Targeting U.S. Technologies
“Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.” This quotation, attributed to John Philpot Curran in Dublin, Ireland, in 1790, is equally applicable to the United States in the present era. Every day, foreign entities attempt to break through our collective defenses to illegally acquire U.S. technological secrets. Our national security rests on our collective success at thwarting these persistent attacks.
The stakes are high in the battle against foreign collection and espionage targeting U.S. technology, trade secrets, and proprietary information. Not only is our national security at risk but also our technological edge, which is closely tied to the health of our economy and the economic success of the cleared contractor community. Most importantly, every time our adversaries gain access to restricted information it jeopardizes the lives of our warfighters, since those adversaries can use the information to develop more lethal weapons or countermeasures to our systems.
Preventing such loss is a team effort. The Defense Security Service (DSS) supports national security by overseeing the protection of the nation’s technological base and both U.S. and foreign classified information in the hands of cleared industry. The DSS Counterintelligence Directorate seeks to identify and stop those who would unlawfully penetrate our defenses. In this mission, DSS relies on the support of cleared contractor employees and the U.S. intelligence and law enforcement communities.
The National Industrial Security Program Operating Manual requires cleared contractors to provide information concerning actual, probable, or possible espionage, sabotage, or terrorism. After cleared contractors report any suspicious contacts or efforts to obtain illegal or unauthorized access to restricted information or subversion activities, DSS reviews these reports and refers further cases of actionable information to partners in the law enforcement and intelligence communities for potential exploitation or neutralization.
DSS also uses these suspicious contact reports (SCRs) to develop analytical assessments to articulate the threat to U.S. information and technology resident in cleared industry. This publication, Targeting U.S. Technologies: A Trend Analysis of Reporting from Defense Industry, presents the annual statistical analysis of those SCRs. The information contained in this publication helps employees, companies, and intelligence and law enforcement professionals better understand the continuing yet changing nature of the threats we face. Increased awareness of the targeted technologies and the methods of operation that foreign entities use in their attempts to acquire U.S. technologies will only make us better at identifying and thwarting their efforts.
Like any publication, this one is only as good as the information that goes into it. The SCRs DSS analyzes originate with cleared contractor employees. Timely and accurate reporting of illicit collection attempts are the foundation upon which this process rests. Thus, the cleared contractor community is both a supplier to and a customer of DSS. This long-standing and interdependent relationship functions best when both partners understand all stakeholders’ needs, build strong relationships on the basis of trust, and interact with each other in a cooperative fashion.
The process that begins with reporting and continues with ongoing and collective analysis reaches its ultimate stage in successful investigations or operations. In fiscal year 2010, federal investigative or intelligence agencies opened more than 200 operations or investigations based on information that industry provided to DSS. These foreign collectors were identified, isolated, diverted, or otherwise thwarted.
But it can’t happen without you. It depends on all of us doing our part, every day. “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.”
Stanley L. Sims
Director
Defense Security Service