by Rob Strauss
Staff Writer
Economic intelligence and industrial espionage was the topic of a lecture given by Darryl Thibault, a former CIA official, Monday in Founders Auditorium. The lecture was sponsored by Alpha Kappa Psi fraternity and the Business Student Organization.
“I want to try to influence your view of international competition,” said Thibault.
Thibault discussed how many companies try to steal secrets from other companies through practices such as wire-tapping and searching through trash.
“Espionage has been going on since the beginning of civilization,” said Thibault. “Espionage in the private sector is illegal. It’s foolish and stupid.”
Thibault went on to discuss how the French are probably the most aggressive with these actions. According to Thibault, in the past, the French have gone so far as to wire first class seats on airplanes to hear American businessmen’s conversations.
The Japanese also have a big influence in international business espionage.
“The Japanese probably have the largest intelligence on the face of the earth,” said Thibault.
Thibault said that the Japanese have lists of every major American company and their trade secrets.
Furthermore, the Japanese, along with Switzerland, have a commercial espionage school.
Thibault feels that one of the problems that leads to espionage success is lack of security.
“Security gets left behind,” said Thibault. “It is extremely easy to hide bugs in offices. It is extremely easy to intercept communications.”
According to Thibault, the United States is working on improving security.
“A major concern of the U.S. is to pursue international crime,” said Thibault.
Thibault was invited to speak because of his personal and professional association with Bill Creech, the president of the Alpha Kappa Psi fraternity.
Junior Philip Rudulph, vice-president of BSO, said he was disappointed about the low attendance at the speech and felt people could have learned from it.
“He was a very opportunistic speaker,” said Rudulph. “You hear about companies going down all the time but you never hear the background story.”
Creech was disappointed with the turnout as well and had hoped that more political science faculty and students would come to hear the lecture. He said that one of the reasons for the poor attendance is that Founders Auditorium is too large for this type of lecture.
Creech said the school needs another room similar to the size of La Fetra for these types of events.
Furthermore, Creech said that some people felt the speech was too repetitive because it laid out government intelligence along with corporate intelligence. He explained it was necessary for Thibault to do this because in order to understand one you have to understand the other.
“You have to lay out government intelligence before corporate intelligence,” said Creech.
As a business student, Rudulph found the speech very helpful.
“It opens my eyes,” said Rudulph. “You think about politics being corrupt but you don’t hear about business being corrupt.”
“Anybody going into business or management needs to know that their company is a target,” said Creech.
