Pirate's Cove

Well, of course Brandon had to say it was no big deal, because he let it fly across the entire United States without doing a damned thing

Biden says Chinese spy balloon not a major security breach

President Joe Biden, under fire from some lawmakers, said on Thursday he did not view a Chinese spy balloon that transited the United States before it was shot down in the Atlantic Ocean to have been a major security breach.

Biden, who has sought to maintain communications with China and not allow tensions with Beijing to get out of control, said in a Noticias Telemundo interview that he did not regret shooting down the balloon sooner.

“It’s not a major breach,” Biden said. “I mean, look, it’s totally … it’s a violation of international law. It’s our airspace. And once it comes into our space, we can do what we want with it.”

Perhaps he should have asked the State Department

(Breitbart) The Biden administration determined that the suspected Chinese spy balloon shot down on Saturday by the United States military was operating with electronic surveillance technology capable of monitoring communications signals, according to a senior State Department official on Thursday, multiple news outlets reported.

“High-resolution imagery from U-2 flybys revealed that the high-altitude balloon was capable of conducting signals intelligence collection operations,” the official said in reference to the Air Force’s high-altitude reconnaissance plane, Politico reported.

The official noted that the equipment on the Chinese spy balloon was “inconsistent” with what would be aboard a weather balloon since it had “multiple antennas to include an array likely capable of collecting and geo-locating communications.”

According to CNN, the official said that the balloon was “part of a PRC (People’s Republic of China) fleet of balloons developed to conduct surveillance operations,” which are “often undertaken at the direction of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).”

And it flew within range of many, many military institutions, including nuclear weapons facilities. So, no big deal, right, Joe? China has supposedly overflown 40 countries with the balloons, a very low cost way of surveilling nations, especially with no one seeming to want to do anything about. If it’s no big deal, why is the Biden admin looking at ways to punish China? And

The solar panels were large enough to power that kind of intelligence activity, noted the official, who provided the information on the condition of anonymity to reveal sensitive intelligence and internal considerations.

But in a briefing hours later, the FBI said it couldn’t confirm the intent of the balloon based on what it has so far recovered.

“I don’t think we’re in a position based on what we’ve seen, based on the facts that we have at the FBI … to give you a determination. It’s just too early for us. Again, we’re only seeing a very small portion of the balloon’s payload at this point,” a senior FBI official said. “We have literally not seen the payload, which is where we would expect to see the lion’s share of the electronics.”

If we do not have enough information, how does Biden dismiss the balloon as no big deal? We might know more if he didn’t wait till it crossed the entire country then have it shot down over the Atlantic Ocean.