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.

Here is an example:

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.

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.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enercon#Patent_dispute "the patent in question was registered in 1991, three years before the alleged espionage event"

what does any of this mean ????

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?

To be fair, I do agree with you.

There have been many, many stories published in the world's leading newspapers about NSA industrial espionage:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/nsa-busted-conducting-industria...

The NSA's own slides list "economic" as one of the main reasons for spying. And none of this is at all new:

https://www.fas.org/irp/program/process/991101-echelon-mj.ht...

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/1999/11/outfront-0

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.

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.

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 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.

Come on. Wake up. They crossed every single line so far anyone can imagine. Of course they're doing industrial espionage.

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.

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.

Link:http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/09/nsa-spying-braz...

http://g1.globo.com/fantastico/noticia/2013/09/nsa-documents...

>Interviewer: Did the NSA help to create Stuxnet? (Stuxnet is the computer worm that was deployed against the Iranian nuclear program.)

Snowden: NSA and Israel co-wrote it.

This sort of activity is a serious problem, and the NSA does engage in it. The US is no better than other countries in this regard.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/09/nsa-spying-braz...

http://thehill.com/policy/international/198506-report-spies-...

http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/09/12/huawei_ac...

http://www.globalresearch.ca/nsa-busted-conducting-industria...

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?

http://www.gchq.gov.uk/how_we_work/running_the_business/over...

"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."

Basically, the military is acting as an arm of corporate espionage. That's a big no-no.

Saying that the NSA wouldn't do that is stupid, and anybody who says otherwise is either ignorant or otherwise malicious.

The US government aids its corporations in every way it can, and it has done so throughout its history.

Basically, the military is acting as an arm of corporate espionage. In the US.

Not so. I apologize for putting you in the position of trying to prove a negative but

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/03/world/no-morsel-too-minusc...

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 ...

Yes, of course, the bright red line isn't international espionage, it's economic espionage! [1]

[1]http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/09/nsa-spying-braz...

So yeah, we do play this game too, at a different scale. Not petty IP theft, but geopolitical buggery.

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.)