DJI Drone Ban in North Dakota: What You Need to Know

Hi everyone, welcome back to the channel! If this is your first time here, my name is Russ and this is 51 Drones. Although the DJI ban at the federal level was temporarily delayed by not including the Ley contra los drones PCC in the 2025 National Defense Authorization Act, the movement to eliminate their use at the state level is alive and well, including in my very own state of North Dakota.
Current Legislation
House Bill 1038 was just fast-tracked through the House of Representatives and is about to do the same in the Senate. The purpose of this video is twofold: first, I hope that the senators in my great state take just a moment to watch this video and hopefully learn something that they haven’t learned yet, especially something that I have to say towards the end of this video. Secondly, I hope that those of you who live in other states are motivated to stay current and knowledgeable about what your lawmakers are doing when it comes to drone legislation.
Key Points of HB 1038
First of all, HB 1038 is a bill that calls for two things. First, it states that all state agencies that own and operate drones manufactured in China, like DJI and Autel, must stop using them and replace them with non-Chinese made drones within 2 years. Of the 353 drones in use by North Dakota state agencies, 300 of them fall within this designation. I don’t even think there are any Autel drones—I could be wrong—but I’m guessing that the majority of those are DJI drones.
Financial Concerns
These agencies must surrender their current drones to the North Dakota Departamento de Comercio, who will then sell them at market price to the Departamento de Seguridad Interior to be used for Counter UAV research and training. For this portion of the bill, the Drone Replacement Program, this legislation is asking for $15 million.
Now that sounds a little bit high, right? 300 drones, $15 million? Many of the drones in use by state agencies right now range in value from a few hundred to upwards of $20,000 to $25,000, and very few at that top end. This legislation is asking for $50,000 per drone to be replaced. Make that make sense—$15 million of our money, my tax dollars, to be used unnecessarily on much less capable and much more expensive technology just because a few lawmakers are willing to believe the narrative that DJI drones are a national security risk.
Security Audits and Facts
Now, why do I say that? Senators, I ask that you please do a little bit of research about DJI and the claims that their drones are gathering and sharing sensitive data. Did you know that that has never been demonstrated or proven? Ten security audits and certifications over the past seven years by independent agencies—two of them by FTI Consultants (look them up, I’ll put a link in the video description)—the most recent cybersecurity audit by FTI was just done in September of 2024. FTI is based in America, by the way. These are American consultants studying these drones.
This most recent audit demonstrated zero Seguridad de los datos issues. With features like restricted network mode and local data mode, the user has the option to eliminate all outbound data. Even if the user does allow information to be transmitted, it goes no further than the servers posted right here in the Estados Unidos.
The drones used for these audits aren’t provided by DJI. DJI doesn’t say, “Hey, can you please audit our stuff, and by the way, here’s some drones for you to look at.” No, the auditors go out and purchase these drones off the shelf, and they conduct their testing. Over the next 12 months, DJI is going to go through four more independent audits—that’s in 12 months—on their products, further demonstrating their efforts to ensure user data security.
I ask you, Senators, to please consider the many reasons that our federal government might want to ban the use of DJI drones. American manufacturers cannot compete, and the only way to break away from DJI is through legislation. The narrative has always been ‘they may pose a security threat‘, but not a single time has that been demonstrated.
I do understand the need to reduce our dependence on critical technology from adversarial Países—I mean, no one’s going to argue with that—but I also know that the reason our great state of North Dakota is one of the most financially stable states in the country is because our lawmakers are known for making informed financial decisions. $15 million is egregious, especially when there’s no justification for spending it other than speculation.
If this bill passes, you will effectively be taking the best tools away from our most critical entities and asking them to use inferior products to do their jobs. DJI just released the Matrice 4T—this drone is the latest in compact and affordable aerial thermal technology. It is the perfect solution for Búsqueda y salvamento teams, and it costs about $7,500. For $15 million, you could purchase 2,000 of those drones—the best in the world. You could get 2,000 of them for $15 million.

Please take some time to study the facts about DJI security measures. That phone in your pocket right now, or sitting on your desk right now, has much more potential security risk than a DJI drone. Now, do I want an American company to innovate and outperform DJI? Of course I do, but I think it should be done the right way and without taxpayer money.
The second part of this legislation proposes $11 million to administer a state radar Pathfinder program. This would be instrumental in ensuring that North Dakota remains the leader in beyond visual line of sight development. That is the future of commercial UAVs, and it’s an investment in our state and its people. It makes sense, and that portion of this legislation should absolutely pass.
Alternative Proposal
My proposal is to amend HB 1038 and strike the $15 million of taxpayer money to be used for a drone replacement program. Over the next year, with the additional audits plus the scrutiny that the NDAA of 2025 calls for on DJI, there will be much more data available for you to make a more informed decision on how to move forward.
Then also consider this, and this is really important: in 2025, if our federal government finds any security issues with DJI—and I’m telling you they’re going to go through it as deep as they’ve ever gone—and if they find one single thing, or even if they don’t assign an agency to conduct the studies (because they haven’t done that; all the NDAA said is we’ll assign some agency to conduct these audits and to scrutinize DJI, but if we don’t find an agency by the end of the year, we’ll just put them on the FCC list anyway)—so if they don’t assign an agency or if they find something, they are automatically banned, like immediately. That means there would be a very high potential of a federally funded drone replacement program, which means that you would have spent $15 million of our tax money that you would not have had to.
Amend the bill. It’s too soon, there are still too many questions out there, and there’s no reason to replace the tools that we have, nor take the time and money to train people on how to use different ones.
Check the links in the video description for more information. I don’t consider myself an expert on this, but after doing this for 8 years, I do believe that my opinion deserves a little bit of consideration. Let me know if you have more questions, and if I can’t answer them, I can definitely put you in touch with someone who can.
I want to thank you for watching, everyone. Keep an eye on your own states and be an advocate as much as you can. Your lawmakers have a lot on their plate, and they need their constituents to help them understand some of the bills that land on their desk. Now, if you happen to be from North Dakota, please share this with your senators. Have a great day, everyone, and as always, fly safe and fly smart.
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Common sense has been thrown out the window by many politicians.
Now they do as they are told. Or so it seems.