The point that most of you are missing is that the NSA's intelligence gathering activity and activities of that class are completely unrelated to these charges. They are being charged with economic hacking activities. Trade secrets were being lifted and handed to Chinese companies. An analog would be like the NSA harvesting data from Samsung and then passing it to Apple, which is the type of stuff that we have no evidence of thus far. Regardless of your feelings on the NSA's actions, this isn't the same type of "all countries hack each other" activity.
And if you think metal and solar companies are the only one suffering these sorts of attacks, you're crazy. I think it's just that the other victims don't want to be named publicly for a variety of reasons. This sort of activity is a serious problem, but you can't just file charges all willy-nilly. Fortunately the U.S. already had economic actions in motion through resolution channels pertaining to the dumping of solar tech, so it makes this sort of thing much easier to do I think.
>An analog would be like the NSA harvesting data from Samsung and then passing it to Apple, which is the type of stuff that we have no evidence of thus far.
What ?
We've known that the NSA was engaging in corporate espionage on behalf of American corporations for a long time now and the American government doesn't even deny it: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/820758.stm (from 2000)
>The journalist, who has spent much of his life investigating Echelon, has offered two alleged instances of US snooping in the 1990s, which he says followed the newly-elected Clinton administration's policy of "aggressive advocacy" for US firms bidding for foreign contracts. The first came from a Baltimore Sun report which said the European consortium Airbus lost a $6bn contract with Saudi Arabia after NSA found Airbus officials were offering kickbacks to a Saudi official. The paper said the agency "lifted all the faxes and phone-calls between Airbus, the Saudi national airline and the Saudi Government" to gain this information. Mr Campbell also alleges that the US firm Raytheon used information picked up from NSA snooping to secure a $1.4bn contract to supply a radar system to Brazil instead of France's Thomson-CSF.
>former CIA director James Woolsey, in an article in March for the Wall Street Journal, acknowledged that the US did conduct economic espionage against its European allies, though he did not specify if Echelon was involved.
Who: NSA, What: Wind wheel for electricity generation, developed by Aloys Wobben, an engineer from East Frisia, Aim: Forwarding of technical details of Wobben's wind wheel to a US firm, Consequences: US firm patents the wind wheel before Wobben; (breach of patent rights)
Sounds exactly like "stealing trade secrets and giving them to a domestic company" to me.
I couldn't find the original source "Aktenkriegerì, SZ, 29 March 2001", but it sounds like a news report. If you can find the source, I would be happy to read it and judge it based upon its reported sources.
The European Parliament report cites a single journalist, Nicky Hager. This particular allegation was based on interviews with anonymous French intelligence sources.
Basically, the French government selectively leaked to a New Zealand journalist, to justify retaliation (tariffs at the EU level, which never materialized) against the US government for burning their Saudi deal.
There has never been any credible evidence that US intelligence agencies pass trade secrets to American companies.
True, and they are welcome to do so, though France might not be in the best position given the breadth and depth of its reported economic espionage of specific trade secrets and such.
Is it all basically posturing and everyone is stealing secrets from everyone whenever anyone can ???
I mean... does this just mean that the US is the only country that actually sued anyone for it ? I mean... even though we do the same thing too as anon1385 pointed out?
Our leaders ask for intelligence about the activities of foreign nations and foreign companies. The US naturally avoids such actions because we have, in many cases, the most to lose, and tu quoque leads to MAD.
I would also point out that U.S. law specifically criminalizes economic espionage on behalf of foreign governments, but economic espionage on behalf of the U.S. government is not illegal.
TL;DR: It's absurd to think that the NSA isn't spying for economic information. Tons of evidence has been presented.
1. The NSA have been implicated in economic hacking/spying/espionage throughout the Snowden leaks.
2. The only - ONLY - country to have engaged in cyber WARFARE, is the United States; by unleashing stuxnet/flame on another sovereign state.
This is beyond hypocritical of the Americans. Not only does the US violate their own and international laws but to have the gall to stand in front of the world and sanctimoniously blow their own trumpet, it's disgusting.
>1. The NSA have been implicated in economic hacking/spying/espionage throughout the Snowden leaks.
Do you have a source? Curious because I have only seen things related to eavesdropping or bulk data collection. I am wondering if I missed something major.
I see no proof on that page. I just see the word of a reporter, on most of his other reports there were links to slides or documents.
I hope this part is true:
>"What we do not do, as we have said many times, is use our foreign intelligence capabilities to steal the trade secrets of foreign companies on behalf of – or give intelligence we collect to – US companies to enhance their international competitiveness or increase their bottom line."
