In the post Cold War era increasing international economic competition has redefined the context for espionage as nations link their national security to their economic security. Proprietary economic information meant to be secret is stolen with losses estimated anywhere between $24 and 100 billion. In this climate of distrust, intelligence services are expanding from their primary focus on military secrets to collecting economic secrets, i. e., to conducting economic espionage. Since cessation of the Cold War, the most virulent offenders have been former military allies of the United States. Economic espionage poses a real threat to America's economic future, yet outside of the intelligence community, few know about it. The author attempts to close this information gap by defining economic espionage, and by discussing the methods used to obtain trade secrets from U. S. corporations. He also provides an overview of legislation used in fighting economic espionage and the impact of the Economic Espionage Act of 1996, which is aimed at strengthening efforts at preventing it. Full Text: COPYRIGHT 1997 American Society for Public Administration Introduction Throughout history, espionage has generally been viewed as an activity conducted by spies to obtain the military secrets of an enemy. Some of the most successful and well-known examples of espionage include England's use of spies to uncover the military information that helped to defeat the Spanish Armada in 1588; the use ...
