How serious does the FBI think economic and corporate espionage is?
The DIrector of the FBI, Robert Mueller, has stated that economic and corporate espionage, in its many forms, is the number two priority of the FBI, right behind international terrorism. On its website (http://www.fbi.gov/hq/ci/economic.htm#contact), the FBI notes that espionage did not die with the Cold War. In fact, the FBI states that many intelligence service veterans have opened businesses that provide a service called Competitive Intelligence gathering. This is another way of saying these companies use the same tactics and approaches to obtain information about competitors for their clients. There are nearly 4,000 such companies in the United States.
