Chinese Spy Balloon
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China has reacted to the United States’ decision to shoot down its high-altitude balloon, saying that it "reserves the right to use necessary means to deal with similar situations."
US military fighter jets on Saturday shot down the Chinese high-altitude balloon over the Atlantic Ocean.
@George-K said in Chinese Spy Balloon:
China has reacted to the United States’ decision to shoot down its high-altitude balloon, saying that it "reserves the right to use necessary means to deal with similar situations."
US military fighter jets on Saturday shot down the Chinese high-altitude balloon over the Atlantic Ocean.
Indeed. Shameless.
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@George-K said in Chinese Spy Balloon:
@jon-nyc said in Chinese Spy Balloon:
2 questions about the spy balloon…
Here's a suggestion, how about shooting it down over the Aleutian islands, when it was first spotted? It's even more sparsely populated there than Montana.
Yeah, I was thinking that too.
@Mik said in Chinese Spy Balloon:
@George-K said in Chinese Spy Balloon:
@jon-nyc said in Chinese Spy Balloon:
2 questions about the spy balloon…
Here's a suggestion, how about shooting it down over the Aleutian islands, when it was first spotted? It's even more sparsely populated there than Montana.
Yeah, I was thinking that too.
You don’t think they might have jammed its ability to transmit data from the onset? You can be assured that NORAD, CIA & NSA were deliberate in their handling of this incident throughout.
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Chinese Spy Balloons Flew Over The U.S. When President Trump Was In Office
“The balloon spotted this week over Montana was not the first time the U.S. has detected Chinese balloons over their territory—with previous incursions occurring during the Trump Administration,” Bloomberg reported.
But an unnamed source from the Trump administration insisted to Bloomberg in that same article that it wasn’t a big deal.
“One top national security official from the administration of former President Donald Trump said none of the Chinese spy balloons were near sensitive sites or had payloads as large as this one appears to carry,” Bloomberg continued.
And if you can’t trust an unnamed official who worked for Trump, who can you trust, right?
The Associated Press also has a new report that quotes a defense expert who said that Chinese spy balloons have been detected near sensitive sites in Hawaii, home to a large U.S. military presence, during the past five years.
“Craig Singleton, a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, said Chinese surveillance balloons have been sighted on numerous occasions over the past five years in different parts of the Pacific, including near sensitive U.S. military installations in Hawaii,” the Associated Press reported on Saturday.
President Biden has been in office for two years, leaving three years of Trump’s presidency in that window of five years.
The Wall Street Journal also independently reported that Chinese spy balloons have flown over the U.S. before, though didn’t specify the era.
“China has sent surveillance balloons over the continental U.S. on at least a handful of occasions, U.S. officials said,” the Journal reported on Friday.
@George-K said in Chinese Spy Balloon:
Chinese Spy Balloons Flew Over The U.S. When President Trump Was In Office
Ratcliffe denies.
He also says:
"If, in fact, "countermeasures" were taken to disable the reception/transmission of images collected by China's spycraft, as unnamed "officials" now claim was the reason for letting it continue its flight across U.S., why did Biden say he ordered the Pentagon to shoot it down Wed?
If, in fact, "countermeasures" were taken to scramble the spy craft sensors/cameras, at what point in its long deployment across America were they taken? Alaska? Montana? Missouri? How can the administration confirm nothing sensitive was transmitted back to Beijing?
If as anonymous "officials" are now saying after the fact that, don't worry, "countermeasures" were taken to scramble the sensor package from 60,000 feet, why the massive ocean salvage effort to recover the data so we can know what they now know about our military installations?"
"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08
The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.
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https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/04/politics/china-spy-balloon-tick-tock/index.html
More details on timing and rationales of the Biden administration's handling of the spy balloon incident.
Apparently they deliberately waited until the balloon floats over water to shoot it down because (1) the balloon's payload was the size of three coach busses so the risk of shooting it down over land carries risks of injuring people and damaging properties, and (2) Biden wanted the military to recover as much of the balloon's payload as possible so shooting it down over water presents better odds of preserving and recovering the payload for the military.
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@George-K said in Chinese Spy Balloon:
Chinese Spy Balloons Flew Over The U.S. When President Trump Was In Office
Ratcliffe denies.
He also says:
"If, in fact, "countermeasures" were taken to disable the reception/transmission of images collected by China's spycraft, as unnamed "officials" now claim was the reason for letting it continue its flight across U.S., why did Biden say he ordered the Pentagon to shoot it down Wed?
If, in fact, "countermeasures" were taken to scramble the spy craft sensors/cameras, at what point in its long deployment across America were they taken? Alaska? Montana? Missouri? How can the administration confirm nothing sensitive was transmitted back to Beijing?
If as anonymous "officials" are now saying after the fact that, don't worry, "countermeasures" were taken to scramble the sensor package from 60,000 feet, why the massive ocean salvage effort to recover the data so we can know what they now know about our military installations?"
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@jon-nyc said in Chinese Spy Balloon:
FoxNews disagrees.
Former Sec Interior disagrees with the disagreement.
As does Trump (yeah, I know).
As does Bolton.
As does NSA advisor O'Brien.
As does Grenell.
As does former SecDef Esper.
As does acting SecDef Miller.
So, who you gonna believe, several Trump administration officials who have gone on the record, or an "unnamed White House source?"
It's totally possible that all of these people are lying, of course. But that's not where I'd put my money.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/02/05/china-spy-balloon-gop/?location=alert
Rep. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, said in an interview that defense officials identified the locations in a discussion with lawmakers and staff on Saturday, disclosing for the first time that similar surveillance balloons had been spotted in U.S. airspace near the continental United States before. The existence of such balloons near Hawaii and Guam has been reported previously.
Two such incidents were reported near Florida, while there was at least one each in the other three locations, Waltz said.
The defense officials said that several of those events occurred during the Trump administration, Waltz said. Officials had also said that during a news briefing with reporters on Saturday.
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Chinese spy balloons under Trump not discovered until after Biden took office
The transiting of three suspected Chinese spy balloons over the continental US during the Trump administration was only discovered after President Joe Biden took office, a senior administration official told CNN on Sunday.
The official did not say how or when those incidents were discovered.
The official said that the intelligence community is prepared to offer briefings to key Trump administration officials about the Chinese surveillance program, which the Biden administration believes has been deployed in countries across five continents over the last several years.
How does that happen?
"We know it happened, but we didn't know it happened at the time."
"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08
The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.
