[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 114 (Tuesday, July 30, 1996)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1402]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 AVAILABILITY OF VOA, RADIO MARTI MULTILINGUAL COMPUTER READABLE TEXT 
                          AND VOICE RECORDINGS

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. BENJAMIN A. GILMAN

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, July 30, 1996

  Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Speaker, today I am introducing a bill H.R. 3916 
along with my colleagues Mr. Andrews of New Jersey and Mr. Fox of 
Pennsylvania to provide university level linguistic researchers the use 
of Voice of America transcripts for the purpose of research. This 
authority sunsets in 5 years.
  This legislation is necessary since the U.S. Information Agency is 
banned from domestic dissemination of the materials they produce. The 
legislation waives this prohibition allowing USIA to provide computer 
readable multilingual text and recorded speech in various languages 
specifically to the University of Pennsylvania's Linguistic Data 
Consortium. The authority to release the VOA transcripts is carefully 
targeted to the university-level research community.
  All the data to be received by the consortium will be processed in 
electronic form by computers to create statistical tables and models of 
speech and written language, in which content is not even recoverable. 
Thus there is no question of the data being redistributed as news or as 
any kind of product other than a data base for linguistic research and 
development.
  The Linguistic Data Consortium is a nonprofit organization founded in 
1992 with a mission to make resources for research in linguistic 
technologies widely available. About 80 companies, universities, and 
government agencies are members of the consortium.
  Accordingly, I urge our colleagues to support this measure.

                               H.R.  --.

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. AVAILABILITY OF VOICE OF AMERICA AND RADIO MARTI 
                   MULTILINGUAL COMPUTER READABLE TEXT AND VOICE 
                   RECORDINGS.

       (a) In General.--Notwithstanding section 208 of the Foreign 
     Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Years 1986 and 1987 (22 
     U.S.C. 1461-1a) and the second sentence of section 501 of the 
     United States Information and Educational Exchange Act of 
     1948 (22 U.S.C. 1461), the Director of the United States 
     Information Agency is authorized to make available, upon 
     request, to the Linguistic Data Consortium of the University 
     of Pennsylvania computer readable multilingual text and 
     recorded speech in various languages. The Consortium shall, 
     directly or indirectly as appropriate, reimburse the Director 
     for any expenses involved in making such materials available.
       (b) Termination.--Subsection (a) shall cease to have effect 
     5 years after the date of the enactment of this Act.

                          ____________________