Confusion is mounting over why the Federal Aviation Administration ordered \u2014 and then rescinded \u2014 a 10-day closure of airspace over El Paso, Texas. <\/p>\n
An administration official told Semafor that \u201cMexican cartel drones breached US airspace\u201d and that the Pentagon \u201ctook action to disable the drones,\u201d before determining (with the FAA) that the airspace was safe. <\/p>\n
But subsequent reporting by CNN<\/a> suggests that the airspace closure came after the Pentagon wanted to use a \u201chigh-energy, counter-drone laser\u201d without first coordinating with the FAA; the AP reported Customs and Border Protection used the anti-drone laser<\/a> earlier this week. <\/p>\n The FAA also reportedly did not consult with the White House before announcing it would close the airspace. <\/p>\n Asked about that aspect, an administration official did not directly answer, instead saying: \u201cThe administration is in lockstep to safeguard America\u2019s national security and southern border against all foreign intrusions.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Confusion is mounting over why the Federal Aviation Administration ordered \u2014 and then rescinded \u2014 a 10-day closure…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":161417,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[138,140,139],"class_list":["post-161416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-el-paso","tag-el-paso","tag-el-paso-headlines","tag-el-paso-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=161416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161416\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/161417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}