The Chinese spy balloon that flew across the United States earlier this year used an American internet service provider to communicate with China, NBC News reported Thursday.
The American ISP was not named in the report. However, the company denied to NBC News that the balloon used its network, contrary to U.S. intelligence officials who told NBC News that it did.
The balloon connected with the ISP to send and receive communications with China, mostly for navigation, according to the report. NBC News reported that connecting to the internet allowed it to send "high-bandwidth collections of data over short periods of time" as it traversed the country in February.
Further, the Biden administration petitioned for a court order from the federal Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to collect data from the balloon, including its communications to and from China, according to NBC News.
It's not clear if the Biden administration was able to obtain permission from the court, though Biden administration officials told NBC News that they collected more intel from the balloon than the balloon collected from sensitive sites in the U.S.
The U.S. protected sites on the ground that were in the path of the balloon, according to the report.