Sounds like they are capturing data like this but not giving it you. What would they need it for? I dont see an honest reason or response.
Without actually arguing truth or falsehood here, you realize you're basically saying any accusation made against the NSA must be true, because they're so evil, and the evidence of their evil is the accusations made against them?
Sure, maybe they are involved in industrial espionage, that would actually seem less insane than some of the other things they've been accused of, for which evidence actually exists, but arguing that it must be true because it has to be true is just using cynicism as an excuse for intellectual laziness.
I dont see anything in the article someone else brought up linking to a Snowden doc. I want to see the Snowden doc that talks about Petrobras specifically.
Glenn Greenwald didnt even write that article, thats another reason I am having problems with the credibility. It sounds like a Fox News type channel in Brazil is making accusations but I want evidence not hearsay.
Did you accidentally post the wrong links? None of those provided more than speculation about the scenario under discussion (spying on foreign companies and passing the data to domestic companies). Mostly, all they discuss is spying against foreign governments or on government owned companies.
I honestly thought it was a very public 'secret' that China and Chinese companies 'adopt' much of their technology from elsewhere. Why else are we advised to travel with (essentially) burner laptops and phones when in China?
Is that not the case? If it's not, is this really the first time the US has had ample evidence or incentive to move forward?
US-Sino relations are volatile. I'm sure this has been discussed privately for years, but it was politically risky to talk about publicly. This is the first time they decided to take it public with force.
"We are primarily a foreign-focused intelligence agency, with a signals intelligence role that can only be exercised for three limited purposes:
In the interests of national security
In the interests of the economic well-being of the UK
In support of the prevention or detection of serious crime."
How is the PLA hacking American companies and accessing designs different from the NSA hacking Huawei and accessing source code? Their justifications differ, but not their actions.
In case A, the PLA hands the data off to Chinese competitors for economic gain. In case B, no such activity happens. There's no economic leverage, just intel. We know the Chinese spy on us for strategic reasons, and we're not filing a case against that activity.
Basically, the military is acting as an arm of corporate espionage. That's a big no-no.
In case B, the NSA might not hand a briefcase of schematics to US companies for economic gain. But they have used stolen data to influence trade negotiations for the benefit of US companies. In both cases, the military could be said to have acted as an arm of corporate espionage, no?
Except corporate espionage is not just about economic leverage, it can also be just about intel. You don't have to steal IP for it to be corporate espionage.
Basically, the military is acting as an arm of corporate espionage. In the US.
specifically lists by topic "... the agency’s official mission list includes using its surveillance powers to achieve ... “economic advantage” over Japan and Brazil, among other countries."
Their own list of customers includes "United States Trade Representative"...
Combine the revolving door policy between .gov and .com with the merger of .com and .gov for all practical purposes, and ...
>They are being charged with economic hacking activities. Trade secrets were being lifted and handed to Chinese companies. An analog would be like the NSA harvesting data from Samsung and then passing it to Apple
Yes, of course, the bright red line isn't international espionage, it's economic espionage! [1]
The US is bombarded with the ideology that politics and economics are separate subjects. When naturally, the point of that distinction is to severely mislead. (Capitalism itself couldn't exist without a huge infrastructure of laws and violence which supports it, like violence towards people who violate abstract social rights to "property".)
I can't think of any other reason besides economic hacking activities for tapping into Angela Merkel's (or Dilma Roussef's, or any other head of state) cellphone.
So yeah, we do play this game too, at a different scale. Not petty IP theft, but geopolitical buggery.
> An analog would be like the NSA harvesting data from Samsung and then passing it to Apple, which is the type of stuff that we have no evidence of thus far.
Not entirely true. Years ago, there was a big scandal where Boeing and Airbus were in a bidding war, and a US intelligence agency passed some vital data to Boeing in order to ensure the economic health of a big military contractor. (Unfortunately I have trouble finding a good source; googling for Boeing/Airbus scandals turns up a crazy number of results. I now find myself wondering why the one I remembered stood out.)
There was clear information that "If Agency will find that information gathered from NSA program will benefit to US it will be used, even if it's private commercial information". So yes, it's related to NSA. And very funny.
And if you think metal and solar companies are the only one suffering these sorts of attacks, you're crazy. I think it's just that the other victims don't want to be named publicly for a variety of reasons. This sort of activity is a serious problem, but you can't just file charges all willy-nilly. Fortunately the U.S. already had economic actions in motion through resolution channels pertaining to the dumping of solar tech, so it makes this sort of thing much easier to do I think.