02:47And only when all else fails, we have the technical countermeasures to protect tactical events.
02:55Well, the FBI does good work, but as you point out, with 90,000 special events around the country each year,
03:02you can't be everywhere, and you depend on state and local officials to help out.
03:08We saw that actually at Butler, Pennsylvania, a little over a year ago,
03:12but when the Secret Service delegated its responsibilities to protect the President of the United States,
03:18obviously that failed to accomplish that objective.
03:24But it strikes me, Mr. Willoughby, that given this incredible technology that the Ukrainians demonstrated
03:31this just this summer against the Russians,
03:36that we are not prepared to deal with this threat to either at a mass sporting event or entertainment event
03:45or even to protect the President of the United States if an adversary decided to use drone swarms to do him harm.
03:56Do you agree with me?
04:00I do think it comes down to capacity,
04:02which is why we continue to reiterate the need for additional entities that can operate this type of equipment
04:08and protect within their jurisdictions the events and the citizens that are there.
04:12Yeah, it's not, I know Mr. Hardy and Mr. Trophy have talked about authorities,
04:17but of course those only are useful once something bad happens.
04:22An investigation occurs, a prosecution occurs,
04:26but when it comes to actually preventing harm to the American people,
04:30whether it's a sporting event, entertainment event, or even at a rally like the one at Butler, Pennsylvania,
04:37it strikes me that a determined adversary has all the tools they need using drone technology to accomplish their goal,
04:47and we're not prepared to deal with that at this point.
04:51You're right. Is that correct?
04:53Yeah.
04:53Again, I think the authority does afford us the opportunity to gain the needed air domain awareness, right?
05:00You can't stop a threat that you don't know is there, right?
05:02You don't know a drone is there unless you have the advanced detection equipment there alongside a trained operator
05:08to be able to differentiate a media drone from a bad drone or an adversarial drone.
05:13And so, again, just to re-echo the sentiment that we can't be everywhere all the time,
05:18and, you know, there are ways for us to improve our own operations to include, you know, the Secret Service and other components,
05:24but we need additional partners to be able to tackle this type of threat scenario if, you know, Operation Spiderweb were to occur domestically here.
05:35We would need additional partners out there to be able to identify and then prevent those drones from carrying out their attack.
05:41Well, Senator Moody, like I, was Attorney General of our states, large states,
05:46and we worked, of course, with not only federal partners, but also state and local partners.
05:52And when you talk about resource constraints, that defines really the way that state and local partners operate.
06:00So it's the federal government that has the resources.
06:03But, again, I know this is not intended as a criticism of any of you or your organizations,
06:09but it just strikes me we are woefully unprepared, and I know the state and local authorities don't have the resources they need
06:17in order to deal with this potential threat either.
06:20So this is not just a question of having the proper authorities and prosecuting people who violate those laws that we may pass,
06:29but then, operationally, how do we prevent the harm that this new technology is capable of inflicting?
06:39I think we have a bipartisan consensus that Senator Moody is next.
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