India, Sept. 23 -- President Donald Trump's AI-fueled vision for a drone port he intends to install atop the new White House ballroom includes missile-bearing unmanned aerial vehicles and gun-toting troops, ostensibly to protect the 18-acre complex and the nation's capital.

A few hundred feet away, a drone port, run by the US Secret Service and not the military, is already quietly operational. Equipped with cameras and sensors to scope out potential threats from a bird's-eye view, the small UAVs stand on alert in four gray weatherproof boxes until deployed at officers' commands.

The agency is using a model known as "drone as first responder," deploying speedy unarmed drones from outdoor stations to serve as flying cameras. That model ha...