U.S. Files Criminal Charges Against Chinese Officials Over Cyberspying
(This post was updated at 10:56 a.m. ET.)
The United States has for the first time filed criminal charges against foreign government officials in connection to cyberspying allegations.
The Justice Department is accusing five Chinese government officials of using military and intelligence facilities to steal trade secrets from U.S. companies, including Alcoa Inc., Westinghouse Electric Co., United States Steel Corp., and Allegheny Technologies Inc.
In a televised press conference Monday, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said this is the kind of behavior that the U.S. "categorical denounces."
"The success of American companies, since our nation's founding, has been the result of hard work and fair play by our citizens," Holder said, adding that success should not come through the efforts of state-sponsored spying.
NBC News adds:
"The Obama administration has long considered China the most aggressive nation in obtaining industrial secrets through spying.
"'Chinese actors are the world's most active and persistent perpetrators of economic espionage,' said the Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive, a U.S. government agency, in a 2011 report.
"A year ago, several U.S. newspapers, including The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, said hackers traced to China attacked their newsroom computer systems."