Did you wave to the watchers?

I doubt it could pick up individuals in the park. More likely, it was observing traffic patterns around SE.
It does have a black box that hangs 25 feet below it on a black cable.

...and be able to read the license plate. Reading/recognizing faces from 4 blocks away is child's play.... just sayin'.

I have no doubt that they could install electronic receivers on it that would mimic a cell-phone tower, and pick up people's calls, just as easily as AT&T could. A mobile cell-tower.......

the official one in this case - that they are testing ant-missile systems?

...from any institution that develops weapons in secret for killing.... a holdover legacy from the Vietnam era........

Of course I'm being sarcastic. We all know Al Qaida is swarming everywhere. And the gays with their marriage threat to all of those normal peoples.

I'm still waiting for my god damned health care.

Hand wringing and surveillance fears will no doubt crop up. or ?

The designer must have been reading Moby Dick when he designed this.

They should at least paint a face on it.

There is one tethered here in Sierra Vista, Az., and that balloon is visible from other balloons both east and west of here.
They, (in this case operated from the army base at Ft. Huachuca) have been around for many years. When the rain or wind comes, they bring them down, like now. Supposedly they are for drug intradiction. People around here think they see into their kitchens.
Who knows, but these balloons are nothing new.

I've seen it a few times when I jog in the mornings along the Anacostia

greener and quieter than helicopters.