Thus, any action (or effectors traveling) outside base boundaries would generally be illegal.
Given the mobility of drones and desire to prevent their encroachment on bases in the first place, the appropriately legal unit for this would be non-federalized national guard air defense units, tasked by the state governor to intervene.
Hypothetically, the fighters launched could have shot down a civilian plane, but it would have taken direct presidential authorization (i.e. national emergency).
In the absence of an immediate threat, that authorization isn't going to happen.
Drones in most cases are a civil law enforcement matter.
They're not obviously the actors of a foreign nation state, are not an invasion, and are not posing an immediate threat.
They are breaking civil aviation laws.
In particular, your claim that "any action (or effectors traveling) outside base boundaries would generally be illegal" is not only false but facially absurd, since it would imply that the US military is statutorily prevented from intercepting enemy bombers or responding to an invasion of American soil.
[1] The reasons for which are well discussed here: https://www.navalgazing.net/Thoughts-on-the-Chinese-Balloon
Not really. Some signals can be very much unidirectional (eg, visible only to an overhead drone) instead of omnidirectional (eg, a car).
Metadata could be useful to intercept.
https://www.fun.com/marvel-3-inch-spider-man-flying-figure-i...
You can also do radio frequency signals intercepts from space, too. You need a big antenna on your satellite, but it's essentially a solved problem. Spaceborne SIGINT goes back to at least the early 70s.
The "drone threat" is a bunch of mass hysteria. Every photo I was shown was obviously a passenger jet liner.
It's not 'for effect'. It's the legal description of
use of a firearm by police/military.
Ergo a reminder that the military or police can shoot you is for effect; it does not represent a change to the status quo.
Would these drones be running FAA-standard navigation lights and a transponder? Because that seems to be the case for most of these drone spottings :)
Some do not seem to be, although my skepticism is high because I have seen a lot of faked UFO videos over the years and faking points of light in the night sky is like, the easiest thing to fake in a fake video/photo.
While I think this is unlikely, we could imagine that whoever is doing shady drone stuff might want to actually observe some basic safety rules, ridiculous as that sounds.
Suppose for a second that these drones are a "flex" from China/Russia/whoever. Causing a midair collision with an aircraft because they're running dark, or risking the chance of that because they're running dark, is a lot more serious than just flying some drones.
And if it's aliens, hey, maybe they're just trying to... uh, fit in by mimicing our airplanes' safety lights? =)
I'm quite sure the "deadly force" wording was for effect, more than any kind of actual change in posture or practice. Unless I'm mistaken there are still plenty of drones being seen in NJ and they're not blasting them out of the sky. And they've always had the option of lethal force around bases anyway.
None of us know for sure but I think the immediate threat of the drones is negligible. If US bases are leaking signals that can be intercepted by drones overhead then these same signals could be just as easily intercepted by cars driving past the bases or nearby homes. And as far as the visible spectrum is concerned all the major players have satellites overhead anyway.And as you say, the risks of shooting drones down are high. Damage to nearby property. Accidental shootdowns of innocent craft. Successful shootdowns would reveal our capabilities. Unsuccessful shootdowns would reveal our inability to deal with the threat. And in aggregate this would all give the enemy lots of intel as to where we do and don't have defenses. And open war (!!!) over our skies is, to put it mildly, kind of a big deal. There are, to put it mildly, global economic consequences.
Of course, that's all if these drones are of hostile origin, which I think is still a very open question.
If these drones are "ours," which would be weird but also plausible, then the "deadly force" note in the FAA notice could just be part of the cover story.