By Jamie McIntyre | Washington Examiner
‘IT’S A BRAND-NEW ECOSYSTEM’: In a teleconference with reporters and an appearance on Fox News, John Kirby, White House national security communications adviser, is telling skeptical Americans — including lawmakers and even President-elect Donald Trump — that what they see in the sky is simply an anodyne sign of the times.
“We’re in a new ecosystem regarding unmanned aircraft in this country. Again, all legal and lawful and doing the right thing for the public good, but it’s a brand-new ecosystem,” Kirby told a questioning Fox News anchor Bret Baier. “We’ve done the detection, then the analysis. We’ve corroborated the sightings. And in every case that we have examined to date, we have seen nothing, nothing that indicates a public safety risk … Our assessment to date, given all the work that we’ve done, the FBI, state, and local officials, that these are legal and lawful drones flying for the common good.”
People in the country, he said, need to get used to the idea that with more than one million drones registered with the Federal Aviation Administration, and thousands of commercial, hobbyist, and law enforcement drones flying legally every day, the number of drone sightings will only increase over time.