Edward Snowden has been hitting on this point for a long time. This is from an article from 2014[0]: “It’s no secret that we hack China very aggressively,” he

Edward Snowden has been hitting on this point for a long time. This is from an article from 2014[0]: “It’s no secret that we hack China very aggressively,” he says. “But we’ve crossed lines. We’re hacking universities and hospitals and wholly civilian infrastructure rather than actual government targets and military targets. And that’s a real concern.” I don't think that you can in good conscience argue that the NSA has been open and clear about their attacks on foreign civilian targets. The Obama administration repeatedly attempted to draw a line between the sort of hacking the US performed, for national security reasons, and the kind of "cyber espionage" that China and Russia were undertaking. [0]: https://www.wired.com/2014/08/edward-snowden/ https://www.wired.com/2014/08/edward-snowden/