Posted on 01/03/2002 7:43:08 AM PST by bluetoad
WASHINGTON (AP) - The nation's most popular and powerful computer technology will be available to Russia, China, India and Pakistan because of a Bush administration decision to relax Cold War-era restrictions.
The move, sought for months by the technology industry, was made official by President Bush (news - web sites) on Wednesday. From his ranch in Crawford, Texas, he notified congressional leaders that he was raising the threshold for government approval of computer exports to ``Tier 3'' nations, a category that also includes Israel.
Since 1990, the export controls have been relaxed almost yearly to keep pace with advances in technology.
Under the relaxed export standards, individual licenses and prior government review will be required only for the export of computers that perform more than 190,000 MTOPS, or millions of theoretical operations per second.
High-end computers available at some retail computer stores as well as the Internet can provide that level of general processing power.
The current threshold is 85,000 MTOPS, a performance standard that has become commonly available for years.
``These reforms are needed due to the rapid rate of technological change in the computer industry,'' White House Deputy Press Secretary Scott McClellan said. ``Single microprocessors available today - by mail order and the Internet - perform at more than 25 times the speed of supercomputers built in the early 1990s.''
Several major technology companies supported Bush's decision.
The decision allows ``export controls to keep pace with rapid advancements in computing technology,'' said Jennifer Greeson, a spokeswoman for the Computer Coalition for Responsible Exports. She represents companies that include Dell, IBM, Intel, Unisys, Apple and Sun Microsystems.
Intel's upcoming Itanium microprocessor can be exported because of the rule change. Several Apple and Dell laptop computers will also qualify for exportation.
But the computer industry wants more change.
Greeson's group has long argued that the government's unit for measuring computer processing power - the MTOP - is a poor way to judge whether technology is safe to export. They feel it is too general and doesn't reflect a computer's purpose.
``Some of the computers excluded in the past have had no potential to be used for modeling nuclear explosions or missile guidance systems,'' Greeson said. ``They have not posed any kind of security risk.''
The United States maintains its virtual embargo on computer exports to Iraq, Iran, Libya, North Korea (news - web sites), Cuba, Sudan and Syria.
Bush's revised export rules implement the general policies of the Export Administration Act, legislation controlling commercial exports that could be put to military use. The act expired in 1990 and has since been kept alive through temporary extensions.
By his action Wednesday, Bush also removed Latvia from the list of Tier 3 countries and reclassified it as Tier 1, putting Latvia in league with Western European and other U.S. allies whose computer imports from the United States require no prior government review.
Both the House and the Senate have passed separate bills to end Cold War restrictions on exports of computers and other high-tech items. The differences between them are yet to be resolved, something that must be done before Congress can send the legislation to Bush for his signature.
Time to wake up, again, America!!!
Bush could have made everyone feel real good and pretend we can stop this technology from spreading but the fact of it is we cannot.
Several major technology companies supported Bush's decision...
The United States maintains its virtual embargo on computer exports to Iraq, Iran, Libya, North Korea (news - web sites), Cuba, Sudan and Syria.
Oops. I think they left this part out: Russia, China, India and Pakistan will happily supply those countries "virtually embargoed" by the U.S.
American law-makers are confident that the USA PATRIOT Act, the Office of Homeland Security, the FBI, the DEA, the CIA and the IRS will serve to ensure the continuing safety and security of American "citizens". American citizens are urged to go about their daily business while maintaining an urgent sense of fear, confusion and helplessness, tempered by a sense of confident invulnerability and trust in their God (aka Govt.)
Some sacrifices and well publicised demonstrations of "the Iron Fist" will be needed in order to maintain the illusions.
The difference is that with Clinton, these decisions were always made in furtherance of a personal or political agenda, such as campaign contributions from the PRC to the DNC.
I don't know whether Bush's action makes sense or not, but at least I don't doubt that he is acting on his perception of America's real interests.
Maybe that position can be argued, but at least it doesn't stink of corruption.
I don't know whether Bush's action makes sense or not, but at least I don't doubt
that he is acting on his perception of America's real interests.
I don't see much difference....
gw is directly allowing the sale of world-class technology to our enemies.
You can bet the technology manufacturers on the "approved" list will also show up as major contributors.
This will (probably legally) acquire foreign campaign donations.
I don't know whether Bush's action makes sense or not, but at least I don't doubt
that he is acting on his perception of America's real interests.
I don't see much difference....
gw is directly allowing the sale of world-class technology to our enemies.
You can bet the technology manufacturers on the "approved" list will also show up as major contributors.
This will (probably legally) acquire foreign campaign donations.
