Staff Reports
Gen. Mark Milley, Biden’s chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made some bold claims in an interview with CBS News on September 17. He stated that the Chinese spy balloon incident from earlier in the year did not involve any intelligence collection targeting Americans or U.S. government and military assets. The U.S. intelligence community, according to Milley, had assessed that there was no spying activity by the balloon.
Who Remembers That Chinese Spy Balloon? Well…https://t.co/dv2nOuTGY2
— Islander (@rickiticki2270) December 29, 2023
A recent report by NBC News has exposed a different side of the story. It appears that the Biden administration actually sought a FISA warrant to surveil the balloon and its communications with its operators in China as it drifted over the United States.
NBC News revealed that the craft used an American internet service provider to transmit “burst transmissions” of high-bandwidth data back to China. In other words, it was “loading up” on information and shooting it back home using a U.S. telecom network. The balloon was equipped with gear to collect signals intelligence, including antennas capable of picking up and pinpointing communications.
The Biden administration reportedly sought a top-secret court order to gather intelligence on the balloon while it was cruising over the U.S. The order would have let U.S. intelligence agencies eavesdrop on the balloon’s communications with China, including through the American internet service provider it was using.
The Biden administration allowed this CCP spy balloon to traipse across Alaska and most of the continental United States, all while seemingly hooking up to an American internet provider to ship off sensitive data. And remember, they claimed there was no intelligence being collected.
