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High-level idiocy

Bureaucrats are renowned for not having the highest IQ or even a smidgen of commonsense.

This was proven yet again, beyond doubt, in the USA this week.

According to reports in the media, mysterious drones have been sighted in the night skies over Morris County in New Jersey and nobody knows who is flying them or what they are trying to do.

Things have now gotten so bad that the FBI is involved and on a mission to track down the "offenders" and clear the skies of these noisy intruders.

That this is happening, and that similar sightings have been seen in other parts of the USA without any kind of resolution speaks volumes to the dullardry of the FAA and The Department of Homeland Security.

How is this proof?

Well a couple of years ago the US Government, through its airspace administrator the FAA, introduced Remote ID (PDF) with the promise that it would boost the security and safety of America's skies in the era of drones.

Remote ID, according to the claims, would allow *any* drone to be quickly identified by anyone nearby simply through the use of an app on their smartphone. That app would provide the unique identifier of the drone as well as its exact location and the location of whoever was operating it.

Hobbyists, including those who simply fly RC model aircraft, were forced to spend up to US$100 per model to fit tiny Remote ID transmitters to their craft in order to be compliant with the new regulation.

However, many people (including myself) pointed out that this was folly, since anyone intent on causing harm or disruption would not fit such a device to the drones they might use to do so. This is just like the fact that you can be almost certain that someone who robs a bank will not use their own registered family car to make a get-away.

These seemingly commonsense claims were ignored by the bureaucracy which likely believed their own publicity and were living in a state of extreme hubris. How could anyone dare not to comply with this diktat?

Well the fact that there are now so many drone sightings in the USA where no Remote ID signal is detected seems to indicate that I (and legions of others) were 100 percent right and the bureaucrats are the idiots we observed them to be.

Here is a video from the FAA's own YouTube channel that shows how Remote ID is supposed to work in the case of anyone wanting to identify a drone they see in the sky, including around military installations:

So how's that working in Morris County right now?

And what about the rash of drone sightings over Langley and Edwards Airforce bases not so long ago? How come none of those craft seemed to have a working Remote ID system onboard?

Yes, Remote ID has been nothing more than an expensive tax on the law-abiding drone hobbyists and has been completely ineffective at achieving the security goals ascribed to it by those whose only claim to fame is the time they've spent behind a desk.

No wonder the world is in such a bad place right now because bureaucrats of this calibre seem to be breeding like rabbits throughout governments at all levels.

Carpe Diem folks!

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