Nations Built on Lies - How the US Became Rich: Part 6b
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Bill Totten
Jan 16, 2022, 9:59:17 PM1/16/22
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Nations Built on Lies - How the US Became Rich: Part 6b
by Larry Romanoff
https://www.bluemoonofshanghai.com (January 13 2021)
http://dxczjjuegupb.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/MilIndComplex-680x496_c.jpg
6b - Some ECHELON Examples
There are many cases of industrial espionage and/or competitive intelligence that have been reported in various media. Often, the CIA, the NSA, the US Department of Commerce, the US State Department, American embassies, and other US agencies act as a coordinated team.
The US has for years regretted the fact that its wind and solar energy technologies were far behind those of China and Germany, so when the German firm Enercon produced a new wind turbine with compellingly attractive technical and competitive features the CIA and NSA went into combined action. The CIA illegally acquired all the technical information on this new product, while the NSA hacked into the systems and acquired the codes needed to enter and shut down Enercon wind generators so the technology and software could be copied. {27} {28} {29} {30} The two agencies then patriotically delivered all the collected information to an American firm, Kenetech, who then filed for US patents on the product, software, and systems. Enercon, the German firm that invented this technology, was then prohibited from exporting its own wind turbines to the US, and was sued in US courts by the US company Kenentech for breach of patent rights (on its own products!) on the grounds that Enercon (the German company) had obtained commercial secrets illegally! {31} {32} {33}
As President Obama has so frequently told us, "If the playing field is level, America will always win".
Then, to complete the leveling of the playing field which the Americans so much admire, the US government arranged to have a federal grand jury charge China-based Sinovel and two of its senior executives for allegedly stealing wind turbine software source code from a US engineering firm. {34} {35} In fact, the Chinese firm had a clear contractual right to use and amend the source code in question, but the US Commerce Department strongly supported the charade since the legal intimidation of a grand jury is powerful, and raising an adequate defense even in conditions of clear innocence requires an enormous expense in funds and management time, sufficient to slow China down.
Volkswagen accidentally discovered a large array of microphones and infrared cameras on its property, hidden in places from board rooms to lawn grass, that were transmitting images, technical specifications, and information about new VW autos. Volkswagen discovered that their executive videoconferences had been recorded, including conversations on new products, price lists, secret plans for new auto plants, and plans for an especially attractive new small car. All of this information was tracked to the NSA, who had already forwarded all of it to General Motors and its Opel subsidiary in Germany. Volkswagen claimed this one act of espionage and the passing of information to its American competitors had caused losses of hundreds of millions of dollars. And Volkswagen can do nothing, still subject to the forced agreement that "Germany shall in the future raise no objections against the measures which have been, or will be, carried out with regard to German assets ...".
"If the playing field is level, America will always win".
Japanese automakers fared no better. At the request of the US president, the CIA spied on Japanese auto manufacturers, intercepting and recording information on their design plans for zero-emission cars, forwarding that information to US car manufacturers Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler. The New York Times reported that the NSA and the CIA's Tokyo station were involved in providing detailed information to US Trade negotiators in Geneva, facing Japanese car companies in a trade dispute. The Japanese accused the NSA of continuing to monitor the communications of Japanese companies on behalf of American companies. The CIA also hacked into the computer system of the Japanese Trade Ministry while that country was negotiating with the US on import limitations for Japanese cars. Having learned the Japanese position, the US was able to demand much lower auto import quotas than it had anticipated.
With the ECHELON program still in full force, spying on, and hacking into, foreign government departments is a specialty of the NSA and CIA, whether those governments are friends or enemies. {36} {37} Some years ago, the NSA intercepted faxes and telephone calls concerning purchase negotiations between Airbus and the Saudi Arabian national airline. After forwarding this information to Airbus's US competitors, Boeing and McDonnell-Douglas, the Americans won the $6 billion contract.
The Brazilian government awarded the French firm Thomson-Alcatel a major multi-billion-dollar contract for the satellite monitoring of the Amazon Basin. After the CIA and NSA intercepted government communications relating to the contract, the US had enough information to exert extreme pressure on Brazil to renege on the agreement, and the contract was then awarded to the US firm Raytheon. {38} {39} {40} {41} {42} {43} {44} In a similar case, the NSA intercepted messages about an impending $200 million deal between Indonesia and the Japanese satellite manufacturer NEC Corporation. After US intervention on behalf of American manufacturers, the contract was split between NEC and AT&T.
