Secret Service Already Runs a Drone Port Next Door to the White House — AP
An AP exclusive reveals a Secret Service-operated drone port is already quietly protecting the White House from a Treasury building next door. Camera-equipped drones sit on alert in four weatherproof boxes — even as Trump proposes a second, bigger drone port atop his new ballroom.
The White House already has eyes in the sky. AP reporter Collin Binkley revealed this week that a drone port run by the U.S. Secret Service — not the military — is quietly operational on a Treasury Department building just steps from the White House complex.
The setup is real but modest: small camera-and-sensor-equipped drones standing on alert in four gray weatherproof boxes, deployed at officers' commands. The agency uses a "drone as first responder" model — fast, unarmed flying cameras — already adopted by hundreds of police departments across the country.
The scoop landed just as President Trump unveiled his own bigger vision: a second drone port atop the new White House ballroom, complete with missile-bearing UAVs and gun-toting troops, which he's also citing as part of the case for his proposed arch outside Arlington National Cemetery. The administration's bottom line hasn't changed — protecting the 18-acre complex and the capital from aerial threats is the priority, and the existing Secret Service port shows that work was already underway.