
The U.S. Government's Secret Plans to Spy for American Corporations - Libertatea
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/09/05/us-governments-plans-use-economic-espionage-benefit-american-corporations/
======
alrs
This is shockingly old news. I can't find the LA Times article on this from
1999, but here's a story from the Independent, circa 2000:

"Documents obtained by the Independent on Sunday reveal how the CIA and
National Security Agency (NSA) - propelled by the newly-elected Clinton
administration's policy of 'aggressive advocacy' to support American firms
compete for overseas contracts - have immersed themselves in the new hot trade
war. Targets have included UK and European firms. At stake are contracts worth
billions of dollars."

[https://web.archive.org/web/20110901092355/http://www.indepe...](https://web.archive.org/web/20110901092355/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/the-
new-cold-war-how-america-spies-on-us-for-its-oldest-friend--the-
dollar-707550.html)

EDIT: found it. Covered in the US press in February 2000:

[http://articles.latimes.com/2000/feb/24/news/mn-2072](http://articles.latimes.com/2000/feb/24/news/mn-2072)

EDIT AGAIN: And while I'm in the mood for digging, here's a story from 1995.
French caught CIA engaging in economic espionage:

"In the French operation, the CIA was, in effect, spying for Hollywood: At
least part of the mission was reportedly designed to determine the strength of
the French bargaining position in television and telecommunications trade
negotiations. The United States was opposed to French demands to restrict
imports of U.S. television programming into Europe."

[http://articles.latimes.com/1995-10-11/news/mn-55816_1_cia-o...](http://articles.latimes.com/1995-10-11/news/mn-55816_1_cia-
officials)

~~~
otakucode
It's long been known that the CIA is actively involved in all sorts of foreign
espionage and operations to forward American business interests. I mean, hell,
just look at Panama. We firebombed their capital city because the president
had the gall to say that he wanted to hire Panamanian companies to do
construction and maintenance on the Panama Canal after we ceded ownership back
to them. The US government claimed that this was, somehow, 'socialism' and
launched an attack. They've done similar things all over South America for
decades. The CIA is the biggest enemy of democracy outside of the US, and the
NSA is the biggest enemy of democracy inside of it.

------
mackeeeavelli
Infuriatingly, they do this only for the largest US companies while small
business in America is left to fend for itself. Travel to China or Russia much
as a small business?

One example: [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-15/china-corporate-
esp...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-15/china-corporate-espionage-
boom-knocks-wind-out-of-u-s-companies.html)

If your counterparty has the right relationships as the provincial or state
level you're a target. This, FCPA, DCMA... US small business plays by a set of
lofty one-sided rules.

~~~
phkahler
Yes, the question not talked about in the article is how to disseminate the
information to US companies. You'd have to be part of the club. And then it
raises the question if the big guys spy on our own smaller companies that are
not part of the club.

~~~
otakucode
You have to realize the mindset of the people who support and go about these
sorts of things. First off, obviously, they are fine with 'cheating' in any
form so long as it is for 'our team'. They don't believe in 'fair play' at all
and think things like open and fair elections, economic competition, etc are
all just fantasies sold to the rubes of the public to keep them complacent.
They believe strongly that the only way to actually survive is for 'hard men'
to be in the shadows making 'hard choices' (choices so hard that they always
involve stomping an innocent to death 99% of the time).

But it's more than that. When they look at America and its position on the
world stage, it sees various pillars holding up America. The major industries
and areas in which America leads the world. Things like media publishing, for
instance. The reason it is so easy for an MPAA/RIAA shill to get the ear of a
Congressperson is because they know how Congresspeople think. While the public
sees a beautiful alternative, with artists selling their work directly to the
public, tens or hundreds of thousands of them all making a decent living from
their work, the only thing a Congressperson sees is a swarm of rats gnawing
through one of the pillars that holds the country up. Decentralization is an
abject horror to them. Centralization of power and wealth is the way they are
convinced that the world works. Centralization, of course, as we now know,
breeds very brittle systems. They become lethargic and incapable of fending
off competition from more agile players. So there is a constant battle to keep
the smaller players suppressed and lots of running around putting out fires
trying to prop up the bloated, inefficient centralized 'pillars'.

~~~
sliverstorm
_They don 't believe in 'fair play' at all_

I would bet a lot of that has to do with the Prisoner's Dilemma more than
ethics.

 _always involve stomping an innocent to death 99% of the time_

Err... are you being hyperbolic? Or metaphoric? Or do you really believe that
is what our statesmen spend their days doing?

------
jimmyfalcon
A personal principle I have is that you cannot contain secrets because they
inevitably leak. So the starting assumption must be, can you deal with a leak?

I imagine that they would have had similar conversations when the corporates
joined the "club" for getting information. What is the downside to
participating in this? Maybe you get shits from media for a bit and then
everyone forgets and you carry on in your business.

Having come from another country, I am truly glad that US residents are far
more sensitive (therefore downsides are higher for US corporates), Chinese
people for example, don't care as much and as a result corporates can get away
with more and consciously choose to do more

~~~
__m
Far more sensitive? I doubt that they care that other countries suffer from
it, after all "everybody spies".

------
legutierr
One seemingly trivial (but potentially significant) thing about Greenwald and
Obidyar's new venture that just bugs me is that "The Intercept" doesn't have
its own domain name, and instead appears as a subdirectory inside of the
firstlook.org site.

I know that First Look Media is going to play host to more than just this one
publication (if you look at the homepage, there is a blog post from Matt
Taibbi talking about his new collaboration with the organization), but that
arrangement is not unique to First Look. It doesn't take a lot of effort to
come up with a whole host of publications that operate under larger corporate
umbrellas but which are accessible via their own independent domain name, even
when they share resources with other sites. And I can't think of a single
publication that is set up the way that The Intercept is.

I'm a longtime Greenwald reader (back from when he first joined Salon.com),
and yet I don't think I have visited The Intercept's homepage directly (typing
out the url myself) even once since it got off the ground. I don't know why I
haven't; I guess it just feels amateurish to nest a substantive news site
inside a boring corporate holding company website. It feels like they don't
care about building "The Intercept" as a meaningful brand, and as a result I
probably don't want to build any personal loyalty to a brand that feels like
it might just go away. I say this as someone who completely supports the
effort.

I also wonder how this might impact their search results, given that the
firstlook.org homepage is effectively a non-entity, and each subdirectory will
need to be separately indexed as separate site (for instance,
firstlook.org/theinterscept/ has its own sitemap.xml).

What's even weirder to me is that it seems like they even own
theintercept.com, which is currently redirecting to
firstlook.org/theintercept/. Why don't they use it? It can't only be me. This
has to be affecting their readership.

~~~
dan_bk
How is any of that relevant? Completely off-topic.

~~~
legutierr
Perhaps off-topic with regards to the contents of this article, but as someone
who wants to see information like this disseminated to a large audience, I
think that decisions like this that may hurt that effort are relevant.

In building an audience on the web, we claw after increased traffic by playing
with anything that could change user behavior. Domain names have an effect.

Maybe I'm wrong, and the specific issue I'm raising doesn't have any bearing
on anything at all. But if I'm right, I think it matters. Most of the Snowden
leaks are now being disseminated through The Intercept; if you care about this
story you should care about the medium through which it is delivered. If you
want to see these stories lead to change, you should want as many people to
read them as possible.

------
icantthinkofone
If it's a "secret plan", how do they know about it?

~~~
icantthinkofone
I always valued HN over reddit. Obviously I'm wrong.

