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Confirmed: U.S. Spies On European Corporations
FrankW writes "Former United States Central Intelligence Agency director James Woolsey confirmed in Washington this week that the U.S. steals
economic secrets 'with espionage, with communications [intelligence], with reconnaissance satellites,' and that there was now 'some increased emphasis' on economic intelligence.
He claimed that economic spying was justified because European companies had a 'national culture' of bribery and were the 'principle
offenders from the point of view of paying bribes in major international contracts in the world.'"
And he says the U.S. government doesn't deliver corporate secrets to U.S. companies - unless it would benefit them. How reassuring. The source is
Heise Online
(the publishers of c't). The
full article
is available in English. See also the recent European report
Interception Capabilities 2000
(summary), which the former director said was "intellectually honest."
If this weren't happening, the taxpayers should complain. How would it look if the director of the CIA had to tell a congressional commitee "Yes, we had the information that would have saved Boeing/General Motors/Lockheed but we couldn't pass it on because it was commercial"?
It's against taxpayers' interest to support Boeing, General Motors or Lockheed -- every case where those companies lost their share in their markts increases the competition there thus making economy more healthy (or, less sick). US is not in war with any of the countries involved, they actually are allies in NATO, so there is no defense-related justification either
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Oh. And this really stopped the US's NATO allies from spying on it during the Cold War for the same reasons, didn't it?
"it" -- what? US? NATO? Allies? job?
Face it, the US is playing by the exact same set of rules as everyone else, and happens to be no better or no worse, and speaks from no higher and no lower a moral standpoint. If the US wasn't doing this, US companies would be torn to pieces by companies from countries that did do this, and vice versa.
Other governments do industrial espionage for "their" companies? That's news to me. Governments constantly do military espionage and extend it to military-meaningful technologies for themselves (say, nuclear technology that is usually controlled by government, not companies), and they do industrial espionage when subjected to embargo for some kinds of non-military technology (this can be justified because they can't just buy products from abroad), but providing this kind of "service" to companies is something where civilized countries draw the line.
(BTW, I wonder why US doesn't just elect companies for Congress and President -- they are "persons" under american laws that have "rights".)
So unless there's an ENFORCABLE end put to this for everyone SIMULTANEOUSLY, I don't see this stopping anytime soon.
Loss of credibility is enough to replace "enforcement" -- and it looks like just that can happen if US won't revise its "we rule the world, and our companies are above everything" policy. Fear, uncertainty and doubt work both ways.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
--
I have to disagree. If someone broadcasts sensitive information and it gets intercepted, I wouldn't call that theft. If the information is sensitive, it should be encrypted and/or routed over hard line. Although the cellular telephone and satellite TV industries would disagree with me, I believe that everyone has the right to receive, demodulate and decrypt any radio frequency signal that passes through their airspace. All digital phones (GSM, TDMA, CDMA) should be using strong encryption to protect the privacy of the user.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
How would the US be created if the european wouldn't have discovered it?
Give me a fscking break. America had been settled for 15,000 years by Asians before the Europeans arrived.
The first thing the Europeans did on arriving is export genocide, and wipe out native civilizations. Their explorers (DeSoto, Pizarro, etc.) were in fact just a bunch of butchering theives.
British/Canadian incursions?!?
Ummm, I believe you're referring to the war of 1812.
If you will check any reliable source you'd quickly discover that it was America that invaded the Canadian colonies at that time. That was our "war of independence". Independence from America. If the white house got burned down it was hardly an "incursion" if the burning-down-type-people were trying to stop their homeland being wiped off the map by said Americans.
Also, re: French-speakers in the southern U.S. - They are the remnants of French settlement and (forced re-settlement (of the Acadians)) long pre-dating the United States. Nothing to do with French fighting a (as yet non-existent U.S.) America later acquired that territory through the Louisiana Purchase. (hint: no fighting French people involved)
[We don't come from a planet. We come from a grid sector.]
Oh, so because the world isn't a nice place, we should violate our own rules? I suppose I should be able to steal secrets from a corporate competitor, because it's in my company's best interests. I mean, why should we obey the law, be it our law, foreign law, or international law, when our government can break it, and claim moral superiority for doing it?
I suppose you think the people who steal American secrets for foriegn interests have the moral high ground too. They're acting in the best interests of their chosen nation.
we should violate our own rules?
Are you implying that the laws the US government sets for its citizens apply when dealing with foreign countries? What color is the sky in your world?
The laws of a country apply only on that country's soil. If you break them, that country prosecutes you by their laws. Simple. And who says a country shouldn't be able to break laws if it is willing to accept the penalties when caught? I break the law every day, speeding to work, and am willing to pay the ticket when caught.
Espionage is a part of the world we live in, unless every country suddenly and voluntarily gives it up. Otherwise, if you want to compete, you gotta do it. Imagine if around 1960, the US had given up all of its nukes, leaving the USSR with the nuclear advantage, simply because nukes were bad.
