[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 148 (Wednesday, October 27, 1999)]
[House]
[Pages H10906-H10907]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   EXPORTATION OF TECHNOLOGY REGARDING SUPERCOMPUTERS AND ENCRYPTION 
                                SOFTWARE

  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, rapid advances in technology 
have presented challenges to all of us on a number of levels but one of 
the most profound challenges that our Nation faces is in the area of 
national security. These rapid advances in technology place new 
challenges to our folks who are trying to protect our Nation and 
protect our security interests as they try to figure out how to deal 
with this new technology. As technology changes basically the old rules 
do not apply but the challenge that faces us is figuring out what the 
new rules are. How do we deal with the changes in technology in a way 
that will protect our national security? The area that I want to talk 
about this afternoon is in the area of the exportation of certain 
technology, namely supercomputers or so-called supercomputers, today a 
lap top almost qualifies as a supercomputer by the old standards, in 
fact a few of them do, and also the exportation of encryption software, 
the software that helps encode messages and protect it from outside 
sources gaining access.
  In the old days, the method for protecting national security was, if 
a new weapon was developed on a horizon that presented a threat to us, 
one of the things we tried to do was to make sure that nobody else had 
access to it. If it is a product that is developed in the U.S., we try 
to severely restrict the exportation of that product.

                              {time}  1545

  That is, in fact, what we have done with encryption software and with 
supercomputers. We have placed severe restrictions for years on the 
ability of U.S. companies to export either something that is classified 
as a supercomputer or encryption software to any place outside the 
United States, and these restrictions were intended to prevent that 
technology from getting into the hands of other people.
  This has not worked, and I rise today to offer a better solution and 
to offer a solution that will best protect our national security, and 
that is the critical point here. It is not my argument that we should 
export this stuff because it is good commercially and the national 
security losses are minimal. On the contrary, it is my argument that if 
we do not allow greater exportation of this technology, our national 
security will be threatened, and let me explain that.
  It is threatened by two realities. One of them is ubiquity. What that 
means is that things become easily accessible anywhere in the world. It 
used to be that a supercomputer was a rather large cumbersome series of 
machines and boxes that were very difficult to put together and even 
more difficult to transport. That is no longer the case. You can put 
together a supercomputer now with the chip that is really basically 
about the size of the tip of my finger; put together that, pull 
together seven or eight of those chips, and you have a computer capable 
of something way beyond what any computer was capable of even a decade 
ago. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, controlling this becomes very, very 
difficult.
  In addition to being small and easily transportable, the other thing 
that has happened is a lot of other countries have started to catch up 
in the area of technology. If you want to buy the computer chips that 
will put together a supercomputer, you do not have to come to the U.S. 
You have literally hundreds of other options. So we in the U.S. are not 
able to restrict that. We can restrict our own exports, but that does 
not stop other countries from having companies develop that product.
  It is even more true in the area of encryption software. Encryption 
software is now produced by over a hundred countries. If you want 
access to top-of-the-line encryption, you can get it from dozens of 
other places other than the United States of America. We are powerless 
to control it.
  Now you may argue, well, so what? At least we can do our part. We can 
control what the U.S. exports and, therefore, protect national 
security, at least to the best that we are able. But the problem with 
that is the second key point I would like to make, and that is 
something that everybody acknowledges from the FBI to the NSA to the 
most ardent opponents of exporting technology. They all acknowledge 
that one of the keys to our national security is for the U.S. to 
maintain its leadership in technology, and the reason for this is 
obvious.
  Technology is critical to our national security. If we are developing 
the best encryption software, the best computers here in the U.S., then 
our FBI, our NSA, our national security and Armed Forces units will 
have access to that information that they will not have if some other 
country develops it; and if we allow our countries to get ahead of us 
in the area of both supercomputers and encryption technology, pretty 
soon nobody will be buying from the U.S. because we will not have the 
best product. Our industries will die and we will not have access to 
the best technology.
  Now recently, after years, the White House has stepped up and 
expanded our ability to export both supercomputers and encryption 
technology. I rise today to make the critical point that that is a good 
move not just for our industry, not just for jobs in the U.S., which is 
not an insignificant concern, but it is also a good move for our 
national security, and I want folks to understand that because I think 
for too long we have been stuck in thinking that has long since been 
passed by technology.
  We cannot wrap our arms around technology and keep it here in the 
U.S.; those days are gone. If we want to protect our national security, 
we need to maintain our leadership in both the development of the best 
computers in the world and the development of the best encryption 
software in the world, and the only way to do that is give U.S. 
companies access to the foreign markets they so desperately need to 
maintain that leadership.
  I am very pleased as a member of the new Democratic Network that the 
new Democratic Coalition and Caucus have so much to do with pushing 
this issue, making the White House aware of it,

[[Page H10907]]

because I think it is critical to the future of our country both 
economically and in terms of national security, and I urge that we 
continue down the sensible path to protecting national security.

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