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Foreign students contribute 12bn+ to US universities by way of tuition fees; the majority funded by their own government, organisations or families. If the US g

by dwd 15y ago

Foreign students contribute 12bn+ to US universities by way of tuition fees; the majority funded by their own government, organisations or families. If the US government wishes to limit foreign nationals ability to contribute to and participate in valuable research they may find the funding for that research will disappear as well. Not to legitimise espionage, but you can't have it both ways. This is actually a bigger issue that also encompasses outsourcing manufacturing and technology development to foreign countries where they don't play by the same rules as far as patents and IP rights.

dalke 15y ago
Moreover, there have been similar spies in the US probably since we first started as a country. Klaus Fuchs is perhaps the most well known example for his work during the 1940s in informing the Soviet Union about the US atomic bomb research. I have a fictional book written during the 80s where one of the characters is a foreign industrial spy. Then there's the false negatives, as with Wen Ho Lee at Los Alamos. For that matter, it goes the other way. The Russians regard the researcher Igor Sutyagin a spy, and convicted him as such, even though he and the US deny it. So I think the right way to see this report is as a reminder of how the world works, and not as a specific call to action in response to recent increases in the amount of espionage.
- dwd 15y ago
  Certainly. Can't have the population forgetting that the world out there is a scary place - think of the starving defense contractors! If this is a precursor to any push for legislative changes (and increased enforcement powers) then the target is more likely non-state players and the likes of anonymous: Terrorist is a little overused these days and spy is the next best scary label.
  - dalke 15y ago
    Spies for our side are cool. Spies for the British are also cool, as long as they don't spy on us.

by dwd 15y ago

dalke 15y ago

Moreover, there have been similar spies in the US probably since we first started as a country. Klaus Fuchs is perhaps the most well known example for his work during the 1940s in informing the Soviet Union about the US atomic bomb research. I have a fictional book written during the 80s where one of the characters is a foreign industrial spy. Then there's the false negatives, as with Wen Ho Lee at Los Alamos. For that matter, it goes the other way. The Russians regard the researcher Igor Sutyagin a spy, and convicted him as such, even though he and the US deny it. So I think the right way to see this report is as a reminder of how the world works, and not as a specific call to action in response to recent increases in the amount of espionage.

dwd 15y ago
Certainly. Can't have the population forgetting that the world out there is a scary place - think of the starving defense contractors! If this is a precursor to any push for legislative changes (and increased enforcement powers) then the target is more likely non-state players and the likes of anonymous: Terrorist is a little overused these days and spy is the next best scary label.
- dalke 15y ago
  Spies for our side are cool. Spies for the British are also cool, as long as they don't spy on us.