Economic Espionage Act of 1996

The Electronic Espionage Act of 1996 became law in October 1996 against a backdrop of increasing threats to corporate security and a rising tide of international and domestic economic espionage. The end of the Cold War sent government spies scurrying to the private sector to perform illicit work for businesses and corporations and by 1996, studies revealed that nearly $24 billion of corporate intellectual property was being stolen each year. The problem was augmented by the absence of any comprehensive federal remedy targeting the theft of trade secrets, compelling prosecutors to shoehorn economic espionage crimes into statutes direct at other offenses.