Feds versus illegal drones is the game within the game at Super Bowl LIII

Federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies are ready to take down any unauthorized drones that are caught buzzing around the Mercedes-Benz Stadium during the Super Bowl Sunday night.

Department of Homeland Security agencies and the FBI have been working with the Georgia Department of Public Safety and the Atlanta Police Department, including Special Weapons and Tactics, for six months to come up with the best way to handle any drone makes its away into the stadium, according to several local and federal officials who asked to remain anonymous.

Atlanta’s stadium can hold 70,000 people, and an estimated 100 million people from around the world will be watching the game, making it a high-profile event a domestic terrorist might target.

Mercedes-Benz Stadium has not said whether it plans to open its retractable roof Sunday night, which would make it even easier for a drone to enter.

While an unauthorized drone itself may not be a threat to the public, Homeland Security officials have warned about the risks they pose because of what they could carry.

Border Patrol agents along the southern border have seen cartels in Mexico use drones to fly small quantities of high-potency drugs into the country.

Last fall, Deputy Chief Patrol Agent Roy Villareal told the Washington Examiner that someone could plant synthetic fentanyl on the drone and release it over a group of people. Just three tiny grains of the strongest fentanyl that’s already being smuggled into the U.S. is enough to put a person in a coma.

“It’s the perfect criminal tool,” Villareal said. “A single pound of fentanyl [dropped above a crowd] would devastate a whole stadium.”

The issue for security officers at the Super Bowl is how to respond to a threat. Even if they do spot a drone that appears to be carrying drugs, they can’t easily shoot it down if it’s moving quickly.

Instead, law enforcement at the Super Bowl will rely on counterdrone tools to take down any threatening drones. Counterdrone tools sometimes look like bullpup rifles that shoot an invisible, electronic signal to the drone with instructions to immediately return to its operator or to land immediately.

These tools do this by jamming local cellphone towers so that they can get to shut down the drone and the means by which it is getting a signal from its operator.

Other devices create an invisible blanket over an area that prohibit drones from flying into them. The FBI has taken the lead on establishing which counterdrone technologies will be used at the game.

Andy Morabe, a spokesman for IXI Technology’s DroneKiller jamming system, said last August his company along with other companies like DeDrone, Fortem, and Department13, were invited by Atlanta SWAT to demonstrate their systems at the Georgia Public Safety Training Center in Forsyth, Ga.

Morabe said federal, state, and local agencies were also invited to attend and observe how their products handled various scenarios, in preparation for Sunday’s game.

Only select federal agencies have the legal authority to request Electronic Counter Measures, or to ask the Federal Communications Commission for advanced permission to jam all activity on wireless networks if a legitimate threat is detected and the drone-killing device needs to be used.

The FCC would not confirm it had received requests from the FBI but said the federal government “routinely coordinates its use of the spectrum with the FCC to minimize the risk of harmful interference.”

The Super Bowl kicks off at 6:30 p.m. in Atlanta, where the New England Patriots will face the Los Angeles Rams.