>> James Woolsey, then director of the Central Intelligence Agency, recounted in a newspaper article in 2000 how the American government typically reacted to intelligence of this sort. “When we have caught you [Europeans]...we go to the government you're bribing and tell its officials that we don't take kindly to such corruption,” he wrote. Apparently this (and a direct sales pitch from Bill Clinton to King Fahd) swung the aircraft part of the deal Boeing's and McDonnell Douglas's way.
Wow, I knew national industry deals were murky, but damn.
Maybe they're doing defense (discovering bribes swaying the bid to another country, or monitoring their own country's bribes) or offense (stealing competitor bid data and specifications), but they're not idle.