Haley Brown
Representatives in the Florida House are poised to deliver the Chinese government a big, “no thank you” when it comes to espionage under the guise of help with research or corporate trade secrets.
Two bills cracking down on foreign espionage in research and higher education cleared second reading on the House floor and are ready for a final vote.
Gov. Ron DeSantis specifically called out China as a central threat at the initial unveiling of several bills that take aim at U.S. foreign adversaries.
One of the bills (HB 1523), sponsored by Lithia Rep. Mike Beltran, takes aim at foreign governments by updating trade secret law. Under the bill, if trade secret theft is committed to benefit a foreign government or company, the offense would be a first-degree felony.
Beltran’s bill would create the “Combating Corporate Espionage in Florida Act” by amending current trade secret theft definitions and crimes. A trade secret is a formula, process, device, or other business information kept confidential to maintain an advantage over competitors.
Beltran said current trade secret laws have loopholes arising from advances in technology.
“The criminal statute is outdated in that it requires you to actually take a physical item, which really isn’t the way people commit trade secret theft. They upload it to a cloud, they put it on their own USB, they download it onto their home computer. It’s not like 30 years ago, where you might print something, steal the blueprint, so forth,” Beltran explained after a committee hearing in March.
The bill creates the crime of trafficking in trade secrets, a second-degree felony, which would be reclassified one degree higher if committed with intent to benefit a foreign government. About 80% of all economic espionage prosecutions brought by the U.S. Department of Justice allege conduct that would benefit the China.
The bill also allows private individuals and corporations greater ability to seek compensation in state court for stolen trade secrets, and offers immunity to a person who discloses a trade secret to authorities during an investigation or legal proceeding.
The other bill (HB 7017) requires greater disclosure of where Florida researchers are getting their grant money and prohibits some agreements between government agencies or schools with China and six other countries.
The bill, carried by Vero Beach Rep. Erin Grall, amounts to another crackdown on foreign influence at Florida’s colleges and universities. The bill names China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, and Syria as “foreign countries of concern.” The list was chosen from the federal foreign adversaries list.
The bill is meant to address controversies over Chinese money secretly being funneled to research done at Florida universities and other U.S. institutions. An example the Governor used during the unveiling of the legislation is Moffit Cancer Center in Tampa. A federal investigation showed top officials there had questionable ties to China.
Under the bill, universities and state agencies would be required to disclose to certain state departments foreign donations and grants over $50,000 from the named countries. Applicants for those grants would also be required to disclose all foreign financial connections with any of the seven countries of concern.
The bill also requires universities with research budgets over $10 million to perform extra screening of foreign applicants for research positions and extra screening for foreign travel and employee activities.
And the bill prohibits donations “conditioned on a program to promote the language and culture of any of seven countries of concern.”
An amendment was added during the bill’s second reading to give protections to whistleblowers.
