- For the second successive year, Israel again features
prominently in a joint CIA-FBI report on industrial espionage in the U.S.
Named as one of 23 countries engaged in industrial, economic and trade
espionage in theU.S., Israel is listed alongside other "friendly"
nations like France and Japan, and rival or hostile states like Russia,
China, Iran and Cuba.
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- The report is the third of its kind, but the first after
the passage of a new law providing for sanctions against companies or foreign
agents engaged in illegal espionage in the U.S. Last January General Motors
won damages of $100 million from a foreign company that had developed a
vehicle on the basis of data stolen from their offices.
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- Last year's report sparked considerable anger in Congress,
especially against the "friendly" countries it named. Most of
the espionage this year was in the field of hi-tech, against companies
like IBM, Corning, Honeywell, Eastman-Kodak, IT&T and General Electric.
In some cases, the report claims, the spying countries intended to use
the stolen data to develop weapons systems including non-conventional ones.
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- A senior Israeli official expressed concern that the
report might "cause problems" for some Israeli companies operating
in the U.S. but rejected its findings. "Not everything that looks
like industrial espionage is in fact illegal," he said. "It is
often a case of using legitimate means to get information in an open and
free country. The U.S. does exactly the same thing in other countries."
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