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S 663 119th Congress

DEFENSE Act

A bill to authorize the Secretary of Homeland Security or the Attorney General to deputize a State or local law enforcement officer to protect certain events with temporary flight restrictions, and for other purposes.

Official Title as Introduced Congress.gov

Introduced Feb 20, 2025 Latest action Feb 20, 2025 Sponsor: Sen. Cotton, Tom [R-AR] Transportation and Public Works
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Source: Congress.govUpdated 2026-08-03 11:15:40 UTC.

Source-linked procedural record

Bill journey

4 dated records

This is a chronology, not a progress score. Politically.com does not classify stages or infer what comes next. Records sharing a date are grouped because not every source field supplies a time.

Congress.gov Recently refreshed U.S. Senate XML Recently refreshed
Introduction 1 One supplied introduction date.
Official actions 2 2 dated action records.
Committees 1 1 undated relationship.
Amendments 0 No record is cached.
Text versions 1 1 dated, 0 without a supplied date.
House roll calls 0 No exact legislation-key match in the House-vote cache.
Senate roll calls 0 No exact document-key match in the Senate-vote cache.
Related measures 1 1 undated relationship.
Linked law 0 No linked law record is cached; this does not predict outcome.
  1. Official action Congress.gov

    Read twice and referred to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.

    IntroReferral · Senate

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    Official action Congress.gov

    Introduced in Senate

    IntroReferral · Library of Congress · Code 10000

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    Text version Congress.gov

    Introduced in Senate

    A dated text-version record is available.

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View the complete bill journey as an accessible table
Every dated cached record linked to S 663. Same-date row order does not assert procedural sequence.
Date and timeRecordOfficial detailSource
IntroductionIntroduced Introduced in the Senate. Congress.gov
Official actionRead twice and referred to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. No additional detail supplied.IntroReferral · Senate Congress.gov
Official actionIntroduced in Senate No additional detail supplied.IntroReferral · Library of Congress · Code 10000 Congress.gov
Text versionIntroduced in Senate A dated text-version record is available. Congress.gov

House roll calls join only on matching Congress, legislation type, and number. Senate roll calls join only on matching source-supplied document type and number, not question text. Committee and related-measure relationships have no date in their relationship records and therefore are counted above but never placed on the chronology.

Congressional Research Service

CRS summary

Introduced in Senate Feb 20, 2025

Disabling Enemy Flight Entry and Neutralizing Suspect Equipment Act or the DEFENSE ActThis bill allows the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) or the Department of Justice (DOJ) to deputize state or local law enforcement officers to take certain drone countermeasures to protect stadiums and other public gatherings.Specifically, DHS or DOJ may provide state or local law enforcement officers with the authority to identify, monitor, and track drones; warn drone operators; disrupt or take control of drones; or use reasonable force to disable, damage, and seize or destroy drones deemed to pose a threat.This authority applies for the purposes of protecting an event, stadium, or venue; certain large public gatherings (e.g., gatherings that are primarily outdoors with an estimated attendance of at least 100,000 people); or other public gatherings protected by specific temporary flight restrictions imposed by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).Prior to being deputized, a state or local law enforcement officer must complete training in the use of the drone countermeasure authority.DHS or DOJ, in coordination with the Department of Transportation and the FAA, must exercise oversight over the use of this authority by deputized state or local law enforcement officers.Finally, the bill limits the equipment authorized for detecting, identifying, monitoring, or tracking drones to systems or technologies that are included on a list of authorized equipment maintained by DHS, in coordination with DOJ, the FAA, the Federal Communications Commission, and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration.

Official documents

Text versions