you're live in the cnn room. i'm jim acosta in washington. right now off the coast of south carolina, us navy divers are scrambling to recover that downed chinese spy balloon. u.s. fighter jets shot it down this afternoon a few days after it crossed the u.s. border and was spotted over montana. it then floated to the carolinas, raising national

security concerns for days. most of the wreckage is believes to be sitting in 47 feet of water at this hour. let's go now to oren at the pentagon. do we think we might have get an update this evening as to whether or not they have been able to secure that wreckage and retrieve it? >> they'll put a perimeter around it with navy and coast guard assets that were in the area. whether they can retrieve it tonight or tomorrow, that's a different question. 47 feet of water according to a senior defense official, so not that deep, but still it's a question of what's left, what's down there and what shape is it in and how do you bring it up without damaging it further. salvage vessel is on the way. it might not be there in time to do it tonight, but it will get there as quickly as possible to begin. why is that so important? because the pentagon has said repeatedly this was a chinese surveillance balloon that had the ability to maneuver, loiter. and because of that, there's

information they want to glean. it is worth pointing out that the intelligence gathering operation from the u.s. perspective hasn't started now. it happened as this balloon made its way across the united states. the pentagon says they took steps to mitigate the ability of the chinese to gather information or intelligence from this and instead, tried to gather their own about the capabilities and technology aboard the balloon. so now that will shift from it being in motion to once they bring it up, seeing it in person, up close, instead of at a distance of something like 12 miles in the sky, jim. >> what did it take to shoot this balloon down? it was executed it seems perfectly. >> from what we can see, it certainly looks like it. there were days of planning ever since president biden gave the green light to shoot it down as soon as possible. the pentagon decided it wouldn't be safe over the continental u.s. and over what would be a

payload of a length of three schoolbuses falling apart and creating a debris field. so the decision was made to shoot it down once it was off the coast. it was f-22 launch out of langley air force base that fired an a-9 side winder missile that's a fairly short range weapon. so they had to get up close. the pentagon says the jets were about 28,000 feet. the balloon, between 60 and 65,000 feet. it was one shot, one kill for the balloon. >> thank you very much. let's go to arlette sciaenz fors at the white house. busy saturday afternoon. what are we hearing from the president? he was very emphatic this afternoon to make it clear he issued this order on wednesday. i thought that was interesting. >> yeah, jim. president biden really trying to lay out the timeline for when this decision was made, saying he told his military leaders to shoot down that plane as soon as

possible when he was briefed on wednesday. of course, the military leaders put together options for him and ultimately advised they wanted to wait until there were safer moments where fewer people might be impacted compared to if they had shot it down over land, for instance. but president biden was on air force one as the military carried out this plan this afternoon. here's what he had to tell reporters as he landed in maryland earlier today. >> on wednesday, when i was briefed on the balloon, i ordered the pentagon to shoot it down on wednesday as soon as possible. they decided without doing damage to anyone on the ground. they decided that the best time to do that was when it got over water within 12 mile limit. >> of course, president biden has faced criticism in recent days since the news of the balloon first broke as republicans have been asking why he didn't shoot this down sooner. there's also been some democrats

like senator mark warner who said that china would never allow a balloon like this to be flying over the heartland. now, lawmakers on capitol hill have called for briefings and hearings as well. the so-called gang of eight up on capitol hill will be receiving a briefing as they return to congress later next week. but this also comes at a very new high point of tension between u.s. and china. of course, secretary of state blinken had been planning the trip to china due to the revelation and appearance of this balloon and this is something the white house will have to navigate diplomatically as they've seen tensions really rise with china in recent days. >> absolutely. i'm sure reporters at the white house will have questions for days on this. thank you very much. appreciate that. let's discuss now with cnn national security analyst, james clapper. director, thanks so much for

