
There's no way a judge or jury looks at this and thinks the agents involved followed proper training.
As per a sibling comment:
> The bad apples metaphor originated as a warning of the corrupting influence of one corrupt or sinful person on a group: that "one bad apple can spoil the barrel". Over time the concept has been used to describe the opposite situation, where "a few bad apples" should not be seen as representative of the rest of their group. This latter version is often used in the context of police misconduct.
> The bad apples metaphor originates from the proverb "A rotten apple quickly infects its neighbor", first recorded as used in English in 1340.[1]
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_apples
* https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/one-bad-apple-spoil...
And the real problem is that the highest levels of government is defending the actions of the bad-apple cop.
It is the fact that these crazy high quotas that ICE agents must meet are a high-level government policy that are 'forcing' the agents to do these crazy things (if they want to keep their jobs); of course some ICE thugs enjoy doing this and like the power trip(s).
You could pick endless words and sayings in English from 1000 years ago, which are entirely different now.
So what?
The modern usage is quite clear.
Perhaps it is "clear", but it may have lost the lesson of the original adage. Perhaps that lesson is worth knowing.
If we're speaking about the same incident, there was no mistake. it was intentional. there has been no apology from any official source, as one would expect in the case of a tragic mistake.
Particularly in cases like this which are simply continuing discussion on the existing subjects of the discussion.
Just an example: "Vance said the ICE officer was clearly justified in shooting Good. The officer was clearly acting in self-defense, Vance said. He framed Good as "a victim of left-wing ideology" who was spurred by an alleged network of politically motivated groups to interfere with law enforcement."
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-live-vance-joins...
Do you have any citations for that? Jonathon Ross's entire chain of command including Sec of DHS and the President has justified the killing in multiple public statements. There has not been any official admission that it was a mistake, tragic nor description of Jonathan Ross as a "bad" apple or anything.
When have Trump's administration ever suggested it was either? So far they have said:
-it was an act of self-defense by Ross
-Ms. Good ran over Ross
-Ross has immunity even if he committed murder
-Ms. Good was very disrespectful to law enforcement
> You can't take one tragic mistake or bad-apple cop and draw conclusions about the fate of the country from it.
It was not bad apple. It was logical conclusion of ICE tactic and strategy. They also kidnap people, beat them up, throw them out somewhere else on the street. They throw tear gas into insides of cars or just randomly as bye package to citizens. They intentionally ram cars and cause traffic accidents.
Also, concretely, the lower level ICE members have seen to:
1.) do stuff like pointing a gun at a woman and saying "you did not learned from it".
2.) Destroyed memorial of the killed woman.
3.) Been heard to say she was "fucking bitch".
It was not bad apple. He is their hero and exactly where their tactic will go.
This is officially sanctioned domestic terrorism against the citizens of Minnesota and no American should stand for it.
When huge stories hit, and HN is overloaded, browing while logged out is the way to get through.
On the other hand, little drones are effectively munitions now. That means drone manufacturing capacity is effectively munitions manufacturing capacity. We're giving potential adversaries economies of scale building things that may be used to kill us.
I'm generally a pretty free market guy but the war in Ukraine has changed some things. My main complaint with this law is that it is so US focused; I'd be fine with drones built in Europe or Japan or other allied nations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_backsliding_in_the_...
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/04/how-stop-m...
Even if they were considered arms for the purpose of 2a this isn’t a ban on drones but a specific manufacturer. They government can definitely refuse to grant a manufacturer license to sell on this country.
The fact you can drive a 26,000 lb GVWR truck without any special license is something special we have in America compared to most of say, Europe. It's actually pretty mind blowing anyone can just rent 26 ft diesel 26,000 lb truck and get in and drive it on the highway.
It is testament to the fact there are a few vestiges of freedom left in America. Not much, but a few vestiges, since such trucks were around before the regulation hysteria of the late 20th century and 21st century.
He incited an insurrection last time he had power, in a desperate attempt to stay in power. Congress impeached him for it, but spineless Republicans refused to convict him for it. Then when he got power again, he pardoned everyone who took part in the insurrection. He's talked about having a 3rd term, so if you think he's just going to go away at the end of this term, you are mistaken.
People can just record all this stuff on their iPhones that they already have. You don’t need a DJI drone to record police malfeasance. Maybe you do in China or Iran though. In Iran they are just mowing people down. In China you get disappeared. Interesting that there are no protests about those things though. I guess they just have better social media marketing.
its very useful reporting updates about when the water will be back at full capacity.
America is helping Russia with its invasion of Ukraine.
