[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 81 (Monday, June 14, 2004)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1094]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




        NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2005

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                            HON. ZOE LOFGREN

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                         Monday, June 14, 2004

  Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the great work done by 
Chairman Hunter and Ranking Member Skelton on this legislation, but I 
must reluctantly rise to highlight a major problem that I hope will be 
fixed before this bill reaches the President's desk.
  There is an obscure provision of the bill that I want to make sure 
Members know about, and that is Section 1404, which would require U.S. 
companies to get a license before they export any goods listed on the 
Military Critical Technologies List. According to a copy of that list I 
found on the Defense Technical Information Center Web site, computers 
that exceed 1500 MTOPS are considered to be military critical.
  So under this bill, exports of desktop computers, laptops and Sony 
PlayStations would require a license. Making matters worse, the license 
requirement would apply to all exports, even those headed to our 
allies. If you want to sell a Sony PlayStation to England, you would 
need a license. I think that is a major problem.
  Our current laws allow exports up to 190,000 MTOPS to Tier III 
countries like China and Russia. I personally think that 190,000 MTOPS 
is an outdated metric. But to go down to a 1500 MTOPS metric is 
literally the stone age of computing.
  If there are specific military critical technologies that are not 
sufficiently controlled under existing export regulations, like night 
vision or surveillance devices, then let us draft something that 
controls those technologies. But to say that we cannot freely sell a 
laptop to someone in London, that the Sony PlayStations cannot be 
exported to Canada, I think is wrong.
  I know that this is about war, but it shouldn't be about war on the 
American economy.

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