From WNYC Studios. I'm Brian Lehrer. This is my daily politics podcast. It's Tuesday, December 17th.

Okay, it's our turn, which we haven't done yet on this show, to talk about the drones.

Hundreds of reported sightings over New York and New Jersey and a few other places in recent weeks.

I don't have to tell you.

Drones as big as SUVs were told in some cases.

So everyone's talking about them.

It's been open season for legit fears and conspiracy theories alike.

We'll invite your calls if you think you have seen a drone or just questions on the topic.

And we'll see what we can learn with a reporter who actually covers aviation safety for the Wall Street Journal.

But first, for all the heat that local officials of both parties have been putting on Washington

over allegedly withholding information, here are two officials who have spoken in the last two

days, one national, one local, both saying that this appears to be normal activity of various

kinds, we're all just noticing it more. First, here's

Pentagon spokesman John Kirby on CNN last night, asked by the host John Berman, whether the drones

might pose a risk. The answer to that is no. We don't propose to see any national security or a public

safety risk by these drones and

these aircraft that are flying.

And I would remind people that there are millions of drones that fly over the skies of the United

States routinely, thousands and thousands that have registered with the FAA.

And a lot of them do really good work for public safety and for the public good, such as

law enforcement drones, commercial drones. To date, no sense and no indication that there's a national security

or public safety risk posed by any of this activity. Pentegon spokesman John Kirby on CNN last night,

...