This website content is Protected under the 1996 act Economic espionage Subject to persons, designed to unlawfully or clandestinely influence sensitive economic policy decisions or to unlawfully obtain sensitive financial, trade, or Economic intelligence. Economic espionage is foreign power-sponsored or coordinated intelligence activity directed at the U.S. government or U.S. corporations, The act makes the theft or misappropriation of a trade secret a federal crime. Unlike the Espionage Act of 1917 (found at 18 U.S.C. §§ 792–799), the offense involves commercial information, not classified or national defense information.