being with us as always. we appreciate it. just your reaction to the decision to wait to shoot this balloon down after it reached the atlantic as opposed to earlier in the week. what's your sense of how all this went down? >> i think it was the right thing to do. i think there's a balance drawn here by affirming our sovereignty and at the same time, protecting the safety of people below. i can imagine the reaction if the thing, balloon had been shot down over a red state and somebody got killed or hurt and the outrage that would result from that. so to me, this was the best of both worlds. as i understand it, done within our territorial waters and obviously no jeopardy to anyone on the ground. so to me, it was the right thing to do. i think in the end, this will

afford us some diplomatic l leverage with the chinese. >> what do you think the chinese were up to here because obviously they had to assume we were going to see this thing in the sky. and this was going to be detected. does that tell us a little bit about what their motivations might have been? >> you know, jim, to me, this is the mystery. why exactly they did this and that's why i have a tendency to accept the explanation this was astray. i don't buy what they're saying was on the way it sensors. that's why this is going to be very good to recover the payload from the balloon and find out what kind of sensors they had on it. others have already discussed, the chinese have very capable overhead reconnaissance satellite system that can collect all kinds of imagery intelligence. probably better than with a

balloon. now, the issue for me is what other kinds of sensor or other phenomena that this balloon was trying to collect. hopefully we'll learn that by exploiting the payload. >> because the balloon might not have been just taking pictures. is that right? >> exactly. if it was just taking pictures then i really don't understand it because the, as i say, the chinese overhead reconnaissance satellites can do every bit what that balloon can do and more. now, if it was somehow intercepting radiation, non-literal communications, literal communications, i don't know. we'll learn that. but it just seems to me strange that the chinese would intentionally do this. particularly at this particular time. >> and the balloon, we're told, will be analyzed once it's retrieved, at an fbi lab in quantico. how critical is it at this point

for navy divers, assets there in the atlantic right now retrieving this, how critical is it for them to get that piece of equipment out of the water? >> well, it's pretty critical because obviously i doubt it was designed to survive in a wet environment. it's not the environment was operating in. so the quicker the divers can get to it, retrieve it, the better. again, i don't know the depth of the water where it actually fell. that's, that will be another challenge depending on how deep the water is, but the quicker the better. >> you were director of national intelligence. maybe you can answer this question. is this unusual to have spy balloons flying over continental united states? >> yes. i don't recall an instance of it during my time as dni for six and a half years.

i don't remember, recollect this. i've had some personal experience with using balloons as intelligence collector, particularly for imagery, and they're not very efficient for that purpose. that's why i'm a little skeptical of that imagery. they're so subject to the vagaries of weather. you know, mist, fog, rain, and especially as we've seen in this case, wind. they're hard to control. so i'm very interested to learn if we can publicly just what sort of sensor suite was in the payload of the balloon. >> and do we have the technical capabilities do you think to, to already know, what the surveillance equipment was doing. could they have gotten a close look at it before it was shot down to know what this thing is? >> i'll just say that's possible. i don't know. either through direct

observation or indirect collection from some other source. so it's possible, but i'm just speculating here. >> yeah. one of the interesting things that oren was reporting this afternoon was that the u.s. says it was able to prevent the balloon from gaining some s intelligence. that they were able to do some mitigation efforts. sounded as though they were jamming to balloon to some extent. what did you make of that? what do you think about that? >> one thing i wondered about is if it had some sort of communication relay system. either to satellites or some other terrestrial down link that we somehow got access to. i don't know. and if that were the case, well, certainly they could jam that and prevent the transmission. either guidance to the balloon

if it had that or some sensor or sensors on the balloon interfere with that. so it's quite conceivable. >> and you know, one of the questions i think that's floating around that's highly intriguing is what does this say about chinese espionage efforts in the united states? looks like they were doing some over the united states. what does it say about chinese espionage efforts inside the united states and how extensive they are? i imagine the american people might surmise it's going on and is extensive, but how extensive is it? >> well, it's a great question, jim. what is so significant and dramatic about this is it's very visible. the chinese have reconnaissance satellites both signal intelligence collectors and imagery intelligence collectors that are traversing over the united states every day collecting reams of

