Silicon Valley's top federal prosecutor has significantly escalated his crackdown on foreign espionage, securing convictions in recent months against individuals accused of stealing proprietary technology. Craig Missakian, the US Attorney for the Northern District of California, stated at a San Francisco event that there is no more important national security issue than protecting American technology from foreign theft. According to reports from Silicon Valley Business Journal, Missakian's office oversees criminal prosecutions for the Bay Area, which is home to some of the biggest US technology companies, with the office now actively securing convictions against foreign technology theft cases.
The prosecutor's office is prioritizing cases involving artificial intelligence and semiconductors, which have dual-use applications for both commercial and military purposes. When investigating trade-secret theft cases, Missakian said his office will prioritize conduct involving US adversaries including China and Iran, calling it a 'plus factor' in deciding whether to file charges. As reported by Silicon Valley Business Journal, the prosecutor emphasized that 'Wars will be won or lost' based on the strength of American technology, with countries around the world working to close the gap in technology used by the defense industry.
The prosecutor's focus on foreign espionage cases is supported by recent high-profile prosecutions involving Google. In January, a federal jury in San Francisco convicted a former engineer at Alphabet Inc.'s Google of economic espionage and trade-secrets theft for taking hundreds of confidential documents on AI chip technology to build a startup in China. According to Bloomberg, in February, two former Google engineers and one of their husbands — all Iranian nationals — were indicted for allegedly stealing trade secrets relating to the company's Tensor processor for Pixel phones. They've pleaded not guilty.
The current focus builds on the China Initiative launched by the US Justice Department during the first Trump administration, which was intended to combat 'the deliberate, systematic, and calculated threats' from Chinese government-directed intellectual-property theft. As reported by Bloomberg, amid concerns about ethnic profiling and the criminalization of scientific collaboration, the Biden administration shut down the China Initiative, though it vowed to continue pursuing cases involving the country.
During the event, US District Judge Rita Lin asked Missakian about the risk of discrimination in pursuing cases against foreign nationals. According to Bloomberg, Missakian assured that his office will never target anyone based on their nationality or ethnicity. However, he emphasized that they 'will be clear eyed about the world we live in.' Some federal judges have expressed concern in recent years that some US espionage claims haven't been supported by the facts in court, where defendants were charged with lesser crimes like visa violations.