In another major case, the US President ordered the NSA and FBI to mount a massive surveillance operation at an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) conference, to be held in Seattle. One intelligence source for the story related that over 300 hotel rooms had been bugged for the event. The effort was designed to obtain information regarding Asian oil and hydroelectric deals, with all information then passed on to high-level US government officials connected to American companies competing for the contracts.
Bribery is related to this category of acquiring wealth by stealth. The US is famous for its hypocrisy in condemning any foreign nation or corporation clumsy enough to be caught offering bribes, but it has a long history of paying bribes to obtain commercial contracts for its multinationals. Commercial and military aircraft constitute one area where the US has been especially active, having for one example paid substantial bribes to at least Italy, Belgium, and Germany to purchase the US-based Lockheed F-104 aircraft, and bribes on behalf of Boeing are no longer news. Also, we have been told of many claims of US state-sponsored bribery in the cause of US firms. Often a nation is promised political or diplomatic benefits if it supports the free rampaging of US multinationals such as banks, in a domestic market. Much of this falls into the category of state-sponsored extortion, a category in which the US excels.
Notes:
{27} https://www.lewrockwell.com/2013/06/william-blum/what-the-spy-state-missed-about-edward-snowden/
{28} https://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2013/06/28/the-nsa-and-cias-dilemma/
{29} https://www.euractiv.com/section/global-europe/news/berlin-tells-cia-station-chief-to-leave-in-spy-scandal/
{30} https://williamblum.org/aer/read/118
{31} https://panchabuta.wordpress.com/2011/02/04/enercon-loses-patent-battle-in-chennai-court-finds-decison-alarming-warns-wind-industry-and-wtg-oems/
{32} https://www.windpowermonthly.com/article/960011/trans-atlantic-espionage-claimed-german-wind-company
{33} https://postmanpatel.blogspot.com/2008/05/enercon-v-echelon-how-comercial.html
{34} http://www.sinovel.com/english/about/?31.html
{35} https://money.cnn.com/2018/01/25/technology/china-us-sinovel-theft-conviction/index.html
{36} https://www.thedrum.com/news/2013/08/26/nsa-accused-hacking-un-internal-video-conferences-year
{37} http://www.attivissimo.net/security/echelon/echelon-europarliament-report.htm
{38} https://www.gpdr.org/industrial-spy
{39} https://yogaesoteric.net/echelon-the-start-of-britains-modern-day-spying-operations/
{40} https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-security-brazil-spying-idUSBRE98411420130905
{41} https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-security-latinamerica-idUSBRE96816H20130709
{42} https://www.reuters.com/article/brazil-usa-espionage-idUSL2N0PL27W20140710
{43} https://www.pressreader.com/usa/richmond-times-dispatch/20130903/281487864018375
{44} https://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/defence-watch/did-nsa-spying-on-brazil-allow-gripen-to-win-a-fight-aircraft-contract-and-cost-boeing-billions-of-dollars/
Image credit: https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202109/17/WS6143dbbda310e0e3a6822281.html
Mr Romanoff's writing has been translated into 32 languages and his articles posted on more than 150 foreign-language news and politics websites in more than 30 countries, as well as more than 100 English language platforms. Larry Romanoff is a retired management consultant and businessman. He has held senior executive positions in international consulting firms and owned an international import-export business. He has been a visiting professor at Shanghai's Fudan University, presenting case studies in international affairs to senior EMBA classes. Mr Romanoff lives in Shanghai and is currently writing a series of ten books generally related to China and the West. He is one of the contributing authors to Cynthia McKinney's new anthology When China Sneezes (2020). His full archive can be seen at https://www.moonofshanghai.com/ and http://www.bluemoonofshanghai.com/. He can be contacted at: 21866...@qq.com
Copyright (c) Larry Romanoff, Moon of Shanghai, Blue Moon of Shanghai, 2021
https://www.bluemoonofshanghai.com/politics/5268/
TO POST A COMMENT, OR TO READ COMMENTS POSTED BY OTHERS, please click
the appropriate link at the top or bottom of https://billtotten.wpcomstaging.com/2022/01/17/nations-built-on-lies-how-the-us-became-rich-part-6b/
by Larry Romanoff
https://www.bluemoonofshanghai.com (January 13 2021)
http://dxczjjuegupb.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/MilIndComplex-680x496_c.jpg
6b - Some ECHELON Examples
There are many cases of industrial espionage and/or competitive intelligence that have been reported in various media. Often, the CIA, the NSA, the US Department of Commerce, the US State Department, American embassies, and other US agencies act as a coordinated team.