intelligence. they have very aggressive and intellectual property attacks on us. they are very aggressive about this. having said all that, this, to me, is sort of ham handed to do this as an intelligence collection effort. when they have so many other ways of gaining intelligence on the united states that is not nearly as visible and dramatic as this. this is what's drawn so much attention to this. we're concerned about our sovereignty, how high does it go? we're going to shoot down the balloon because it's a front to our solvereignty. the satellites are an affront to our society and we're not about to shoot them down. >> that's right. former director of national intelligence, james clapper, always a pleasure to speak with you, sir. thanks so much for your insights. we gained a lot of knowledge in

this segment so thanks for your time. >> thanks, jim. >> what will national security officials be looking for once the balloon and its payload have been successfully recovered? that's something we're watching at this hour. talk about that next. plus as we just discussed there a few moments ago, china has had multiple chances to spy on the united states. they do this routinely. much more on the recent examples of its espionage efforts. that's nexext. you're live in the "cnn newsroom." you can always spot a first timer. gain flings with oxi boost and febreze. (jennifer) the reason why golo customers have such long term success is because the golo plan takes a holistic approach to weight loss. we focus on real foods in the right balae so you get the results you want. the release supplent makes losing weight easy. release sets you up for successful weight loss because it supports your blood sugar levels between meals so you aren't hungry or fatigued. golo is real, our customers are real,

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for bringing it down which violated canadian air space. efforts are underway off the coast of south carolina to successfully recover and retrieve what's left of the payload that balloon was carrying. kerry, i know you worked as an attorney. your reaction to all of this. how this went down and how much of a security risk do you think this posed? or is this more of an intelligence risk i suppose. >> i think what we're seeing, what's so interesting about this particular story is that we're seeing intelligence activities spilled out into the open, presuming this balloon is not a meteorological piece of equipment and is an intelligence collection device by the chinese. assuming that, we're seeing an

area that's normally behind the scenes. particularly with respect to intelligence activities that take place with the united states and china against each other. all of that is usually behind the scenes. super secret. super classified and here in this example, we have this type of activity where it is just so out in the open and i think that's the piece that is so surprising and both interesting from a public perspective as well as from a national security perspective. >> it's kind of baffling because why would the chinese want us to see something like this? i think that's one of the questions that's been raised. perhaps they did. it's sort of like flying a spy craft good year blimp saying look what we can do. >> chinese intelligence activities, if we look at the past decade and more, chinese intelligence activities are so aggressive against the united states. but so much of it takes place in cyber space. really aggressive, persistent

efforts by chinese government to go after u.s. government systems, go after u.s. private industry, defense industry. intellectual profit theft. all of these areas where again, behind the scene, things that are not revealed unless the united states government brings a prosecution then we become know knowledgeable about it in the public space. if this is some sort of surveillance device, they are placing it in a place where not just the u.s. military or intelligence community knows about it, but somewhere where every day americans and the entire american public as well as the canadians, which was over their air space as well, are aware of it and paying attention to what's happening. one of the questions for me is when the united states government goes in, looks at what they are able to recover,

what will that reveal. >> and that underlines what us navy dives off the coast of south carolina retrieve, they recovered this piece of equipment because i assume and we've been told once they do, it's going to be brought up to quantico there in virginia. that is going to be a very interesting operation once they pull that thing on board whatever ship they have out there and start examining this at quantico. >> sure for our intelligence community professionals looking in the forensic professionals who are going to be looking at this information. this potentially could be a really interesting period for them to be able to observe what exactly was in in. what is it that the chinese were intending. what they were able to collect. throughout the course of the day, we've been talking about the decision to shoot down the plane. aside from the public safety and

not waiting until it got up to see. there's also the issue of letting it go a little bit and what more will the u.s. intelligence community learn when they were eventually able to analyze the data in this by letting it continue its work for an additional period of time. >> the pentagon alluded that we were successfully mitigating what the chinese were doing with this balloon. sounded like they were jamming its equipment to some extent. quickly, the chinese have claimed that this is all for civilian weather research. that sort of thing. how do you think this is going to impact tensions with china? >> well, the united states government is clearly in a substantial national security competition with china that expanded over all areas.

