Espionage

I was bummed that I hadn't picked up the film pieces that were on the floor, I could have been helpful to the FBI investigation.

 

Way back during the early 1980's a neighbor on the corner across the street from me had me come over and paint out a closet for him because he was moving out.

This was before the age of computers had arrived.

The closet had been painted flat black which I thought was really unusual, even the ceiling and door were painted black.

It took several coats of paint to cover the black.

A few months later the FBI comes to my door asking me questions about the man.

Had I see any unusual activity and such at the man's house?

I never knew the neighbor, he always kept to himself.

He knew that I was a house painter because of my painters truck with my sign on it parked in front of my house.

I told the FBI what I did see, the black closet.

Then they asked if I had seen any equipment or cameras and such.

I hadn't, but I did see some small film cuttings on the floor of the closet.

I figured that the man was a hobbyist photographer using the closet to develop film.

After the men in black left it dawned on me that my ex-neighbor may have been involved in some kind of espionage or something of the sort like industrial spying.

US Levels Espionage Charges Against 6 Chinese Nationals

 The U.S. government has indicted five Chinese citizens and arrested a Chinese professor on charges of economic espionage. 

 The government alleges that they took jobs at two small, American chipmakers — Avago Technologies and Skyworks Solutions — in order to steal microelectronics designs.

 "All of them worked, the indictment contends, to steal trade secrets for a type of chip popularly known as a “filter” that is used for acoustics in mobile telephones, among other purposes. 

They took the technology back to Tianjin University, created a joint venture company with the university to produce the chips, and soon were selling them to both the Chinese military and to commercial customers." 

It's interesting to note that the Reuters article keeps mentioning how this technology — used commonly as an acoustic filter — has "military applications." 

It's also interesting to look at another recent case involving Shirrey Chen, a hydrologist who was mysteriously arrested on suspicion of espionage, but then abruptly cleared five months later. 

One can't help but wonder what's driving the U.S.'s new strategy for tackling economic espionage.