Crackberry Hill

As if...

Top French government officials are ignoring warnings to ditch their cherished BlackBerrys -- smartphones with e-mail capacity -- despite warnings their messages may be intercepted by US spy agencies, a report said Tuesday.

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"The risk of interception is real, it's an economic war," Alain Juilllet, a senior French economic intelligence official, told Le Monde.

A bunch of wonderpups at the French Foreign Ministry won’t give up their Blackberries in spite of the security risks.

After all, they should know.

Some of the specific cases are shocking. According to a recent New York Times article by Peter Schweizer, `between 1987 and 1989, French intelligence planted moles in several U.S. companies, including IBM. In the fall of 1991, a French intelligence team attempted to steal `stealth' technology from Lockheed.' Other accounts report that French intelligence units conduct 10 to 15 break-ins every day at large hotels in Paris to copy documents that belong to businessmen, journalists, and diplomats. According to other accounts, the French have been hiding listening devices on Air France flights in order to pick up useful economic information from business travelers

Given that the US Government nearly never goes to bat for US businesses in nearly the same way, and often get audited out of existence. I wonder where they’re getting this idea if no-place other than their own experience.

Imagine you own a private company experiencing success in France. You have an IPO. A state owned company, possibly through another company suddenly owns a piece of your future success. The state could even skillfully time its’ sale of assets to exploit your “means of production”.

Bingo. Motive and opportunity. Direct interest in (and history of ) using intelligence assets for domestic industries.

Remember, they’re more lucid, more humanistic, more everything than you are. They even fart daisies.