The US has for years regretted the fact that its wind and solar energy technologies were far behind those of China and Germany, so when the German firm Enercon produced a new wind turbine with compellingly attractive technical and competitive features the CIA and NSA went into combined action. The CIA illegally acquired all the technical information on this new product, while the NSA hacked into the systems and acquired the codes needed to enter and shut down Enercon wind generators so the technology and software could be copied. {27} {28} {29} {30} The two agencies then patriotically delivered all the collected information to an American firm, Kenetech, who then filed for US patents on the product, software, and systems. Enercon, the German firm that invented this technology, was then prohibited from exporting its own wind turbines to the US, and was sued in US courts by the US company Kenentech for breach of patent rights (on its own products!) on the grounds that Enercon (the German company) had obtained commercial secrets illegally! {31} {32} {33}
As President Obama has so frequently told us, "If the playing field is level, America will always win".
Then, to complete the leveling of the playing field which the Americans so much admire, the US government arranged to have a federal grand jury charge China-based Sinovel and two of its senior executives for allegedly stealing wind turbine software source code from a US engineering firm. {34} {35} In fact, the Chinese firm had a clear contractual right to use and amend the source code in question, but the US Commerce Department strongly supported the charade since the legal intimidation of a grand jury is powerful, and raising an adequate defense even in conditions of clear innocence requires an enormous expense in funds and management time, sufficient to slow China down.
Volkswagen accidentally discovered a large array of microphones and infrared cameras on its property, hidden in places from board rooms to lawn grass, that were transmitting images, technical specifications, and information about new VW autos. Volkswagen discovered that their executive videoconferences had been recorded, including conversations on new products, price lists, secret plans for new auto plants, and plans for an especially attractive new small car. All of this information was tracked to the NSA, who had already forwarded all of it to General Motors and its Opel subsidiary in Germany. Volkswagen claimed this one act of espionage and the passing of information to its American competitors had caused losses of hundreds of millions of dollars. And Volkswagen can do nothing, still subject to the forced agreement that "Germany shall in the future raise no objections against the measures which have been, or will be, carried out with regard to German assets ...".
"If the playing field is level, America will always win".
Japanese automakers fared no better. At the request of the US president, the CIA spied on Japanese auto manufacturers, intercepting and recording information on their design plans for zero-emission cars, forwarding that information to US car manufacturers Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler. The New York Times reported that the NSA and the CIA's Tokyo station were involved in providing detailed information to US Trade negotiators in Geneva, facing Japanese car companies in a trade dispute. The Japanese accused the NSA of continuing to monitor the communications of Japanese companies on behalf of American companies. The CIA also hacked into the computer system of the Japanese Trade Ministry while that country was negotiating with the US on import limitations for Japanese cars. Having learned the Japanese position, the US was able to demand much lower auto import quotas than it had anticipated.
With the ECHELON program still in full force, spying on, and hacking into, foreign government departments is a specialty of the NSA and CIA, whether those governments are friends or enemies. {36} {37} Some years ago, the NSA intercepted faxes and telephone calls concerning purchase negotiations between Airbus and the Saudi Arabian national airline. After forwarding this information to Airbus's US competitors, Boeing and McDonnell-Douglas, the Americans won the $6 billion contract.
The Brazilian government awarded the French firm Thomson-Alcatel a major multi-billion-dollar contract for the satellite monitoring of the Amazon Basin. After the CIA and NSA intercepted government communications relating to the contract, the US had enough information to exert extreme pressure on Brazil to renege on the agreement, and the contract was then awarded to the US firm Raytheon. {38} {39} {40} {41} {42} {43} {44} In a similar case, the NSA intercepted messages about an impending $200 million deal between Indonesia and the Japanese satellite manufacturer NEC Corporation. After US intervention on behalf of American manufacturers, the contract was split between NEC and AT&T.
