[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 137 (Thursday, October 17, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Page S10654]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          CYBER SECURITY RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT ACT, S. 2182

  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I rise to comment on the passage of H.R. 
3394, the Cyber Security and Research Development Act. I want to 
specifically congratulate and thank Senators Allen and Wyden for 
proposing this measure and for working with me to address a few 
concerns I had relating to ensuring appropriate national security 
protections.
  This important legislation authorizes computer and network security 
research and development and research fellowships through the National 
Science Foundation and the Secretary of Commerce for the National 
Institute of Standards and Technology. This legislation is an important 
step in protecting our country's computer infrastructure, and will 
quickly bear fruit by increasing research and development in this 
critical area.
  Our country's computer infrastructure is critical to our nation's 
homeland defense. This measure is a much needed effort to improve our 
research and development efforts in this area by enlisting and 
bolstering research by our universities, colleges, and research 
entities. At the same time, I wanted to ensure that access to such 
critical cyber-research information is appropriately tailored to ensure 
that our national security interests are protected.
  Mr. President, I want to highlight the modifications that I proposed 
and were included in the bill. These include: (1) expanding the 
purposes for such grants to include research to enhance law enforcement 
efforts to detect, investigate and prosecute cyber-crimes, including 
those that involve piracy of intellectual property, and (2) ensuring 
compliance with the immigration laws by requiring that those who 
receive funds comply with United States immigration laws and are not 
from countries that sponsor international terrorism terrorism, unless 
the Attorney General and Secretary of States make an individualized 
determination that the individual is not a threat to our national 
security. Theft of intellectual property on the internet is becoming a 
serious threat to many in our creative community and one of our most 
important exports.
  Again, I am grateful that the authors of this legislation were 
willing to work with me to include these modifications and I strongly 
support enactment of this legislation into law.

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