Using taxpayers money to spy and then passing that informations on to private corporations is wrong.
Multinational companies owe no alliegance to the US they have shown over and over that they are willing to screw over the american citizens and go chase cheaper slave labor overseas. They have their own money to spend. Hell most multinationals have a greater GNP then a lot of nations.
War is necrophilia.
The French in particular are notorious for carrying on these types of operations.
Of course American corporations would never stoop to bribery, or buying politicians and of course due to their high code of ethics and morals, the government needs to help these good people out.
France has fought against the US - remember that in certain parts of the Southern United States people still speak a dialect based on French. French troops also fought against the US in the disputed regions of Mexico and Texas.
...
... something that regularily threatens to happen in the UK as well. The xenophobic jingoism of US politicians is readily apparent in the right wing of UK politics - and it's clear that nationalist bullshit ("save the pound", "no to Europe") is just short-term attempts to win political power at the expense of long-term economic stability.
French Canadians may also have fought against the US. My knowledge of the history of Canada is hazier than that of the US, so I can only recall the Canadian/British incursions into the US (which famously resulted in the burning of the Whitehouse).
Regardless, your inference that CIA spying is acceptable simply because the US has been at war with those countries in the distant past - what kind of justification is that? You sound like a George Bush Jr voter to me. This kind of xenophobic bullshit is redolent of the 1920's when the US retreated into isolationaism, leaving the League of Nations without a very important member state
This narrow view that US interests both economically and politically should take precedence over all else is dangerous. The often partisan nature of US foreign policy has resulted in tragedies like the bombing of US embassies by Islamic extremists. Unless the US adopts a more ethical worldview it is going to become a pariah nation. An economy based on espionage (and you want to look at US national debt before making assumptions about how strong it currently is) will not result in long term security. The globalisation of economics, and incredible amount of US econimic concerns that are foreign owned means that the US is only viable as long as it doesn't alienate foreign capital. Upsetting entities like the European Union, India and Russia will not help.
Many in the US like to scoff at the notion that countries like India and Russia are threats to US economic security - but in the long term these countries have more economic potential than the US. They may be 'late starters', but they can avoid the teething troubles of older high-tech economies like those in the US and UK. If they begin to realise their economic potential then the US is going to become marginalised
Chris Wareham
"A corporation is not a human being, I'm not trying to hold it to an ethical standard, I just have no respect for that kind of business"
Corporations are held to be equivalent to human beings in the eyes of the law -- why can't we hold them to an ethical standard?
There are two corrupt entities at work here -- the government that did this (yay, American democracy) and the companies who have received this intelligence willingly (yay, capitalism). Moreover, consider that the companies, having received this intelligence, reward the politicians who administer government with huge campaign contributions.
IMO, anyone who really wants to see this stopped has a few things they really, really need to do:
The parties in power have shown that their contributors are more important to them than angry constituents, unless the angry constituents compose a voting block they can't neutralize with money. We can change that, but only by performing our duties as citizens to keep government honest.
phil
No, the bicycle is a physical object and stealing it would deprive you of its use.
What if you live on top of a hill overlooking a town. Phone service being too expensive, you use semaphore flags to communicate with your friend who lives in the town. Should it be illegal for other townspeople to look at the top of the hill? Or maybe we should ban telescopes and binoculars?
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
I am not surprised by the fact that the US intelligence agencies perform industrial espionage. What appals me is the self-congratulating excuse that the US has to do it because European companies are not good enough to win contracts on their own merits, so they have to stoop to bribery.
I am European... I've worked and lived in the US. I've also lived and worked in Europe. I've been close enough to billion-dollar contracts to have an idea what's going on. For anyone to claim that somehow US corporations are the keepers of corporate morality in the international marketplace is ridiculous...
So, does anybody out there remember what the term "Banana Republic" actually meant before it became a clothing store? Does anyone remember what the greatful Saudis did after the end of the Gulf War? Mayhaps they went ahead and bought a buncha F-15s? didn't they also let Boeing have a huge contract of airliners for the state-owned airline?
Now, I ain't saying that somehow American companies are better or worse than British, French or Dutch ones; but to claim that they are indeed so much so more moral as to justify these actions (regardless of the fact that really everybody does it) is absurd.
engineers never lie; we just approximate the truth.
Collecting economic intelligence is completely understandable - after all, economic crises are an incredible threat to the U.S. Collecting economic intelligence makes perfect sense; it can help us prepare for and manage economic catastrophe long before it happens.
Keep in mind that most of the information is OSINT (open source intelligence), and not intelligence obtained by spying. To quote the article: "Whether economic or military, most US intelligence data came from open sources, [Woolsey] said. But 'five percent is essentially secrets that we steal. We steal secrets with espionage, with communications, with reconnaissance satellites.'
The five percent he's talking about is the five percent of intelligence collected overall.
Let's get this straight: industrial espionage is illegal, and it does not happen. A huge part of the reason it is forbidden is that since business is international now, half the time you think you're helping an "American" business, you're actually helping a business abroad.
