FIRST ON FOX: The House lawmaker whose district the infamous Chinese spy balloon was shot down in is demanding information on the incident’s fallout nearly a year later.
Rep. Russell Fry, R-S.C., is introducing legislation to force the Defense Department to submit a report to Congress describing what kind of data was picked up about sensitive U.S. military sites and an analysis of the technology used to build the aircraft and where it came from.
“The Biden administration sat on their hands and let this spy balloon freely fly across the country before shooting it down off the coast of my hometown of Surfside Beach, putting our country’s national security at risk and projecting weakness on the world stage,” Fry told Fox News Digital Tuesday.
Rep. Russell Fry, R-S.C., is introducing legislation demanding information on the infamous Chinese spy balloon that was shot down in his district nearly a year ago. (Getty Images / AP Images)
“Almost a year later, we still don’t know the consequences of this administration’s lack of action,” he added.
The report would be due 90 days from the date the proposed Chinese Spy Balloon Assessment Act would become law.
The surveillance balloon was shot down into the Atlantic near the coast of South Carolina’s Myrtle Beach.
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Rep. Russell Fry, R-S.C., is the congressman whose district the Chinese spy balloon was shot down in. (Getty Images)
The U.S. Air Force downed it Feb. 4, after roughly a week during which the balloon floated above parts of Alaska and the continental U.S. at an altitude low enough to be seen with the naked eye, alarming millions of Americans across the country.
Beijing has insisted it was a civilian balloon and in no way related to China’s surveillance program.
Information captured by the spy balloon is not believed to have been successfully sent back to Beijing, the Pentagon said in June.
Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder told reporters at a press conference that while the device had surveillance capabilities, “it has been our assessment now that [the balloon] did not collect while it was transiting the United States.”
The incident damaged already fraught relations between the U.S. and China. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
“As we said at the time, we also took steps to mitigate the potential efforts of that balloon,” Ryder said.
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But critics of the Biden administration have argued that allowing the low-altitude surveillance tool to freely float across the U.S. projects vulnerability and weakness on the world stage at the hands of one of the country’s biggest rivals.
Administration officials have said that shooting down the balloon over land would have posed an undue risk to life and property.
Fox News Digital has reached out to the White House for comment.
Source: www.foxnews.com