Should the US engage in espionage for economic gain?
Economic espionage is common across the world: Many countries use their intelligence apparatus to steal foreign trade secrets for the benefit of their own private sectors.
The US, however, publicly opposes this kind of spying for economic gain on moral grounds and insists it does not participate.
Should it?
A panel of cybersecurity and legal experts debated this question at an event hosted by the Atlantic Council think tank in Washington. Passcode was the exclusive media partner for this Cyber Risk Wednesday event largely focusing on whether or not the US should engage in corporate espionage.
Here are three things we learned:听
1. The US may be nearly alone in seeking this moral high ground.
Corporate espionage is not currently illegal under international law on the international field, the experts said, and local laws prohibiting it are often ignored. 鈥淎ll espionage violates local law, and [yet] it鈥檚 practiced by every nation in the world,鈥� said Stewart Baker, partner at international law firm Steptoe and Johnson, and former general counsel to the National Security Agency.
Absent strong legal disincentives, the US has sought to discourage this behavior. It鈥檚 been largely unsuccessful, said Dmitri Alperovitch, cofounder and chief technology officer of security firm CrowdStrike. 鈥淭he reality is that we鈥檝e been trying to create a norm against this type of conduct for decades. Not only can we not convince the challenging partners like China and Russia, we can鈥檛 even convince our closest friends.鈥澨�
2. The US likely hasn鈥檛 joined the espionage fray because it doesn鈥檛 need to 鈥� for now.
The US, Mr. Alperovitch said, is currently leading the world in technological innovation, and thus has little incentive to conduct corporate espionage for its own economic gain. Should the US fall behind, though, he notes that could change. 鈥淚f in 30 to 40 years, God forbid, we鈥檙e no longer No. 1,鈥� Alperovitch said, 鈥渁re we really going to take the same approach to get to first place鈥� that we鈥檒l never do [corporate espionage]? I鈥檓 dubious of that.鈥�
3. As a country鈥檚 economic standing improves, its stance on espionage might change, too. 听
Countries such as China and Russia, said Harvey Rishikof, chair of the American Bar Association鈥檚 advisory committee on law and national security, will likely become more protective of their intellectual property as they develop more of it. 听
鈥淎s our adversaries begin to understand their own innovations听[and] once they have their own things to protect," Mr. Rishikof said, "they鈥檒l understand why it鈥檚 a bad thing to go forward and have someone try听[to steal it].鈥�
Two Notable quotes:
Mr. Rishikof on the jurisdictional听difficulty facing the US government when it comes to cracking down on those who carry out economic espionage: 鈥淲e can indict individuals. But if we cannot enforce the indictment 鈥� and at the same time that country uses other apparatuses in order to get around those indictments 鈥� that鈥檚 a problem.鈥�
Mr. Baker on how the US does not have the close relationship between the government and the private sector required for听corporate espionage:听鈥淵ou need what amounts to state champions who are well-integrated into the government, in a way that frankly US industry simply isn鈥檛,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e鈥檇 get the occasional secret, but we wouldn鈥檛 get the things that are most valuable to the companies that we most wanted to help.鈥�
Notable Tweet:
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