Image: DHS
What’s new: Government official discusses GPS interference at the U.S. southern border.
Why it’s important: There has been a lot of quiet, unofficial talk about this, but officials have heretofore not made any statements and not replied to our questions.
What else to know:
- At the August 2015 Defcon 24 hackers convention a presenter from China discussed how to build a GPS spoofer and was selling kits for about $300.
- In December 2015 DHS officials announced drones patrolling the southern border were being spoofed by cartels.
- The next month, January 2016, DHS said that statement was issued in error and drones were not spoofed.
- We don’t know of any official statements about interference along the border since then. When we asked companies we know are working along the border to detect and counter interference, they have not been allowed to discuss it.
- The image of the GPS Operational Assessment Tool *GOAT” DOT and DOD showed in December 2024 to the now-defunct National Space-based PNT Advisory Board showed a month of disruption activity across the globe. You can see the U.S. has it’s share of interference.
U.S. Official Says Cartels Jamming GPS on Southern Border
U.S. government has been mum about problems until now…
BALTIMORE—While GPS jamming has been in the news from the Ukraine War, Baltics, Middle East, and even portrayed in a well-publicized incident involving European Union President Ursula von der Leyen‘s plane, not much has been said about incidents on the United States’ southern border with Mexico. However, at the ION GNSS 2025 conference here, a U.S. government official said that GPS jamming is occurring with increased frequency along the border.
“It very purposeful interference. It connected with cartel activity,” said Christopher Erickson, chief of PNT and spectrum, U.S. Air Force assistant secretary for space acquisition and integration. “[It involves] moving things across the border. It is very much not ambient interference.”
