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41 Ariz. St. L.J. 933 (2009)
Trade Secrecy as an Instrument of National Security - Rethinking the Foundations of Economic Espionage

handle is hein.journals/arzjl41 and id is 945 raw text is: TRADE SECRECY AS AN INSTRUMENT OF NATIONAL SECURITY? Rethinking the Foundations of Economic Espionage Aaron J. Bursteint ABSTRACT Since its inception, the Economic Espionage Act has been touted as a way to advance U.S. national security interests. Specifically, proponents in Congress and law enforcement and intelligence officials since then have argued that economic espionage harms national security by undermining U.S. competitiveness and technological advantage. The domains of national security and trade secrecy, however, have conflicting and irreconcilable structures for protecting information. The notion that United States law enforcement and intelligence agencies can effectively address economic espionage without altering the basic contours of trade secret protection is misguided. These agencies rarely have access to firm-level information about threats to economically valuable information, but the firms that own trade secrets lack the perspective that might allow them to identiy and defend against state-sponsored threats. Using diplomatic means to gain a better understanding of how other nations fund scientific and technical research-development offers a more promising means of reducing the incentives and cover for economic espionage than does the current strategy of attempting to make incompatible legal paradigms work together. t TRUST and ACCURATE Research Fellow, University of California, Berkeley, School of Information. E-mail: aaron.burstein@gmail.com. I thank Barry Horowitz, Maryanne McCormick, Shari Lawrence Pfleeger, and Fred Schneider for helpful discussions. I am grateful to Joseph Lorenzo Hall, Corinne Keet, Dave Levine, and Deirdre Mulligan for reviewing drafts of this Article. Augustin N6fiez and Chien-Min Yang provided outstanding research assistance. This Article is based in part upon work supported by a grant from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, under the auspices of the Institute for Information Infrastructure Protection (13P) research program. The 13P is managed by Dartmouth College. The views and conclusions contained in this document are those of the author and should not be interpreted as necessarily representing the official policies, either expressed or implied, of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the 13P, or Dartmouth College.