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Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) weighed in on questions swirling around China potential use of drones against the US, stating that the chance was “non-trivial”.
Krishnamoorthi, the top Democrat on the House select panel examining the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), joined NewsNation’s “The Hill.” Wednesday, looking at the rise in recent drone sightings.
Asked by host Blake Burman if drone sightings could have been “nefariously” carried out by China, the lawmaker suggested the opportunity was significant.
“It’s a non-trivial chance,” he replied. “It’s definitely a possibility and the likelihood that they can then access the data that these drones collect is very high.”
Krishnamoorthi explained that companies in China must provide their government with backdoor access to user data for their products anywhere in the world.
He also noted that a letter was sent to law enforcement in Fairfax County, outside Washington, DC, when it considered buying Chinese-made drones.
“One can easily imagine a situation where these drones are flying over sensitive places in DC airspace,” Krishnamoorthi said, noting that any information received by the aircraft could be “potentially accessible” to the PCC.
Krishnamoorthi’s comments come right after drones were seen flying near sensitive US military sites in New Jersey and California.
The Pentagon said there was “no evidence” that the drones belonged to a foreign entity or were the work of an adversary. Representative Jeff Van Drew (RNJ), however, claimed that Iran launched the drones via a mother ship.
Also, a Chinese national, who was in the US legally, was arrested earlier this week after flying a drone on Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. He was arrested and charged at the San Francisco airport on his way to a flight to China.
Robert Wheeler, the deputy director of the FBI’s Critical Incident Response Group, told Congress that the agency was investigating unexplained drone sightings near US military sites.
Krishnamoorthi reiterated the concern that if the drones are Chinese-made, they will transmit information to the CCP.
“Unfortunately, this is one of those areas where the CCP, the Chinese Communist Party, has really deployed a lot of resources to control the market, not just in China, not just in the US, but globally,” he said. “And so that’s another platform that we’re concerned about.”
NewsNation is owned by Nexstar Media Group, which also owns The Hill.
