Should we have really wasted tax payer money to use military force to shoot down a balloon that was already done spying? I do not think that we should have wasted money using the military to shoot down the spy balloon when it was already done with its spying.

The spy balloon was first spotted flying over Billings, Montana. As soon as the balloon was spotted President Joe Biden ordered to have it shot down, but shortly pulled the order because he feared the balloon could fall and hurt someone. This decision sparked a lot of anger across the country because the balloon was moving slowly collecting intel over the mountains and the president wouldn’t shoot it down because he feared it would injure someone. Lots of higher ranked political officials were telling Biden to shoot it down, and even former President Donald J. Trump was telling President Joe Biden he needed to get the balloon out of the sky. I think that shooting it down would have been the right decision to make when it was over Montana because Montana’s population density is so small that the chances of it hitting and injuring someone was near to impossible, but when it got past Montana, I don’t think it was logical to shoot it down. The balloon ended up being shot down a couple of miles off the coast of South Carolina, which is completely useless because by this time, it had already done its job.

Some argue that we were justified in shooting down the spy balloon because it was taking pictures and collecting information that it didn’t need to collect. This statement may be true, but the argument is not valid because a spy balloon is not the only thing China has that is keeping tabs on America. China, along with other countries, have satellites in space that can take detailed pictures of America that would blow a lot of people’s minds. Our cell phones are also a huge factor in other country spying because they can be so easily hacked that we really cannot trust other countries. So, do we really think that a spy balloon is going to do anymore harm than the satellites in the sky or the hackers that are seeing everything we do on your phones?

In the end, should we have really wasted money to use military force to shoot down a spy balloon? I do not think we should have wasted the money shooting something down that had already served its purpose. If you really think that it was a big deal that it was spying on us, then you have ignored the fact that China has thousands of other ways of spying on civilians.