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ABSTRACT
About a decade ago, intellectual property started getting systematically treated as a national security threat to the United States. The scope of the threat is broadly conceived to include hacking, trade secret theft, file sharing, and even foreign students enrolling in American universities. In each case, the national security of the United States is claimed to be at risk, not just its economic competitiveness. This article traces the U.S. government's efforts to establish and articulate intellectual property theft as a national security issue. It traces the discourse on intellectual property as a security threat and its place within the larger security dialogue of cyberwar and cybersecurity. It argues that the focus on the theft of intellectual property as a security issue helps justify enhanced surveillance and control over the Internet and its future development. Such a framing of intellectual property has consequences for how we understand information exchange on the Internet and for the future of U.S. diplomatic relations around the globe.
Notes
1. Hansen and Nissenbaum take cybersecurity through the 2003 National Strategy statement and focus on the computer aspects of cybersecurity (Hansen and Nissenbaum Citation2009). My work brings the cybersecurity analysis to the present with a focus on the growing importance of intellectual property in generating a securitizing debate over the future of American national security.
2. It reported that the “intellectual property” stolen by foreign sources included designs, blueprints, and business processes that “cost billions of dollars to create”(Langevin et al. Citation2008, 13). The billions of dollars assessment is not based upon the market value of a product but on how much it costs to create it.
3. The understanding that the private companies are now central to the security of the U.S. infrastructure was further articulated in Obama's Citation2013 executive order on cybersecurity, where he specifically outlined the need for information sharing between public and private actors. The details regarding how to develop such information sharing are to be worked out (Obama Citation2013).
4. The recently concluded President's Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies just encouraged President Obama to reaffirm the 2011 report. See Clarke et al. (Citation2013, 22).
5. The United States has already configured the hacking of a database like JSTOR as a threat to domestic security and economic vitality, as its relentless prosecution of Aaron Swartz, leading to his death, shows (Cartalucci Citation2013; Lessig Citation2013; Reilly Citation2013a; Reilly Citation2013b).
6. The F.B.I. now makes an annual report on its IP-related interventions (Federal Bureau of Investigation Citation2013).
7. In terms of trade secret theft itself, it is important to note that despite implying that cyber attacks are the greatest threat, every example of trade secret theft produced and included as evidence was the result of an insider selling or giving information to an outside source. These networks were not invaded by state-proxy hackers, but accessed by employees with nefarious goals.
8. The U.S. Cyber Consequences Unit is a nonprofit organization that works on cybersecurity issues primarily as a government contractor (it would seem). See http://www.usccu.us.