is a senior editor and founding member of The Verge who covers gadgets, games, and toys. He spent 15 years editing the likes of CNET, Gizmodo, and Engadget.
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This morning, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted 3-0 to let itself retroactively ban gadgets and radio components that it previously approved for entry into the United States, if the company that makes them is deemed a national security risk.
Officially, it’s a way to close loopholes and protect US networks from backdoors in Chinese telecom gear. But it could also give the Trump administration a new way to block Chinese consumer electronics that run on the open airwaves, starting with those from dronemaker DJI, even though the US government hasn’t publicly released evidence that they pose a threat.
On December 23rd, less than two months from today, new DJI products will automatically be banned from import into the US, unless an “appropriate national security agency” proactively vouches that they do not pose a risk to national security. They’ll be banned because those companies will be added to its “Covered List” under the Secure and Trusted Communication Networks Act, which bars the FCC from authorizing their internal radios for use in the US — and without that authorization, it’s illegal to import those items for sale here.
No US security agency has taken up that audit, DJI confirms today. “More than ten months have now passed with no sign that the process has begun,” DJI global policy head Adam Welsh tells The Verge.
He says DJI welcomes an investigation: “As the deadline approaches, we urge the U.S. government to start the mandated review or grant an extension to ensure a fair, evidence-based process that protects American jobs, safety, and innovation.”
Eight months ago, DJI assumed that if the worst came, it wouldn’t be totally banned from the US. “If we were added to the covered list, it’s not retroactive,” Welsh told me in February. “So you’d be in kind of a perverse situation where the current Mavic model would continue to be on sale in the US, but a newer model would be available in Canada and Mexico and everywhere else in the world,” he said.
But it now sounds like the ban could be retroactive, with three important nuances:
The government says it isn’t taking away your existing DJI gear.
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