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Former CIA Director Says US Economic Spying Targets "European Bribery" - Duncan Campbell
Former United States Central Intelligence Agency director James Woolsey confirmed in Washington this week that the US steals economic secrets "with espionage, with communications [intelligence], with reconnaissance satellites", and that there was now "some increased emphasis" on economic intelligence. He claimed that economic spying was justified because European companies had a "national culture" of bribery and were the "principle offenders from the point of view of paying bribes in major international contracts in the world". Responding to the European Parliament report on interception capabilities and the Echelon satellite surveillance system, Woolsey said that the "Interception Capabilities 2000" report which had been presented to the parliament's Citizens' Rights Committee on 23 February, was "intellectually honest". In two cases cited in the report, "the fact [is] that the subject of American intelligence collection was bribery." I don't call it industrial espionage if the United States spies on a European corporation to find out if it is bribing its way to contracts in Asia or Latin America that it can't win honestly."
There are some areas of technology where American industry is behind those of companies in other countries. [But] by and large American companies have no need nor interest in stealing foreign technology in order to stay ahead". But if US intelligence did compile intelligence on technical breakthroughs by foreign companies, Woolsey believed that this would be passed on.
Woolsey says, "there are European countries where .. if you leave your briefcase when you go to dinner, if you're a businessman and there's anything sensitive in it, you should have your head examined".
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