In another major case, the US President ordered the NSA and FBI to mount a massive surveillance operation at an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) conference, to be held in Seattle. One intelligence source for the story related that over 300 hotel rooms had been bugged for the event. The effort was designed to obtain information regarding Asian oil and hydroelectric deals, with all information then passed on to high-level US government officials connected to American companies competing for the contracts.
Bribery is related to this category of acquiring wealth by stealth. The US is famous for its hypocrisy in condemning any foreign nation or corporation clumsy enough to be caught offering bribes, but it has a long history of paying bribes to obtain commercial contracts for its multinationals. Commercial and military aircraft constitute one area where the US has been especially active, having for one example paid substantial bribes to at least Italy, Belgium, and Germany to purchase the US-based Lockheed F-104 aircraft, and bribes on behalf of Boeing are no longer news. Also, we have been told of many claims of US state-sponsored bribery in the cause of US firms. Often a nation is promised political or diplomatic benefits if it supports the free rampaging of US multinationals such as banks, in a domestic market. Much of this falls into the category of state-sponsored extortion, a category in which the US excels.
Notes:
{27} https://www.lewrockwell.com/2013/06/william-blum/what-the-spy-state-missed-about-edward-snowden/
{28} https://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2013/06/28/the-nsa-and-cias-dilemma/
{29} https://www.euractiv.com/section/global-europe/news/berlin-tells-cia-station-chief-to-leave-in-spy-scandal/
{30} https://williamblum.org/aer/read/118
{31} https://panchabuta.wordpress.com/2011/02/04/enercon-loses-patent-battle-in-chennai-court-finds-decison-alarming-warns-wind-industry-and-wtg-oems/
{32} https://www.windpowermonthly.com/article/960011/trans-atlantic-espionage-claimed-german-wind-company
{33} https://postmanpatel.blogspot.com/2008/05/enercon-v-echelon-how-comercial.html
{34} http://www.sinovel.com/english/about/?31.html
{35} https://money.cnn.com/2018/01/25/technology/china-us-sinovel-theft-conviction/index.html
{36} https://www.thedrum.com/news/2013/08/26/nsa-accused-hacking-un-internal-video-conferences-year
{37} http://www.attivissimo.net/security/echelon/echelon-europarliament-report.htm
{38} https://www.gpdr.org/industrial-spy
{39} https://yogaesoteric.net/echelon-the-start-of-britains-modern-day-spying-operations/
{40} https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-security-brazil-spying-idUSBRE98411420130905
{41} https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-security-latinamerica-idUSBRE96816H20130709
{42} https://www.reuters.com/article/brazil-usa-espionage-idUSL2N0PL27W20140710
{43} https://www.pressreader.com/usa/richmond-times-dispatch/20130903/281487864018375
{44} https://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/defence-watch/did-nsa-spying-on-brazil-allow-gripen-to-win-a-fight-aircraft-contract-and-cost-boeing-billions-of-dollars/
Image credit: https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202109/17/WS6143dbbda310e0e3a6822281.html
Mr Romanoff's writing has been translated into 32 languages and his articles posted on more than 150 foreign-language news and politics websites in more than 30 countries, as well as more than 100 English language platforms. Larry Romanoff is a retired management consultant and businessman. He has held senior executive positions in international consulting firms and owned an international import-export business. He has been a visiting professor at Shanghai's Fudan University, presenting case studies in international affairs to senior EMBA classes. Mr Romanoff lives in Shanghai and is currently writing a series of ten books generally related to China and the West. He is one of the contributing authors to Cynthia McKinney's new anthology When China Sneezes (2020). His full archive can be seen at https://www.moonofshanghai.com/ and http://www.bluemoonofshanghai.com/. He can be contacted at: 21866...@qq.com
Copyright (c) Larry Romanoff, Moon of Shanghai, Blue Moon of Shanghai, 2021
https://www.bluemoonofshanghai.com/politics/5268/
TO POST A COMMENT, OR TO READ COMMENTS POSTED BY OTHERS, please click
the appropriate link at the top or bottom of https://billtotten.wpcomstaging.com/2022/01/17/nations-built-on-lies-how-the-us-became-rich-part-6b/
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