Illegal industrial espionage is produced for private businesses, but legal economic espionage is for policymakers. There are reasons of practice and politics and law and ethics that prohibit the U.S. from committing industrial espionge.
Meanwhile industrial espionage is committed by other countries - including Russia, China, France and Japan.
And, in case you're wondering, the Economic Espionage Act of 1996 makes industrial espionage against U.S. companies illegal. It used to be illegal in some states, but now the theft of trade secrets is illegal throughout the U.S.
A. Keiper
The Center for the Study of Technology and Society
In most nations, intelligence organisations see it as their duty to act in the best interests of their nation.
So if the NSA/CIA/whoever use intelligence information to help US corporations, why does everybody get self-righteous? If the successor to the KGB was doing this nobody would be surprised. I am sure that MOSSAD pass commercial information on to Israeli companies. The French make no secret of their intelligence forces doing it. I would be surprised if information from GCHQ never makes it's way into British company's hands.
If this weren't happening, the taxpayers should complain. How would it look if the director of the CIA had to tell a congressional commitee "Yes, we had the information that would have saved Boeing/General Motors/Lockheed but we couldn't pass it on because it was commercial"?
Stop believing that the world is a nice place, and grow up.
Moderators: My apologies, I'm not trying to start a flame war, but the fact that I get irate about this might influence my writing style. Try not to damage me too thoroughly. :)
:)
It's charming, it really is, that whenever a story like this comes out, dozens of self-proclaimed realists will fire off these "It happens, grow up people" posts, as though they are the grizzled old men in Heinlein books and CIA Movies that have seen all the corruption of the world and absorbed it all into their overpowering intellect.
My take, and I openly acknowledge that it may be mine alone, is that looking for ethical behaviour in government is not utterly naive. Or moreover, that if it truly is, then our situation is a sad one, because I do not want to be represented by these people. Still, let's say for a moment that this corruption in government is inevitable, and that furthermore, the democratic process as it now stands has so much inertia that it will just plow on ahead, despite transgressions, I have another question:
Why do the companies accept this? Is that what American business is about? Are these companies so hopelessly unoriginal that they need to profit from the spoils of the intelligence war? A corporation is not a human being, I'm not trying to hold it to an ethical standard, I just have no respect for that kind of business. And it saddens me to see how pathetic american industry has become.
My apologies for the rant. It's cathartic for me, I guess.
Johnath
On a more serious note, I think it's high time that people realized once and for all that U.S. spying is NOT to combat "terrorism" or whatnot, and realize that the privacy of hundreds of millions of people is being routinely violated.
Millions of people, both in the US and abroad, should be screaming for universal encryption, instead of complacently fearing "terrorism", or whatever flavor of the week the mainstream media shove down their throats.
Frankly, if I ran any of these European countries, you'd bet your ass that I'd immediately condemn this spying as a hostile act of aggression, and work out treaties with other nations explicitly naming any further spying as an act of war, and military alliances to give the treaties TEETH.
But then again, the US is the BAMF of all nations, so it'll probably have its way, just like it always does.
It's only a matter of time till the US stops being the policeman of the world, and starts being the police state of the world.
--
Stay up hacking each weekend. Sleep is for the week.
Nothing on CNN, nothing on MSNBC. And so millions of shee^H^H^H^Hvoters will go on with their patriotic lives believing in the high ideals of American benevolence and the free market.
Quite sad indeed.
This is naturally a stance I and many others find offensive. What does it matter open info. vs. espionage, you've still got a bunch of unpleasant gov't intelligence types running around considering ways to aid American companies over British|French|Canadian|Japanese|S'African|Austral ian|Venezualan|etc. ones.
The idea of this being largely about "bribery" strikes me as the thinnest zenophobic screen, an attempt to post-rationalize cowardly behaviour in the eyes of the public by making unprovable and unfair assertions about the relative merits of other cultures. Even if its true, if bribery went, tomorrow, would they stop spying tomorrow?
The ultimate intent of the community, as evidenced by the question about a tech. breakthrough, is to aid Americans over the scary "Europeans". This disugusts me. Such a myopic, zenophobic, shallow, argument should disgust everyone.
BTW, I can't defend France, but can anyone completely defend the actions of the U.S. (or anywhere 100% of the time) in its foreign policy? America is *good*, but not perfect, and probably not that much better than most other democracies. The same goes for bribery, I suppose we're going to ignore the American Tobacco Lobby for the time being, and quite how one of its members got itself involved in Tobacco racketeering in Canada? Or, perhaps our blind eye would be better used on the campaign trail? Or in the officer schools? Or in the plethora of QUANGOs associated w/ defence? Or with the fact that defence bidding, despite being open to at least Cdn companies, was (when Cdn. co.s were big enough to matter) cleverly tilted towards american bussiness, etc etc.
I could enumerate an even greater number of good things the U.S. has done, but I'm not going too. (This post is too long and too politically dodgy already. ;-)
____________________________
He who fights and runs away,