When it comes to the drones flying overhead in large numbers across the eastern seaboard, who are you supposed to believe the government or your lying eyes? That’s a question on the minds of millions of Americans, including those in my native New Jersey, who’ve seen all manner of vehicles in the skies in recent weeks and are getting zero satisfactory details from their leaders about what exactly is going on, federal agencies are giving us boiler plate responses that auger zero confidence. We’re getting the full story. On December 12, the DHS and FBI put out a joint statement noting that the agencies have no evidence at this time that the reported drone sightings pose a national security or public safety threat or have a foreign Nexus. Of course, indicating that there’s no evidence of a security threat or foreign Nexus doesn’t mean that the drones don’t pose a security threat or might not be foreign linked. This statement followed a claim from Republican Congressman Jeff Van drew suggesting the drones over the Garden State might be Iran linked, and others have joined him in raising these concerns in Congress. The Pentagon batted down the representative’s remarks, yet he’s fired back, claiming his sources accusations are credible, with all manner of theories still circulating as the drones have continued to proliferate. On December 16, the DHS, FBI, FAA and Pentagon put out another statement, indicating that having closely examined the technical data and tips from concerned citizens, we assess that the sightings to date include a combination of lawful commercial drones, hobbyist drones and law enforcement drones, as well as manned fixed wing aircraft, helicopters and stars mistakenly reported as drones. We have not identified anything anomalous and do not assess the activity to date to present a national security or public safety risk over the civilian airspace in New Jersey or other states in the Northeast. Gee, thanks for the specificity the authorities do acknowledge later in the note that drones have been spotted over military facilities in New Jersey, but don’t worry, such sightings near or over DoD installations are not new, and the DoD takes unauthorized access over its airspace seriously. The drone sightings raise very basic questions, what are the capabilities of these vehicles? What is their place of origin? What do their flight patterns and locations suggest? Is there more activity now than in the past, and to what do authorities attribute it? Is there any intelligence being collected concerning the vehicles. Why have authorities not taken down any of these aircrafts, retrieved and studied them? And what are our adversaries supposed to make of the response of the federal government is it likely to incentivize them to engage in nefarious acts from the skies? It just strains credulity to believe authorities wouldn’t be concerned about these vehicles and that the apparent increase in their activity means nothing. Does the government really not have details on what’s going on, or does it just not want us to know about what’s going on? Is this incompetence malice, or does the government somehow take a completely laissez faire attitude on this matter, despite telling us every day of the myriad threats posed by enemies, foreign and domestic and demanding those penetrating and sophisticated surveillance tools and authorities in the history of mankind. Meanwhile, Congress is only receiving classified briefings on the drones. We can’t get an explanation as to why there’s a need for such secrecy if there’s no danger, nothing to see here. Now, New Jersey has actually several days after the last boilerplate statement put in temporary flight restrictions because of apparent threats to infrastructure. So again, what is going on here? The lack of transparency, the boilerplate statements, the track record of gaslighting on matters from immigration to the Chinese spy balloon have discredited these institutions, eroded our confidence in them and will only fuel further conspiratorial speculation. The only way to restore trust is to earn it. Our institutions have to be open, transparent and competent. It’s the task for the incoming Trump administration, and it’s a tall one, to overhaul them accordingly. I.