{"id":214022,"date":"2026-02-16T06:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T11:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/16\/the-el-paso-no-fly-debacle-is-just-the-beginning-of-a-drone-defense-mess\/"},"modified":"2026-02-16T06:50:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T11:50:10","slug":"the-el-paso-no-fly-debacle-is-just-the-beginning-of-a-drone-defense-mess","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/16\/the-el-paso-no-fly-debacle-is-just-the-beginning-of-a-drone-defense-mess\/","title":{"rendered":"The El Paso No-Fly Debacle Is Just the Beginning of a Drone Defense Mess"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wired.com\/story\/the-el-paso-no-fly-debacle-is-just-the-beginning-of-the-drone-defense-mess\/\">The El Paso No-Fly Debacle Is Just the Beginning of a Drone Defense Mess<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wired.com\/story\/the-el-paso-no-fly-debacle-is-just-the-beginning-of-the-drone-defense-mess\/\">https:\/\/www.wired.com\/story\/the-el-paso-no-fly-debacle-is-just-the-beginning-of-the-drone-defense-mess\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Publish Date: <a href=\"publish_date]\">2026-02-16 06:30:00<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Source Domain: <a href=\"www.wired.com\">www.wired.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"lead-in-text-callout\">A shocking but<\/span> ultimately brief airspace closure over El Paso, Texas, and parts of New Mexico last week is stoking unease among pilots and the broader public about the status of United States anti-drone defenses.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">As low-cost UAV equipment proliferates around the world, analysts have repeatedly warned that destructive attacks perpetrated using drones are inevitable. It is challenging to develop nimble and safe countermeasures, though, given that things like jamming or attempting to shoot down a drone are difficult\u2014or even impossible\u2014to carry out safely in populated areas, much less densely populated cities.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">In the case of the El Paso incident, the Federal Aviation Administration originally set the airspace closure to last 10 days, but ultimately lifted it after eight hours. The Trump administration initially said the move was related to possible incursion of Mexican drug cartel drones, but the New York Times and others reported that it came from FAA concerns that Customs and Border Protection officials were using a Pentagon-provided anti-drone laser weapon in the area despite questions about potential dangers to civilian aircraft.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">CBP reportedly used the laser defense tool to shoot down what turned out to be a party balloon.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">\u201cThe FAA likely did a very intelligent thing by issuing the Temporary Flight Restriction,\u201d says Tarah Wheeler, chief security officer of the cybersecurity consultancy TPO Group. \u201cThe initial 10-day length of the TFR makes it seem like the FAA wasn\u2019t provided with information on how long the laser would be in use. The FAA doesn\u2019t want to close down airspace longer than they have to.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">The FAA, Department of Defense, and Department of Homeland Security did not respond to WIRED&#8217;s requests for comment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">A White House official told The Hill on Thursday that an FAA administrator made the decision to close the airspace without notifying the White House, the Pentagon, or DHS.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">\u201cThe Department of War and the Department of Transportation having&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wired.com\/story\/the-el-paso-no-fly-debacle-is-just-the-beginning-of-the-drone-defense-mess\/\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The El Paso No-Fly Debacle Is Just the Beginning of a Drone Defense Mess https:\/\/www.wired.com\/story\/the-el-paso-no-fly-debacle-is-just-the-beginning-of-the-drone-defense-mess\/&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":214023,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/media.wired.com\/photos\/698e37ffe1e5b9da2166d076\/191:100\/w_1280,c_limit\/sec-airspace-lasers-2232909828.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[24],"class_list":["post-214022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cybersecurity","tag-cybersecurity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214022"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214022"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214022\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":214024,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214022\/revisions\/214024"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/214023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}