On Tuesday, Senators Carl Levin (D-MI), John McCain (R-AZ), Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), and Tom Coburn (R-OK) introduced the “Deter Cyber Theft Act.”

The Act would require the Director of National Intelligence (“DNI”) to provide relevant congressional committees with an annual report on “foreign economic and industrial espionage in cyberspace.”  The report would require the DNI to identify “foreign countries that engage in economic or industrial espionage in cyberspace with respect to trade secrets or proprietary information owned by United States persons” and “priority foreign countries”—those countries that the DNI “determines engage in the most egregious economic or industrial espionage in cyberspace.”  The bill specifies that the DNI must identify foreign countries pursuant to the Act  if the foreign government “engages in economic or industrial espionage in cyberspace with respect to trade secrets or proprietary information owned by United States persons” or “facilitates, supports, fails to prosecute, or otherwise permits such espionage by” its citizens or residents or entities organized under its laws or subject to its jurisdiction.Continue Reading Cyber Theft Bill Introduced by Bipartisan Group of Senators