, and the Directorate of Surveillance and Terrorism, its equivalent of the FBI, play a major role in conducting economic espionage. Surveillance and Terrorism monitors personnel and communications inside France, including telephone conversations and faxes, and even began in the early 1970s to bug Air France flights from New York to Paris. It has also been known to conduct "bag" operations in hotels whereby it surreptitiously opens suitcases and uses bribes and prostitutes to compromise employees who can supply information or provide access (Schweizer, 1993). France prides itself on having one of the world's strictest laws on the abuse of personal data, but its intelligence services are not held accountable to these same personal protection laws. Two special units of the Directorate of General Information, which report to the Ministry of the Interior, gather domestic intelligence for the government, specifically collecting information on foreigners in France and on French employees working for foreign firms. The Directorate General of the External and the Directorate of General Information continually match up information from their databases regarding foreign companies and personnel. When a particular target is identified, individuals are sometimes placed in "deep cover" within a foreign firm without revealing their true allegiance (Schweizer, 1993, 110-111; Madsen, 1993, 423). Japan To the Japanese, objectivity and insight can be obtained only when...
