Duncan Campbell has also revealed U.S. documents that show how the intelligence is carried out by exploiting the vulnerability of corporate communications to electronic interception. "It is the new Cold War. The United States intelligence agencies, facing downsizing after the fall of the Berlin wall, have found themselves a new role spying on foreign firms to help American business in global markets," he said [ 44 ].

Brian Gladwell, a British former Nato computer expert commented, "The analogy I use is where we were 250 years ago with pirates on the high seas. Governments never admitted they sponsored piracy, yet they all did behind the scenes. If we now look at cyberspace we have state-sponsored information piracy. We can't have a global e-commerce until governments like the US stop state-sponsored theft of commercial information." [ 45 ]

In 1993 and 1994 it was reported that the U.S. intelligence community helped U.S. firms win $16.5 billion in overseas contracts by alerting the governments in Third World countries that ministers and others were "on the take". [ 46 ] Among the U.S. companies that have benefited are Raytheon, Boeing and Hughes Network Systems. The intelligence community has clamped down on the release of such data since then. The 1993 review showed that between 1986 and 1992 spy agencies "had identified about 250 cases of aggressive lobbying by foreign governments on behalf of their domestic industries that are competing against U.S. firms for business overseas." [ 47 ]

In January 1994 the then French Prime Minister Edouard Balladur flew to Riyadh to conclude a $6bn deal for arms, airliners and maintenance, including sales of the European Airbus. He flew home empty-handed. The Baltimore Sun reported that "from a commercial communications satellite, NSA lifted all the faxes and phone-calls between the European consortium Airbus, the Saudi national airline and the Saudi government. The agency found that Airbus agents were offering bribes to a Saudi official. It passed the information to US officials pressing the bid of Boeing Co." Clinton's government intervened with the Saudis and the contract went to Boeing. [ 48 ]

In fact in 1994 President Clinton signed $40bn of business agreements between Indonesia and US firms on one day. Among these was a $2.6bn power plant at Paiton, Java. At the time the contract was signed, the US knew one of President Suharto's daughters had been cut in on the deal, and was given a stake in the project worth more than $150m.

Also in 1994 , the NSA intercepted phone-calls between France's Thomson-CSF and Brazil concerning SIVAM, a $1.4bn surveillance system for the Amazon rain forest. The company was alleged to have bribed members of the Brazilian government selection panel. The contract was awarded to the US Raytheon Corporation - which announced: "the Department of Commerce worked very hard in support of US industry on this project".

This is just one of hundreds of "success" stories listed by the US Government's "Advocacy Center" who brag about beating UK, European or Japanese competitors. In the first 17 months of the Clinton administration, 72 cases of unfair competition were identified and acted on. A February 1995 National Security Strategy statement noted "collection and analysis can help level the economic playing field by identifying threats to U.S. companies from foreign intelligence services and unfair trading practices."

The US have beaten British competitors to power generation, engineering and telecommunications projects in the Philippines, Malawi, Peru, Tunisia and the Lebanon. In India, the CIA tracked British moves to clinch a deal to build a 700MW power station near Bombay. In January 1995 , the $400m contract was awarded to the US companies Enron, GE and Bechtel. Also in 1995 , General Electric Power Systems won a $120m bid to build a plant in Tunisia. The Advocacy Center boasted that "they beat intense competition from French, German, Italian and British firms for the project."

In July 1995 a general discussion of "specialized technical operations" was given in a report to the US Congress. The report from the CIA's National Counter Intelligence Center noted "because they are so easily accessed and intercepted, corporate telecommunications - particularly international telecommunications - provide a highly vulnerable and lucrative source for anyone interested in obtaining trade secrets or competitive information." It continued: "Because of the increased usage of these links for bulk computer transmission and electronic mail, intelligence collectors find telecommunications intercepts cost-effective."

CIA officials say they focus primarily on overseas companies that bribe foreign officials to win a contract. However, evidence exists that U.S. intelligence is not limited itself to gathering information on criminal activities like bribery, but has also been on the lookout for any activities viewed as "aggressive." Among the activities of foreign companies tracked by U.S. intelligence were "lobbying," "linking financial aid to contract awards" and "the use of insider information and disinformation against U.S. firms." [ 49 ]