of our national security apparatus and economic apparatus. and so this i think in the near term is attention. it had led to the delaying of the secretary of state's trip to china. whether or not it will have long-term consequences i think in part will depend on what was actually in this device. how nefarious was it. that potentially will be a factor in how the next government deals with china. at least in the near future. >> all right. it's going to be very interesting when the u.s. gets its hands on that balloon. thank you very much. appreciate it. coming up, be ready to roll. that's what higher ups told the faa last night as officials finalized plans for shooting down that chinese spy bahhen loo. more on the logistics of that needed coordinating before air space could be closed. you're live in the "cnn newsroom." you could do it in a year for, like, $11k.

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back with a breaking news. commercial and private planes are now back in the air all on the carolina coast. the faa closed the air space and grounded planes for a short-term earlier today just ahead of the efforts to shoot down the chinese spy balloon. pete has more on the layers of coordination between the faa and military and how it played out. >> the faa has now ended its temporary flight restriction that it put in place it says at the request of the department of defense because apparently of this shoot down of this chinese spy balloon as it wafted over the coast of the carolinas. this huge piece of restricted air space twice the size of the state of massachusetts. five times the size of the restricted air space that's been in place post 9/11 over

washington, d.c. what was very telling about this when this went into place about 1:30 p.m. on the east coast on saturday was that this was up to 60,000 feet. which the pentagon says was the altitude this balloon was floating at. that's very critical because the faa simply wanted to clear out the air space below and make it so there would not be a has satur hazard so airliners. they put in a ground stop as well because of that restricted air space at three airports, wilmington, charleston and myrtle beach in south carolina. those airports were paralyzed for about an hour as this shootdown took place. wasn't long after that all of these tremrestrictions were lif although this will likely go down in history as one of the largest pieces of restricts air space ever. we have never seen something like this put into place and the faa says it was all at the

request of the pentagon. cnn, washington. >> all right. our thanks to pete for that. a government source tells cnn agencies worked throughout the week to find the right time and place to intercept the balloon and last night, the faa was told to be by the phone early this morning and ready to roll. cnn transportation analyst and former inspector general of the u.s. department of transportation joins me now. mary, i just have to pause for a moment and reflect on how extraordinary it is to have the u.s. military shoot down something, foreign aircraft, yes, a spy balloon. foreign aircraft, off of the coast of the united states. i know that some of this was contemplated around 9/11. how extraordinary is this to see something like this occur today? >> well, it's extremely extraordinary and you're right. in 9/11, it was contemplated for flight 93. that of course had headed over to ohio and was turning around, went back over pennsylvania.

it was contemplated when the payne stewart plane and if you'll recall, the pilot on board were incapacitated and that plane headed out across the united states towards the upper northwest and it was discussed whether to shoot it down or let it come to earth by itself. so it's extremely rare. it was discussed when twa 800 went down off the coast of new york because there were military operations nearby, but that was not a shootdown, but there were suspicious you know, a lot of suspicious people about that. so it's very rare and of course, it is dangerous when you have military operations around civilian aircraft, awful things can happen. so this was the right thing to do so shut down the air space although hugely inconvenient. >> this isn't the first time that a spy balloon has floated through u.s. air space. what was we learned from other instances in the past? >> also from reports that there are apparently, this has been going on for about five years.

