Spy
vs. CI
By
John Allen
But
not every CI operative has taken the Fluno Center's
course. Some are unfamiliar with the Economic Espionage
Act, and others just plain don't care about it. So
how can a company protect itself from the unscrupulous
spies of the world who would invade them and ferret
out their secrets?
To aid in the prevention of espionage, Arik Johnson
and others like him are willing to violate their ethical
pledge — after a fashion. Though only a small part
of Aurora's business, the company does consult with
clients on counterintelligence — on protecting information
from other CI operations, both legitimate and illegitimate.
For those clients who want to find out just how vulnerable
they could be to unscrupulous snoops, Aurora's willing
to help by snooping, then reporting back what they
found and how they found it. And that's where Johnson
gets the chance to have a little fun.
"We
go after the crown jewels," he says. To determine
whether a client needs to be more careful, Johnson
and his colleagues might send operatives to dig through
garbage. Or they might try to get an employee hired
at the client's company, then act as a mole. "We wouldn't
do anything that would put one of us in jail," he
says. "But we use the same methods we believe that
our clients' competitors are capable of using."
And
some of those competitors are extremely capable. Johnson
says that the governments of several foreign countries — especially China, France, Japan, and Israel — regularly
engage in commercial espionage and tend to use methods
that would violate the Economic Espionage Act. During
one trade show, Johnson said he was providing counterintelligence
for a firm and discovered that his client's conference
room had been infested with electronic listening devices.
Such spy gear, he says, is easy to come by and hard
to defend against. "You can buy bugs for twenty dollars."3
Even
while fighting to improve the image of CI, Johnson
is following his own advice and seeking to establish
a level of hegemony within the CI industry. In spite
of the recession, Aurora found its research revenues
tripling in 2001.
"Many
companies that used to have their own CI departments
couldn't see where CI was making a direct contribution
to their bottom line," he says. "If something isn't
contributing to the bottom line, then it looks like
overhead. And what do you do with overhead in a recession?
You cut it and outsource the function. We picked up
a lot of business that way."
And
this year, Johnson plans to spread Aurora's intelligence
network even more widely. He's currently in discussions
with a CI firm in the Far East4
to create a joint venture, Aurora Worldwide Development
Company Asia, which would combine resources to operate
a research house out of Manila in the Philippines.
With contacts in North America and Asia, Johnson believes
this expanded network would not only serve Aurora's
needs, but would be able to act as a subcontractor
for other CI firms as well.
"I should be able to sell intelligence services to
anyone around the world, including to all of my competitors
in America," Johnson says. "My goal is to have a little
piece of the action in everything that goes on."
3
He wouldn't say where.
4 He wouldn't say which one. "That
information is currently secret," he explains.
John
Allen, associate editor of On Wisconsin, prefers the
original Mission: Impossible TV series to the recent
movies, 'cause, really Mr. Cruise, what's with the
hair?
back,
1, 2,
3, 4
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