you're own link: "Drones are prohibited.. from the ground up to 400 feet above ground level"
This, charitably, is called moving the goal posts. I fly over/near a nuclear plant every couple of months on my way somewhere. I am not a drone. Pilots fly over silo fields and nuclear plants all day, every day.
Nuclear silos are generally not that sensitive, because they are all 60 years old and everyone can identify them on satellite imaging, but if you fly a drone near one, you will definitely be surveilled by some security, whether you know it or not.
The HN guidelines ask you not to do those things, because they degrade discussion and we're trying for something else here.
If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
You did it repeatedly in this thread, and unfortunately have been doing it elsewhere too—and we've had to warn you about this kind of thing more than once before. When accounts behave this way, we end up having to ban them. I don't want to ban you, so if you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
https://www.faa.gov/uas/getting_started/where_can_i_fly/airs...
Spy balloons (and drones) are 100000% a thing. I think it's laughable that you can even try to argue otherwise.
As to why the US suddenly cares publicly, probably mostly political because the Chinese balloon was spotted by a civilian and there was a public outcry. That doesn't mean they aren't happening, nor that the governments across the world aren't aware of them.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/40054/adversary-drones...