On Wed, 30 Aug 1995, Timothy C. May wrote:
Date: Wed, 30 Aug 1995 22:22:13 -0700 From: Timothy C. May <tcmay@got.net> To: cypherpunks@toad.com Subject: Economic Espionage?
At 1:25 AM 8/31/95, Tatu Ylonen wrote:
It was said that Pres. Clinton had given a speech while visiting the CIA HQ in Langley/Virginia. He allegedly said in this speech that obtaining industrial informations has the highest priority and this were the new task for the spies.
There was a fairly large article about this in Helsingin Sanomat, the largest newspaper in Finland, some weeks ago. It was quoted as being originally from the New York Times. (I have the clip saved at home and can check the date if anyone is interested.)
I do find it rather shocking that the most powerful country in the world sets industrial espionage as the primary task of their intelligence services.
What confirmation can you give us for this statement?
Primary task is indeed a bit of a stretch, but published and unpublished sources are floating about that it has become more of a focus. You don't need an insider tip for that.
I'd like to see the actual comments, not just second-hand reports.
I've seen now three clippings posted or mentioned on the list. Two with quotes. This is hardly new. It's been done and accepted in the intelligence community for quite some time. It's getting press because it's new and trendy- and to some degree because there's an increased emphasis in the last few years.
The issue of economic surveillance has come up several times, and I know of no formal policy to institute such a program.
A formal policy has exisited at CIA for over 2 years (I don't know how much over 2 years) now to collect industrial espionage and there is even a desk which co-ordinates it. I'll send you (in private e-mail) a name of an attorney at CIA who will probably talk with you about the subject. He's about as open as CIA gets. The U.S., with generally
multiple competitors in each market, would have a hard time figuring out who to tell "foreign secrets" to. Would Ford be told? Or just General Motors?
C'mon Mr. May. We both know that that's hardly a hard decision. Ford has been so cooperative with our endeavors of late, they will get the information way before GM will. Seriously, what makes you think this is any less a political decision than the question of who to spy on? You can't honestly believe that CIA or any other intelligence agency cares much about the equity of giving information to some parties and not others? The information will go to who is currently on the "in" list, and those who are unlikely to spread the source of the sudden rash of contract bid victories. Large U.S. corporations would do well to try to align themselves with the intelligence communities if they do much bidding against foreign firms. Try talking to the business intelligence people (who regularly debrief U.S. businessmen returning for foreign countries on a volunteer basis.) If you play it right, my attorney friend will probably tell you a bit about the program. Of course, I would appreciate it if you failed to mention me, though I doubt he'd know who "Black Unicorn" was anyhow. (Justification for pseudonyms 'punks)
What about companies with operations in multiple countries?
Depends on: 1. The amount of espionage activity in a given country. 2. The amount of cooperation between CIA and the company in question.
Former DIRNSA (Director of the NSA) William Odom has said repeatedly that economic espionage cannot plausibly be a central task of the NSA.
Mostly because the NSA's primary goal is large scale sigint and cryptography and these are less useful than humint in industrial espionage. C'mon Mr. May, this is basic divide and deny / plausible deniability here. Since the NSA doesn't make it a central task, none of the intelligence agencies do? (I'm constructing humint to include installing a tap on a single phone outside the negotiating room and such.) These are not tasks for the NSA but for an agency with extensive field operatives and flexibility, which the NSA lacks. Also note that the NSA is so heavily geared for diplomatic interception. I think this list sufferes a great deal from its arrogance in assuming the NSA is really as interested in U.S. citizens as the list would like to suppose. NSA makes a wonderful threat model, but like all good threat models, it is at the extreme to very extreme end. Does the NSA cooperate with federal law enforcement and other domestic activites? Sure. Is it more than a side project here and there - not really. Does it care much about Industrial Espionage? Not unless the CIA asks for sigint on industrial targets.
Before anyone accuses me of being an apologist for the NSA (usually these claims arrive anonymously),
I won't, but they seem to have thrown you for a loop through a combination of an over-estimation on your part of their function and an over-extending of the reach of their denial.
I've been looking for evidence of an economic intelligence role or mission of the U.S. intelligence agencies for more than 7 years.
You've been looking too early, and when you've looked early, you've looked for too big. When was the last intelligence SUCCESS you have read about? They don't do everything wrong. In any event, no one thought it was a good idea (on a major scale anyhow) up to a pair of years ago or so. Bush proposed it at one time casually and was delt a backhand rather quickly. I remember an article in the NYT about it written back just before he left CIA. Of course this really meant that they had been doing more and more of it and were looking to cover even more significant activities. Japan was the trendy target then. I suggest you concentrate your interest on the business intelligence program which has been talking to U.S. businessmen who travel abroad for some 10 years, and really uped the ante these last two. Look also at documents listed in "Former Secrets: Government Records Made Public Through the Freedom of Information Act." (E. Hendricks) or "Center for National Security Studies, From Official Files: Abstracts of Documents on National Security and Civil Liberties." A great resource is also the National Security Archive in Washington, D.C. (Scott Armstrong of the Washington Post is a co-founder) The sugar industry is another nice place to take a look.
Let's see some evidence.
Ask yourself which companies have close relations with the CIA in past/present. IBM. (duh) AT&T. (Check the connection with the recently floundering Mexician Telecom companies). See _U.S. v. Americian Telephone and Telegraph Co._, 551 F.2d 384 (1976); _U.S. v. (AT&T)_, 567 F.2d 121 (1977) for a nice idea of the long term relationship between AT&T and CIA. e-systems wins contracts all the time. Look there. They're publicly held, ask for a prospectus and see what public foreign contracts they've announced of late. There's your starting list of past industrial espionage targets. It's not all that hard. 95% of intelligence information is available publicly, and maybe 10% of it is available in the newspapers.
--Tim May
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