Even as recently as this past week the United States Navy has tracked down and seized Russian "shadow fleet" tankers which are operating despite American and European sanctions, and did so with Russian naval vessels nearby and despite strong protests and anger from Moscow. Hopefully Europe can step up its game and do so too.
But do you know who is helping Russia besides China? India. Iran, South America (Brazil, &c.), plenty of other countries. They've given no money, no aid, and are all too happy to buy illicit Russian oil.
I'm inclined to think Ukraine is fighting our war for us.
The 1980s Cold Warriors would've been flabbergasted at how cheap taking out the Russian military at the knees would wind up being.
The price tag you quote is the same as the "an $X value thrown in for free" you see in "deals" from shady companies.
Furthermore, the weapons had a cost when they were new, and replacing them now carries a higher cost.
Saying the price tag is fictional is like saying my dinner is free because the steak was already in my fridge.
> The price tag you quote is the same as the "an $X value thrown in for free" you see in "deals" from shady companies.
So I don't think this is very accurate. Unless you want to suggest that funding, equipment, and more given under the Biden Administration, never mind US actions like sanctions, are the product of "shady deals".
Is there a war we needed to fight with Russia in this decade, the next decade, or the last, and if so, is Ukraine even damaging the parts that matter?
Russia nukes hold America at threat, not a bunch of conscripts and some old BMPs. America isn’t safer if Ukraine scores another 100K Russian casualties, and there’s even an argument that a destabilized, volatilized Russia would be more dangerous for America.
Europe is safer though, so there's that at least. Russia can't invade the United States of course, but it can invade other countries in Europe, and it is actively taking action to do so.
I've been saying it for ages, but a decent easily available western equivalent to the ESP32 (meaning easy WiFi) needs to happen, and until it does there will be a giant hole in the middle of the entire maker universe, which increasingly acts as the prototyping stage for commercialized gadgetry.
An ESP32 can, for the most part, be fully audited in what it is sending. Yes, the wireless drivers are binary blobs, but the developer has extensive control over the device, and it is easy to monitor/filter/firewall the data sent.
3D printers, as a general category, are also more similar to the ESP32 than to DJI.
Not allowing _any_ foreign made components, however, is insane, as is not even auditing DJI when they didn't put up a fight. They have to know they're just killing the small drone industry completely.
Checks out. More legislation boosts your business.
The drone thing is a personal opinion. If the US ends up in a war (whether it’s one I agree with or not, likely not), I don’t want millions of drones to be remote controllable by the folks we’re fighting.
There is no real downsides for the current gov’t here.
I’d pay more for domestic parts, because I think the capability is strategically valuable, and the quality of Chinese stuff is super variable.
There’s basically no industry here because the aliexpress parts are so cheap, so I support some protectionism, understanding that it will make the hobby more expensive.
I think you’re probably right, but I think going for million dollar drones from anduril while wiping the rest of the market is a miscalculation.
So are Molotov’s.
The impact is more for bind and fly drones that are FCC approved so you don’t need a HAM license to operate them.
To me it also looks like there are also loopholes you could drive a truck through in terms of importing partially assembled drones that can be assembled by the end user as well as approving components by making their use not exclusive to UAS.
What actually happens remains to be seen because it really depends on what the enforcement actually looks like and how well work arounds work.
I think the real goal of the regulators is to ensure an onshore supply chain for government use and there won’t be a focus on civilian usage.
It's too fast with no viable replacement path in sight.
Classic trump administration. Do something splashy, then when the media hype dies there is a giant void and no plan whatsoever
Yeah, with parts from China...but that's banned too.
Homegrown factories and supply chains don't just pop up overnight though. So in the near term this just means zero drones and a disorderly transition.
Intentionally triggering that only really makes sense if you think a major confrontation is imminent and chaos is an acceptable price to pay to force speed.
We're not talking about duct-taping a Go Pro to an OTS drone.
So while not duct-taping a GoPro (we'd use Gaff tape anyways), they could use bailing wire with a grenade or c4 bundle to attach it.
DJI drones aren't being used as weapons platforms in the US...
They're being used for industry (agriculture, real estate, land surveillance, fire monitoring)
No one gives a shit that it's not difficult to make a flying grenade. They care that all the features you're in here mouthing off about as "not important" are actually important.
Plus, if we're talking military drones vs civilian drones, they wouldn't need plastic shells. That'd just be more weight reducing distance. Then again, military industrial complex would probably try to make them stealth capable, be designed by committee from 22 nation states, be micro-USB mandated to comply with EU standards, blah blah. Yeah, you're right, we'd never be able to build them here.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43073808
It's not necessarily better than 6 inches. But it's pretty decent, down to 0.3m, roughly 12 inches.
