Should the US Refrain from some Cyber Espionage?

Should the US Refrain from some Cyber Espionage?

In the Washington Post article about Cyber Norms in this Module, the author suggests that the US appears hypocritical to other countries, asking them to refrain from activities that the US itself is doing.

Indeed, we have seen that the US is very active in cyber espionage, not just against countries like China and Russia, but also against close allies. If the US wants other countries to stop spying on the US, we need to be prepared to stop spying on them, or at least to limit the kind of spying we do.

For instance, in the pact between the US and China, both countries agreed to give up economic espionage, which was defined there as

“cyber-enabled theft of intellectual property, including trade secrets or other confidential business information, with the intent of providing competitive advantages to companies or commercial sectors”

That brings up two questions, and this time, you must answer both of these questions:

1. Do you think the US should stop all economic cyber espionage against China in return for a promise from China that it will stop economic cyber espionage against the US?

2. Do you think the US should stop all cyber espionage against allies (such as Germany) in return for a promise from those same allies to stop all cyber espionage against the US?

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/01/world/asia/us-decides-to-retaliate-against-chinas-hacking.html?_r=2

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/16/world/asia/cyberthreat-posed-by-china-and-iran-confounds-white-house.html?_r=0

http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/25/politics/us-china-cyber-theft-hack/index.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/the-us-and-china-agree-not-to-conduct-economic-espionage-in-cyberspace/2015/09/25/1c03f4b8-63a2-11e5-8e9e-dce8a2a2a679_story.html?wpisrc=al_alert-COMBO-world%252Bnation