Battelle Fielding 100 Drone Zappers to Pentagon, Homeland Security

The military has turned to a directed energy frequency jammer mounted on an assault rifle-type frame to deal with the growing threat of small drones to military bases and troops in the field.

Officials of Battelle, the non-profit research and development organization based in Columbus, Ohio, said Monday the Defense Department and the Department of Homeland Security had signed off on buying 100 of its “DroneDefender,” billed as the “safe” solution to warding off intruding unmanned aerial vehicles.

Battelle officials at the Navy League’s 2016 Sea-Air-Space Exposition at National Harbor in Maryland outside Washington, D.C., said they could not discuss the unit cost or the total cost of the sales to the departments.

“It’s a portable solution to stop portable drones,” said Rich Granger, a Battelle business development director for Mission and Defense Technologies.

The DroneDefender has two triggers — a “command and control” trigger to sever the link between the pilot and the UAV, and a second trigger to jam GPS links to the drone.

The device can intercept drones out to 400 meters. Once the drones are disabled, they are programmed to hover safely to the ground, said Kim Stambler, a Batelle business development and sales leader...

http://www.defensetech.org/2016/05/16/battelle-fielding-100-drone-zappers-to-pentagon-homeland-security/

From tracking al-Qaeda to tracking the wayward spouse - The Washington Post

You can find just about anything at the annual homeland security expo: X-ray machines, infrared cameras, a police cruiser with heat-sensing capability, a hovering “gyroplane” — and a GPS device that can spy on your spouse.

The salesman for Blackline GPS Corp., maker of “professional grade covert tracking” equipment, explained that his devices, in the shape of a legal envelope ($700) or an electric razor ($300), can be tucked behind seat cushions, under floor mats or into backpacks.

“We’re getting more requests from husbands and wives,” he explained. “I’ve seen guys throw it in their wives’ car and cover it with a hat. It keeps honest people honest.”..

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/from-tracking-al-qaeda-to-tracking-the...

FBI Turns Back On 2,750 Of The 3,000 GPS Devices It Turned Off For Lack Of A Warrant | Techdirt ))

In January, we wrote about the Supreme Court's somewhat surprising ruling on GPS monitoring by law enforcement, in which it suggested (but didn't fully say) that putting a GPS device on a car might need a warrant -- a pretty easy process that the FBI just didn't want to go through. Following this, we noted a report saying that the FBI scrambled to turn off 3,000 such devicesthat had been placed without a warrant.
However, in an NPR report about just how unhappy the FBI is about all of this, it notes that the FBI actually scrambled to file for warrants on most of those 3,000 devices, such that only 250 were permanently shut off. And yet it's still complaining about this whole "getting a warrant" thing. As Tim Lee notes, FBI director Robert Mueller is basically complaining to Congress that it'sjust so hard...

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120323/03114118220/fbi-turns-back-2750-300...

Saudi Arabia 'detains' Israeli vulture for spying

via bbc.co.uk