one was sighted over hawaii. one over costa rica and there are many more. so what we need to learn to do is let the government take care of these spy balloons. there are actually pictures floating around the internet of people saying they were going to go out and shoot at them. that's a ridiculous idea. civilian aircraft have been shot at before. u.s. airplane i think back in 2011 landed in charlotte with a bullet hole in the top of it. in foreign countries, passengers have been shot on planes by stray bullets. the government can deal with these. hopefully will pick up the remains of this balloon and will keep us safe, but the american public should have been alerted to what was going on, so they knew the government had it in hand and from here on out, make sure it's the government who shoots them down and not civilians except if they're no authorized hunting areas. >> in terms of lessons learned,

earlier in the week, you heard critics saying this should have been shot down over montana. something like that. sparsely populated area. your thought s on that and i think what i heard you say is that the administration might have been better off at least alerting the public they were on top of this. they were dealing with this. exploring all options. all options are on the table, that sort of thing. >> that's right. i think the american public, if they knew the government's on it, you don't have to go out in the backyard with your shotgun and take aim at this thing. the government's got it under control and even if you think it's a ufo, do not go out in your backyard and shoot at it because that's highly dangerous to aviation. everyone knows that major aircraft have collision avoidance systems and they rely on trans ponders by and large.

that's another reason to clear the air space. commercial carriers are at 40,000 and this was at 60,000. had it started to come down into air space, collision avoidance may not have worked. so it was right to keep the civilian air space clear, safe. it's better to be on the ground, wishing you were up there than up there wishing you were on the ground. that's our old pilot saying and that's probably the case today. >> it made more sense to wait until it got off the coast. what do you think? >> well, you know, this is getting into the sort of james bond. people my age will remember moon raker where james bond in a space shuttle had to shoot down the orbs of drax, they were going to float around the earth and cause everybody to die. but over the oceans since they didn't really know what it was, they had two things going for them. they didn't know what would happen when they shot at it and two, they had a chance of

getting the debris in tact, which is hugely important. now, you know, i saw it on television like everybody else, but it looked like a piece fell off before the rest of it. they have a chance to recover it from the ocean floor and they're pretty good at that. they've recovered everything from space shuttles and mines and fallen aircraft sadly so we are pretty good at getting aircraft and balloon and space pieces off the bottom of the ocean floor. so perhaps that was the best way to hope to recover something that salvageable and you have information that you can use to keep america safe. >> very good. thanks so much for your time. appreciate and great moon raker reference. great film. thanks so much. that was a good one. up next, what the u.s. government is looking for in the debris of that chinese spy balloon the military shot down today. we'll continue to discuss that. you're live in the "cnn newsroom." to the next level. this is the lexus nx with intuitive tech...

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we have new video to show you of the moment the chinese spy balloon was shot down. this video was taken by a man in myrtle beach, south carolina, who said he watched a couple of fighter jets circle around the balloon for about an hour before they then started closing in. the balloon went down off the coast of south carolina as we've been reporting all afternoon, into the atlantic ocean. the take ddown ended a day's lo drama after the balloon floated across much of the continental united states. we're also looking at what china might have gained from this mission. i spoke with adam smith of washington and terms china as a reckless bully on the international stage. >> yeah, i don't know what message they're trying to send

but the message that china's been sending now for the last several years is they are reckless bully in many different areas. not just in the way they treat the u.s. you know, they went after australia launching a trade war against australia when australia dared to suggest that china could be more open and transparent on covid. i was in indonesia last year. indonesia's doing some exploration in their territorial waters looking for natural gas. china moved in and pushed them back off of that, claiming territory that isn't theirs. they've now trapped numerous countries in the developing world in a death trap by loaning them money and running up the bill on that. china is behaving like a reckless bully and what we need to do is work with the rest of the world to reign that in. in a way that deters them without launching a full out war with china and that's what i hope people understand. china's a big, powerful country.

