Industrial Espionage & Random Thoughts
Are we adequately monitoring what leaves our country?
Despite the propensity of Americans to buy lots of foreign products and its negative effect on our economy (through a negative balance of trade) what leaves our country as a legal or not so legal export is of greater concern. This comes down to a simple and basic premise for foreign countries and businesses – money! It is easier, quicker, and certainly cheaper for a foreign business or government to steal information than to spend time and lots of money to develop the products themselves.
This fleecing of America does not take place like some spy novel or movie. There rarely if ever foreign agents are skulking about offices or factories in the dead of night looking for the proverbial locked safe or file cabinet. The foreign agents are rarely directly stealing from us – instead they use Americans themselves to steal for them. Our citizens are rarely duped into providing information – that is too hard to do. They find a likely mark and make offers of cash that the morally and ethically deficient can’t seem to refuse. Yes, it’s true – some Americans are experts in selling out America. Fortunately the vast majority of Americans are patriotic and industrious.
What to do?
1. The Patriot Act – it is not patriotic and many true American patriots find the liberty and privacy curtailing or limiting amendments in direct contravention to the basic foundations laid out in the Constitution of the United States. We have seen this week the FBI admit that it has spied and collected information on hundreds if not thousands of Americans WITHOUT CAUSE. It has tried to cover up its’ transgressions by issuing blanket orders or memorandum retroactively ‘authorizing’ the obviously illegal activity. If you as a citizen did the things that the FBI did in the name of fighting terrorism or supposedly protecting us from terrorists YOU WOULD GO TO JAIL. Illegal is illegal whether it is a private citizen or a government official who does it. The government has power based on the consent (direct or implied) of the governed and CANNOT transgress the boundaries it is given. The ‘Bang for the Buck’ of the Patriot Act is not worth its impact on the liberty and freedom of American citizens. It is time to repeal this ‘feel good’ politically expedient measure forced upon the unwitting citizens of the USA. Stop spying on honest Americans and let’s focus on the real enemies of the United States – foreign national or foreign business spies. The Patriot Act wastes limited resources and costs too much in freedom & liberty.
2. Human intelligence – let us rebuild the human intelligence network that we had during the Cold War. Our reliance on technology has been a failure in the war in Iraq and Afghanistan – it has provided some benefits, but once again the best intelligence in a low technology environment is human intelligence. Let’s STOP wasting so much of the taxpayer’s money buying more and more gadgets and stuff that does not meet the needs those fighting terrorism and transnational crime syndicates. Continue research and development, but how many contractors do we really need to have providing various systems to the government for intelligence gathering? I don’t know, but I’m sure that there are not millions of dollars of potential savings, but billions. Let’s do a high level audit of what the money is being spent on and cut off the taxpayer funded gravy train. It is probably a lot cheaper to higher several dozen agents than to fund one more high technology intelligence initiative (especially when there is little and usually no public oversight of these ‘black box’ programs).
3. Initiate a public program of awareness to the dangers of industrial espionage – During the first and second world wars there were poster campaigns with slogans such as ‘Loose Lips Sink Ships’. An equivalent program of awareness focused on our high technology and sensitive industries would bring to the forefront the costs and dangers for foreign industrial espionage. The general public is not aware of the high cost of foreign spying on the nation’s economy. We won the Cold War with the USSR by outspending them on defense. We will lose the next war unless we reestablish America’s position as a world leader in not only information technology or research, but in manufacturing. We can’t afford to outsource to foreign nations the industries necessary to the defense of our homeland.
The final post in this series will be on immigration and border security.
Are we adequately monitoring what leaves our country?
Despite the propensity of Americans to buy lots of foreign products and its negative effect on our economy (through a negative balance of trade) what leaves our country as a legal or not so legal export is of greater concern. This comes down to a simple and basic premise for foreign countries and businesses – money! It is easier, quicker, and certainly cheaper for a foreign business or government to steal information than to spend time and lots of money to develop the products themselves.
This fleecing of America does not take place like some spy novel or movie. There rarely if ever foreign agents are skulking about offices or factories in the dead of night looking for the proverbial locked safe or file cabinet. The foreign agents are rarely directly stealing from us – instead they use Americans themselves to steal for them. Our citizens are rarely duped into providing information – that is too hard to do. They find a likely mark and make offers of cash that the morally and ethically deficient can’t seem to refuse. Yes, it’s true – some Americans are experts in selling out America. Fortunately the vast majority of Americans are patriotic and industrious.
What to do?
1. The Patriot Act – it is not patriotic and many true American patriots find the liberty and privacy curtailing or limiting amendments in direct contravention to the basic foundations laid out in the Constitution of the United States. We have seen this week the FBI admit that it has spied and collected information on hundreds if not thousands of Americans WITHOUT CAUSE. It has tried to cover up its’ transgressions by issuing blanket orders or memorandum retroactively ‘authorizing’ the obviously illegal activity. If you as a citizen did the things that the FBI did in the name of fighting terrorism or supposedly protecting us from terrorists YOU WOULD GO TO JAIL. Illegal is illegal whether it is a private citizen or a government official who does it. The government has power based on the consent (direct or implied) of the governed and CANNOT transgress the boundaries it is given. The ‘Bang for the Buck’ of the Patriot Act is not worth its impact on the liberty and freedom of American citizens. It is time to repeal this ‘feel good’ politically expedient measure forced upon the unwitting citizens of the USA. Stop spying on honest Americans and let’s focus on the real enemies of the United States – foreign national or foreign business spies. The Patriot Act wastes limited resources and costs too much in freedom & liberty.
2. Human intelligence – let us rebuild the human intelligence network that we had during the Cold War. Our reliance on technology has been a failure in the war in Iraq and Afghanistan – it has provided some benefits, but once again the best intelligence in a low technology environment is human intelligence. Let’s STOP wasting so much of the taxpayer’s money buying more and more gadgets and stuff that does not meet the needs those fighting terrorism and transnational crime syndicates. Continue research and development, but how many contractors do we really need to have providing various systems to the government for intelligence gathering? I don’t know, but I’m sure that there are not millions of dollars of potential savings, but billions. Let’s do a high level audit of what the money is being spent on and cut off the taxpayer funded gravy train. It is probably a lot cheaper to higher several dozen agents than to fund one more high technology intelligence initiative (especially when there is little and usually no public oversight of these ‘black box’ programs).
3. Initiate a public program of awareness to the dangers of industrial espionage – During the first and second world wars there were poster campaigns with slogans such as ‘Loose Lips Sink Ships’. An equivalent program of awareness focused on our high technology and sensitive industries would bring to the forefront the costs and dangers for foreign industrial espionage. The general public is not aware of the high cost of foreign spying on the nation’s economy. We won the Cold War with the USSR by outspending them on defense. We will lose the next war unless we reestablish America’s position as a world leader in not only information technology or research, but in manufacturing. We can’t afford to outsource to foreign nations the industries necessary to the defense of our homeland.
The final post in this series will be on immigration and border security.
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