> even if they could do better I would question the utility of higher resolution data for anything military related.
Oh boy. Suffice to say that it definitely is useful for many things military related.
Can you give a single example?
The potential for industrial espionage is perhaps more interesting, as drones are used for security, agriculture, and pretty much everything else you can shake a stick at.
Some might call that poor pre-planning. If you're about to go to war with your biggest supplier, you'd be well advised to stock up on supplies before firing the first shot.
"All you need to do to defeat the US is completely destroy its entire industrial base"
Even going off your theory that the US drone industry is not easily sabotaged, it can't possibly be easier to sabotage the US drone industry plus all the import pathways (which you would otherwise have to re-establish). That is why you chose this dismissive fake-quote rather than address what I've said.
[1]: https://www.reuters.com/world/china/us-commerce-department-d...
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/01/supreme-court-ta...
> DJI responded publicly that month that they had nothing to hide, and subsequently spent a year trying to convince the U.S. government to begin the audit. But no federal agency even began
There's your answer. There was never any concern over Americans data being sent to China.
Also they didn't "Follow through", they simply let the clock run out without even evaluating DJI's reponse to the claims.
It’s plausible that the determination was made that there were backdoors/spy equipment/whatever in the products, so no audit or smooth talking from corp representatives would make a difference in this case, given the supply chain remains controlled by an adversary. If you don’t trust that an audit can be executed with integrity then there’s not much point in conducting one at all.
The fact that this has been extended to all foreign drones does make that feel like more of a political statement though, or at the very least the original intent is being hijacked for political theater.
0. https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/cybersecurity-advisories/aa...
> Huawei has a history of IP theft and security incidents related to backdoors and malware going back nearly 20 years.
> ZTE has been accused of including unusual backdoors in some products and was caught selling equipment containing U.S. technology to Iran and North Korea, in violation of trade agreements. … Security researchers, however, noted that the backdoors were “highly unusual” and appeared intentional because they were supporting software updates.
Source: https://www.congress.gov/117/meeting/house/112475/documents/...
The problem is the software updates. Whoever controls those keys has an entire domestic fleet a single firmware update away. Probably won't even be DJI, but some either state or non-state hacker that happens to acquire the update keys.
https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/drone-company...
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1956955/000168316824...
https://theintercept.com/2025/07/28/donald-trump-jr-son-dron...
They could get us to ban DJI for sure but I'd assume it'd be more through carrot than stick, because at this point we've been pretty consistently beaten for the last year.
Incorrect. General tariffs are only on goods not already covered by CUSMA, which, other than the specific items already called out (aluminum, steel, etc.), is a very small set.
Canada being the only country to successfully invade the US
or did I mix up my pronoun references again?
* https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/drone-company...
* https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/27/donald-trump...
Also, from 2025:
> In October, Popular Information reported that the Pentagon awarded a contract to Unusual Machines, an obscure drone company that President Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., joined as an advisor in November 2024, despite having no notable experience with drones or military contracting.
[…]
> Now, another small startup funded by 1789 Capital, a venture capital firm where Trump Jr. is a partner, will receive a $620 million loan from the Defense Department, the Financial Times reported. Vulcan Elements, which currently has around 30 employees, produces rare-earth magnets, which can be used in “drones, radar systems and other military applications.” The contract was awarded just three months after 1789 invested in Vulcan.
* https://popular.info/p/update-trump-jr-backed-startup-receiv...
The outcome of who can lawfully create and deploy eyes in the sky is the ultimate decider of the matter of who watches the watchers.
The stakes are significant.
Not to mention the targeted ad potential.
... the import of any foreign made drone parts is also blocked. This includes things like ESCs and flight controllers. Not just items that actually transmit radio signals like camera modules and so are traditionally regulated by the FCC re: import.
The best coverage of the FCCs over-reach attempting to regulate all parts, and then their subsequent very tiny walking of it back is Joshua Bardwell's video: https://youtu.be/Dyr87--SDuc (9m47s)
Almost all the new exceptions are for government users. The only thing relevant to human persons is the back-stepping change that as long as the components of a drone are 60% made in the USA the entire thing can be considered domestic and imported. Or US retail importers can take the risk of saying that a tx'ing camera module has alternate uses, like as a security camera, and try importing it regardless of the ban.
"FCC Updates Covered List to Exempt Certain Drones and Releases FAQs" https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-updates-covered-list-exempt...
As every foreign-made drone is now on the FCC’s “Covered List.