[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 81 (Wednesday, June 9, 1999)]
[House]
[Pages H3997-H3998]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            CONTROLS ON EXPORTATION OF TECHNOLOGY IN AMERICA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Washington (Mr. Smith) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to talk about a 
very important policy issue in this country and that is the policy of 
export controls and specifically the controls that we place on the 
exportation of technology.
  There has been a lot of talk about this issue today on the national 
defense bill, a lot of concerns about the exportation of technology. 
And I want to make a national security argument for changing some of 
those controls and allowing actually for the greater exportation of 
technology.
  We heard a lot of talk today about the dangers of technology and what 
it can do to our national security. I think this is a misguided policy 
based on Cold War philosophies that fail to recognize the changes that 
have taken place in our economy and the emergence of a new information-
based economy and what that means for all manner of policy decisions, 
particularly in the area of exportation of technology.
  The situation we have right now is we have very strict restrictions 
on exportation of certain technology, most notably encryption software 
and any sort of so-called supercomputer. I say ``so-called'' because, 
basically, the laptops that we have on our desks today just a couple of 
years ago were considered supercomputers. That shows how fast computers 
advance and how much our policy fails to keep up with it.
  The national security argument that I wish to make is based on the 
fact that our national security is best protected by making sure that 
the United States maintains its leadership role in the technology 
economy, maintains a situation where we in the U.S. have the best 
encryption software and the best computers.
  If we place restrictions on the exportation of that technology, that 
will soon fail to be the case. We will cease to be the leaders in this 
technology area and we will cease to be able to provide that very 
important R&D to the military that enables them to be the leaders in 
technology.
  Our current policies are creating a situation where more and more 
countries of the world have to go elsewhere to get access to either 
encryption software or computers of any kind. And that is a very 
important point in this debate.
  The limitations that we place on the exportation of technology is 
based on two premises. One is correct but misinterpreted, and the other 
is incorrect. The one that is correct but misinterpreted is that 
technology matters in

[[Page H3998]]

national security. That is absolutely true. Computers, software, all 
manner of technology give us a stronger national defense, and all 
manner of technology can be a potential threat to any country's 
national security. That is true.
  But the mistaken application comes from the belief that somehow the 
United States can place its arms around that technology and not allow 
the rest of the world to get it. That might have been true in the 
1940's and in the 1950's. But in the new economy, in the Internet age 
and in the age of technology, it is not true.
  Encryption is the best example. We believe that we are not going to 
allow the rest of the world access to the best encryption technology by 
restricting our Nation's companies' ability to export it. But we can 
download 128 byte encryption technology off the Internet.
  Dozens of countries, not the least of which are Canada, Russia, 
Germany, export that technology. Also not to mention the fact that if 
we want to buy the best encryption technology possible, we can go to 
just about any software store in the world, slip it into the pocket of 
our suit, and climb on an airplane and go anyplace we want to go.
  Our restricting our Nation's companies' ability to export encryption 
technology is not stopping so-called rogue nations or anybody out there 
from getting access to that technology. What it is doing is it is 
having them get that technology from some other country and also 
hurting our companies' ability to export to legitimate users of 
encryption technology.
  And in the long-run, or actually, given the way the technology 
economy works, in the much shorter run than we would like, we are going 
to cease to be the leaders in encryption technology. The rest of the 
world is going to overtake us. And then our national security is really 
going to be threatened because we are not going to be the best and we 
are going to face other countries that have better technology than us.
  The same is true in the area of computers. We are but a couple years 
away from creating a situation where most countries in the world will 
not be able to export so-called supercomputers to the rest of the 
country.
  What we are a couple of years away from, forgive me, I did not 
exactly explain that right, is having our basic laptop not being able 
to be exported because of the 2,000 MTOPS limit that we place on 
exportation.
  I think that there is a false argument that has been set up in this 
debate, and that is that this is a choice between national security and 
commerce. And I could spew off a whole bunch of statistics about how 
important technology is to the growth of our economy and how important 
access to foreign markets is to that growth of our technology sector of 
our economy. And all of that is true.
  But a lot of people look at that and say, well, you are just arguing 
put commerce ahead of national security. We are not arguing that. 
National security, as well as commerce, demands that we change the 
export control policies that we place on technology.

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