Fine Line Seen in U.S. Spying on Companies (NSA)
Source: New York Times
By DAVID E. SANGER MAY 20, 2014
WASHINGTON — The National Security Agency has never said what it was seeking when it invaded the computers of Petrobras, Brazil’s huge national oil company, but angry Brazilians have guesses: the company’s troves of data on Brazil’s offshore oil reserves, or perhaps its plans for allocating licenses for exploration to foreign companies.
SNIP (CHINA EXAMPLES)
Then there is Joaquín Almunia, the antitrust commissioner of the European Commission. He runs no company, but has punished many, including Microsoft and Intel, and just reached a tentative accord with Google that will greatly change how it operates in Europe.
In each of these cases, American officials insist, when speaking off the record, that the United States was never acting on behalf of specific American companies. But the government does not deny it routinely spies to advance American economic advantage, which is part of its broad definition of how it protects American national security. In short, the officials say, while the N.S.A. cannot spy on Airbus and give the results to Boeing, it is free to spy on European or Asian trade negotiators and use the results to help American trade officials — and, by extension, the American industries and workers they are trying to bolster.
Now, every one of the examples of N.S.A. spying on corporations around the world is becoming Exhibit A in China’s argument that by indicting five members of the People’s Liberation Army, the Obama administration is giving new meaning to capitalistic hypocrisy. In the Chinese view, the United States has designed its own system of rules about what constitutes “legal” spying and what is illegal.
SNIP
Andrew W. Lehren contributed reporting from New York and James Glanz from Washington. A version of this article appears in print on May 21, 2014, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Fine Line Seen in U.S. Spying on Companies.© 2014 The New York Times Company
Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/21/business/us-snoo
Note:
It's okay for the domestic enemy agency, the NSA, to spy on trade negotiations -- but it's not okay for YOU to know what's being negotiated!
Also, the hilarity that the NSA doesn't provide direct advantage to companies, except by assisting "trade negotiations" (synonym for controlled economic warfare). Here's the rationale: "One reason for that policy, officials say, is that unlike the Chinese they would not know which companies to help: Apple but not Dell? Google but not Yahoo?"
Yeah, well, the behind-the-scenes bidding system (the "market"
can take care of that. Since 2/3 of top secret America is the private contractors, it's a question of Apple or Dell or whomever hiring Booz Allen and the like as "consultants" who will pony up a re-chewed version of what they accessed in NSA operations as though they found it independently. Win-win-win!!!
Assuming anything the lying liars from Clapper on down say is ever true.
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