Dear Cyber Thieves: If We Ban Certain Imports Into The U.S., Will You Stop Hacking? (S. 2384)

What is S. 2384?

(Updated July 19, 2017)

This bill would require the President to give Congress annual reports on countries that are using cyberspace espionage (i.e. hacking) targeting economic and industrial U.S. trade secrets or proprietary information.

Each report would have to identify the countries engaged in espionage, and countries that facilitate, support, fail to prosecute, or are generally permissive to cyber espionage. The reports must specify the countries engaged in the most egregious forms of espionage and describe actions taken to reduce its occurrence.

From this list, the President would be authorized to ban transactions of property or interests in property to foreign people who request, engage in, support, facilitate, or benefit from cyber-stealing trade secrets. Basically, blocking imports that benefit from cyber espionage — so, things that have stolen technology, or other products made by the countries or companies on the list. 

Bans on property transactions have to be located in the U.S., enter into the U.S., or enter into the possession of a U.S. person.

While blocking property transactions within the circumstances outlined above, this legislation would prohibit the President from imposing sanctions on imported goods.

Argument in favor

The President and Congress need to strengthen lines of communication to effectively protect the U.S. against cyber-threats. This bill would force them to work together to ban products that have benefitted from cyber espionage.

Argument opposed

Freezing the movement of assets created by cyber-thieves and their cohorts is not effective enough. We need higher level punishments for those hackers and the nations that endorse cyber espionage.

Impact

Cyber hackers, people who benefit from cyber thievery, U.S. property and trade secrets, governments that conduct or condone cyber-theft against the U.S., Congress, the President.

Cost of S. 2384

A CBO cost estimate is unavailable.

Additional Info

In-Depth:

Cyber-theft of proprietary information costs the U.S. economy over $100 billion annually, according to a study done by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Countries like China, Iran, Russia, and North Korea have all targeted U.S. companies, attempting (and succeeding) to steal trade secrets in ways that undermine the U.S.’ competitive advantages.

In May 2014 the Department of Justice charged five hackers from a Chinese military cyber-espionage unit that targeted six U.S. companies involved in the nuclear power, metals, and solar industries. They managed to steal strategic and technical information from the companies, in addition to email discussions related to negotiations with Chinese state-owned enterprises.

Later in 2014, Sony was the target of a cyber attack that is believed to have been perpetrated by North Korea with possible Chinese assistance. The attack led to the dissemination of sensitive information and movie scripts, and the hackers demanded that Sony halt its release of the movie “The Interview” — in which the main characters are recruited to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Sony was under pressure to cancel the film’s release after threats of terrorism at the film’s showings led to theater’s declining to allow it to be screened.

Media:

Sponsoring Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) Press Release

Wall Street Journal

Law 360

The Verge

Security Week

(Photo Credit: Flickr user ikrichter)