economic espionage (@#$%^&*) (fwd)

[Jim Choate]

Forwarded message:

> Date: Thu, 21 Sep 1995 22:46:09 -0400 (EDT)
> From: Black Unicorn <unicorn at polaris.mindport.net>
> Subject: Re: economic espionage (@#$%^&*)
> > 
> > ah yes, just like the way Clinton alone came up with the whole
> > Clipper idea as a way to balance the legitimate goals
> > of law enforcement with the right to privacy in society.
> 
> Uh, how do you see balancing in the economic intelligence issue?
> Do you believe espionage is never justified?
> "Gentlemen don't read each other's mail" almost lost a war.
> 

All out espionage should, idealy at least, only take place if there is
evidence that a nations indipendance is directly involved. By this I mean
active methods versus passive eavesdropping. It is one thing to send aloft
satellites to record cellular traffic between cars and quite another to
actively insert agents provocateur.

> 'Intelligence officials in the United States estimate that at least twenty 
> foreign nations are currently engaged in intelligence activities 
> "detrimental to our economic interests...."'
> 

I had hoped they were better investigators than this, only 20? Or perhaps
this is a truer indication of our national paranoia.

> 
> 'The White House Office on Science and Technology estimates losses to U.S. 
> businesses from foreign economic espionage at nearly one hundred billion 
> dollars per year.'
> 

What are its estimates on what US business gains with its present industrial
espionage infrastructure? Without these numbers the quoted above are
useless.

                                               Jim