Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.news From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: Firms need protection from spies, panel says Date: Fri, 20 Nov 92 15:30:30 EST Message-ID: \SE A;NATION \HD Firms need protection from spies, panel says \BY Bill Gertz \CR THE WASHINGTON TIMES American businesses operating overseas do not want the CIA to collect economic intelligence for them but need help to thwart hostile spying, said the chairman of a State Department advisory panel. "We don't need, nor do we want, the American intelligence community to spy on foreign companies for our benefit," said Robert R. Burke, corporate security director for Monsanto Corp. American businesses need help in dealing with the growing problem of foreign intelligence services stealing corporate trade secrets, Mr. Burke told the gathering of several hundred security officials. He spoke before the annual meeting of the State Department's Overseas Security Advisory Council (OSAC) on Wednesday. "We want counterintelligence," Mr. Burke said. "We want help when we are targeted." Some intelligence specialists, including former CIA Director Stansfield Turner, have called for the CIA and other agencies to acquire business secrets abroad for American corporations. CIA Director Robert Gates has flatly rejected calls for an industrial spying mission because of legal and ethical problems. The OSAC is an advisory group made up of 21 major U.S. corporations and four government agencies. Its constituents include 1,250 corporations. The group was founded in 1985 to deal with terrorist attacks abroad. Recently, it has focused its attention on protecting information from spies. An OSAC report released at the meeting stated that foreign intelligence services have made "strenuous efforts" to benefit national industries through economic spying. Mr. Burke led OSAC's Committee on Information Protection, which produced the report. The panel included the security directors for Deere & Co., McDonald's Corp., McDonnell Douglas Corp., General Motors Corp. and the U.S. Information Agency. "These efforts included eavesdropping, hotel room burglaries, and introduction of 'moles,' as well as other sophisticated intelligence techniques," the report, "Guidelines for Protecting U.S. Business Information Overseas," said. "Our foreign competitors' interest in our information has never been more intense." The report adds that business communications overseas are "extremely vulnerable" to interception by spies. It recommends that companies protect their communications by coding all telephone, fax and data transmissions. "Economic espionage, serious today, will certainly continue to increase as international relations become more and more a matter of economic, rather than military competition," the report said. Clark Dittmer, OSAC chairman and director of the State Department's diplomatic security service, announced Wednesday that the U.S. government was lifting restrictions on American companies who want to purchase secure telephones to stop electronic eavesdropping overseas. The STU-III (secure telephone unit) is a relatively low-cost device that private companies have not previously been allowed to use outside the United States. Mr. Burke said U.S. firms are capable of protecting themselves from industrial spying by domestic and foreign competitors. But they need government help against foreign intelligence services. They need to know what to protect against, what kinds of technology are being used against them, the techniques being used and which U.S. companies are being targeted for spying, he said. This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM