Yes, more recent disclosure puts the weight at about 1 ton, not 36!
I think the size was exaggerated to justify not shooting it down because of the substantial risk to those on the ground.
However, if that balloon had entered the restricted air space over the White House, it wold have been shot down in my opinion!
Some of the graphics of the route from China that the balloon took show it entering North America across the finger of land that is the southern most part of Alaska.
Thus it would have been in US air space above the 12 mile territorial waters and should have been shot down there.
What answer has been given?
They might have been concerned about hitting a fishing boat!!!
Is it possible that DoD wanted to know the route it was going to take?
As far as spying on DoD -
they also have space satellites that can do the same thing, should we shoot those down?.
There are some in the US Government, who wish war with China. Why? China will overtake us as the largest economy one day. Some cannot bear the loss and giving more power to China. We are competing with them and we don't compete fairly. Germany and Russia were getting closer seeing how Germany and all of Europe were benefiting from cheap Russian gas. We broke that situation by bombing the pipelines. Now Europe still buys gas from Russia but through a third party like India, or from us at 3 times the old rate. We have no ones interest at heart.