they're going to be a big, powerful country we need to find a way to reign in their worst behavior while. i think the president's taking the right approach. >> should the secretary of state reschedule this trip? go to china, confront the chinese in person? >> that's the one thing that i strongly disagree with. i think secretary biden, sorry, secretary blinken should have gone. i don't think he should have canceled the trip. one of the things i'm really worried about with both china and russia is the lack of regular dialogue between senior officials in governments. china and russia may be talking together regularly. we need to talk more to russia and china. i think this is a missed opportunity. i don't support, you know, we're mad at you so we're not going to talk to you anymore approach to diplomacy. i think we should seek out those opportunities to get this dialogue going in a more constructive direction. >> and what about the notion i'm

sure you've heard some of this yourself, oh, this happens all the time. that nation's spy on one another. we fly surveillance satellites and all sorts of things over countries and they do it to us, i would assume from time to time. what about the possibility that china has done this in the past? do we know that for a fact that this has been done in the past? we just didn't know about it? >> well, i can't reveal anything in that regard except to say i would be stunned if china hadn't done similar things in the past. but again, it's more about the overall behavior of china than it is about this one incident. it is the brazen and reckless behavior as they've tried to throw their weight around in asia and across the world. but look, when you're talking about the efforts of countries to spy on each other, people know enough of the history to know that goes on a lot. now, flying something directly over u.s. air space, that i think is a far more rare event.

i don't off the top of my head know of precedent. so it again, speaks to the increasingly reckless behavior that china is engaged in and the importance of us working with the rest of the world to try to get them to stop and be a more productive partner in the world. >> our thanks to the congressman for his time and we are continuing to monitor this developing situation of the u.s. military shooting down the chinese spy balloon, but we have other subjects to cover. in the meantime, the new cnn film, american pain, traces the rise and fall of identical twin brothers who ran one of the largest pill mills in the country. the fbi says it's been linked to thousands of deaths. dr. gupta takes us inside the secret dea lab fighting the latest opioid threat, fentanyl laced pills, and meets with families whose lives have been changed forever. >> i like looking at pictures even if they're not my own

family. >> he was such a happy baby. oh, my god. he was so happy all the time. >> is it hard to talk about? >> no, i love talking about him. i talk about him to anybody who will listen. i loved seeing him on the hockey rink. that was his happy place where he could just sort of be free. his friends packed up immediately from schools wherever they were and came over and the family started showing up and i was just in shock. we tried. we were doing cpr and not a chance. he was long gone. i don't say he overdosed. i say he died from fentanyl poisoning. truthfully like at the end of the day, to me, he was murdered. because he asked for one thing. they gave him something different. and it took his life. >> on a single sad night, november 2nd, dina's son became one of the nearly 92,000 fatal overdoses in 2020 alone. much of it driven by fentanyl. problem is, there's so many of

these drugs that are now on the street that the dea had to set up a secret forensics lab just to try and keep up. we're making our way there now. scott olten is deputy assistant administrator of the dea's office of forensic scientists. you're getting more pills and more are coming back positive for fentanyl. >> almost every one of them came back positive. >> in 2019, the dea seized roughly 2.2 million pills. in 2022, 50.6 million pills. at the beginning of the opioid epidemic, many of the pills were authentic. the majority of the pills being seized today at the borders, on the streets, even in schools -- >> over 99% of what we see are fake. they contain fentanyl. >> 99%. that's mind numbing. >> and look closely at how sophisticated the counterfeiters have become. >> just for an example, these

are some of the ones that we will seize that have the same m and score and a 30 on the other side. >> if you look at what is real here and the rainbow fentanyl, they're not even really trying anymore to disguise this. this is clearly fake, but also if you look at this 800 grams of fentanyl, it turns into 400 to 500,000 potentially lethal pills. think about that. one bag gives you 400 to 500,000 lethal doses. it's the message the dea wants out there. one pill can kill. the days of experimentation are over. and so this sfophisticated lab has to keep up, trying to analyze these pills down to their ma lek lar structure, using the equivalent of an mri machine. >> we've seen hundreds and hundred of unique combinations. one with fentanyl and caffeine,

