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conversations. and also that these balloons were actually part of a fleet that were flown over more than 40 countries across five continents. learning more there about the actual capabilities that the balloon had and just how large this fleet actually was. in briefings today, u.s. officials did emphasize that ultimately, the u.s. has protocols to protect its sensitive information and we are told by a senior administration official that the balloon actually was not very sophisticated in terms of what it could pick up, and that the u.s. tried to avoid unencrypted communications in the vicinity of the balloon. also, the balloon did not necessarily transmit information back to beijing, because once it realized that the u.s. knew that it was in u.s. air space, it apparently stopped those transmissions. there are still a lot of questions here about why the u.s. did not shoot it down a lot earlier, particularly when it entered u.s. air space over alaska. and what a senior pentagon official told lawmakers today is that essentially, the u.s. just wanted to wait and see what the balloon was going to do, and potentially gather intelligence on it. here's what he said.