one with fentanyl and acetaminophen. >> how hard is it to keep up with how much counterfeit stuff. >> the market is constantly changing. one pill can kill. don't take the chance. it's not worth your life. >> it's a message dina wishes matthew could have heard. so instead, she has made it her mission to be his voice. >> as soon as you can start having these conversations with your children at an age where they can really, really comprehend it, i think it just needs to be talked about. it's russian roulette. you never know what you're going to get. >> i got to emphasize there are hundreds of millions of these pills out there. we know what the dea seizes, but we don't know how much they're missing. the denominator here. that's a really important point. to be fair, if you're talking about bricks and mortar

pharmacies, i asked the dea and they say they are very confident those supplies are safe. that's not what we're talking about here. we're talking about pills bought on the streets, even mail order. that's where things get murky and very, very dangerous. the message thecy wanted to get across, jim, is one pill can kill. that's it. one pill can kill. the days of experimentation are over, jim, and that's a really important point for everybody to hear. >> very important. dr. sanjay gupta, thank you. see the true story. american pain premiers tomorrow night at 9:00 here on cnn. the spy balloon is the latest in the brazen chinese spying on u.s. soil in the past decade. that story next. you're live in the "cnn newsroom." and at chevron, we're working to help reduce the carbon intensity of the fuels that keep things moving. today, we're producing rerenewable diesel that can be used in existing diesel tanks.

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check this out. a brand new video into cnn just now of the moment the u.s. military shot down the chinese spy balloon. take a look at this. >> they just shot it. see the smoke coming from it? >> and this is very important footage. a very clear image of what occurred earlier this afternoon. because there have been questions all afternoon. we've been talking with our experts over whether or not the surveillance equipment attached to that balloon maybe retrievable. might be salvageable.

it does look, there it is, you can see the bottom part of that balloon. it appears to be the surveillance equipment dropping below what was left of the balloon after it was popped. after it was destroyed by that fighter jet. so that does bode well, i suppose. if and when they're able to retrieve that equipment from the ocean. you can see it there. a fair amount of it still intact, dropping very quickly below after it was shot out of the sky. fighter jets from langley air force base shot down that balloon earlier that afternoon. china's foreign minister said its purpose was purely scientific. mostly weather-related research. of course, that's according to the chinese. if recent history is a guide, that explanation cannot be taken at face value. cnn's jim sciutto explains. >> i think that would be wise to

remember that they will say whatever needs to be said in order to cover what they're trying to do. >> reporter: security officials say there's been a dramatic escalation in brazen chinese spying on u.s. soil over the past did ecade. >> you look at china's track record, not being honest, playing by different rules. >> reporter: in 2017, for china to build an ornate chinese garden at the arrest garden was scrapped. it would have been strategically placed on one of the highest points in washington, d.c. just two miles from the u.s. capitol. a perfect spot for signals intelligence collection. china wanted to use materials shipped to the u.s. in diplomatic containers which customs officials are banned from examining. >> we want to continue to work with the brits. we'll to go carrier pigeons or

use carriers with locked briefcases if we have to. we won't let the chinese have unfettered access to our state secrets. >> concern also rose in 2019 over cellular towers with chinese-made hardware atop them near military bases in the u.s. in the same area in montana where the surveillance balloon was spotted, over a military base that houses intercontinental ballistic missiles. the company has strongly deniedfully efforts to spy on the u.s. said in a statement to cnn that its equipment is not capable of operating in any communications spectrum allocated to the defense department. in north dakota, near grand forks air force base, a plan for a chinese company to build a corn mill was halted just days ago because of security concerns. >> i had a brief conversation and we talked about the timing and what was going on with the

corn mill and that coming to an end. then two days later this balloon being spotted. >> reporter: now the balloon which is already adding to already tense relations between the u.s. and china. >> just again speaks volumes to the situation with respect to china. they are our greatest geopolitical threat. they are a threat economically and militarily. we need to take it serious. >> that was jim sciutto with that report. recovery efforts are underway right now off the coast of south carolina after the u.s. military shot down that chinese spy balloon. what the government is hoping to find, next.