Not the case. Anything higher than 190,000 MTOPS still requires review and a license. Anything lower than that (and even higher) can be put together from off the shelf components countries can buy anywhere. Computer control for machines of this power makes as much sense as gun control. Anyone who wants one and can afford it can get one if the US sells to them or not. Clinton, on the other hand, allowed the sale computers listed on our munitions list which countries could not buy elsewhere. And the People's Republic of China bribed him to do so.
Whether or not you are so deeply enamored with G.W. is not the issue, China IS our enemy and don't ever forget it.
First Favored Nation Trade Status and now this. Remember ('bout three weeks ago) what countries name was found stamped on the crates of munitions in Afghanistan?
C_H_I_N_A
! Our buddies!
The following article was reposted on drudgereport.com today:
China uses computers from U.S. illegally; Nuclear facility simulates blasts
June 27, 2000 THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Bill Gertz
China's main nuclear weapons center is using U.S. supercomputers illegally to simulate warhead detonations without actual underground tests, The Washington Times has learned.
U.S.-origin high-performance computers are being used at the Chinese Academy of Engineering Physics, the main nuclear weapons facility in Beijing. The facility is viewed by officials as China's version of Los Alamos National Laboratory, according to Clinton administration intelligence officials.
The use of U.S. supercomputers - with computational speeds of billions of operations per second or faster - at the nuclear facility was outlined in a report classified "top-secret" and circulated among senior U.S. national security officials last month, said the officials who have seen it. They discussed some elements of the report on the condition of anonymity. Disclosure of the use of U.S. computers to help develop China's nuclear arms comes as the Clinton administration and Congress are considering new measures to loosen exports of American-made high-performance computers.
An amendment to the current defense authorization bill President Clinton signed in February further relaxed export rules on advanced computers, allowing U.S. manufacturers to begin selling faster systems on Aug. 15.
Officials did not identify the U.S. manufacturers of the systems or how they were obtained.
Supercomputer sales have been restricted because they are crucial elements for designing and developing nuclear weapons, missiles and advanced conventional arms, according to defense officials.
Additionally, the U.S. intelligence community reported last month that China is expanding a nuclear research facility at Mianyang. The so-called "Science City" there is working on both nuclear weapons and civilian energy research, the intelligence officials said.
The reported supercomputer use at the nuclear facility is the third time China's government has been detected diverting U.S.-origin computers to defense facilities.
In 1997, China agreed to return a Silicon Graphics supercomputer that was illegally diverted through a Hong Kong front company to a Chinese defense facility.
A White House National Security Council spokesman declined to comment, citing a policy of not talking about intelligence matters.
A U.S. intelligence official who was not familiar with the report said that it has been difficult for U.S. intelligence agencies to learn whether China is using complete U.S. advanced computers, or whether they are using a combination of U.S. components and homemade systems.
According to Clinton administration officials, the president hopes to dramatically ease export control on high-powered computers.
An amendment to the current defense authorization bill sponsored by Sen. Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, would make it easier for the president to change the export rules by reducing a congressional notification period from 180 days to 30 days.
The argument of some officials who support the changes is that the systems are so widely available that controlling them is futile.
Other officials who oppose the decontrol note that the United States produced the best and fastest supercomputers and that they should not be exported to countries that could use them against the United States, like China.
A Senate national security aide said the administration "failed completely" to win Chinese government cooperation in checking on the end use of U.S. computers sold during the 1990s.
"That's why the Chinese know that they can use these computers with impunity," the aide said, noting that the relaxation of controls "has been a disaster for U.S. national security."
Stephen Bryen, a Pentagon export-control official during the Reagan administration, said he predicted in the early 1990s that U.S. supercomputers would be used by China for developing advanced nuclear weapons.
"That's been the great worry about transfers of supercomputers," he said. "That they would be able to design a new generation of smaller warheads that can fit on smaller missiles or which can be MIRVed" - multiple, independently targetable re-entry vehicles, or multiple warheads.
Mr. Bryen said in an interview that the United States was able to radically reduce the number of actual underground nuclear tests needed for developing new warheads, from several hundred to about five.
"This is not good news for us because the Chinese can do a lot of this covertly," he said. "It will be hard for us to know their capabilities, and we will have a difficult time understanding the threat."
The report by the special House committee that investigated Chinese spying and technology acquisition stated that there is limited information on China's use of U.S. supercomputers. However, the report said that the panel "judges that the People's Republic of China has been using high performance computers for nuclear weapons applications."
The report stated that under relaxed export rules, China may have purchased as many as 603 high-speed computers between 1996 and 1998.
Following the illegal diversion to defense use of several U.S. supercomputers by Russia and China, Congress in 1998 passed a law requiring tighter restrictions.
The law required exporters to notify the government before selling supercomputers to nations like China and Russia.
The U.S. computer industry opposed the requirement and has lobbied instead for further relaxation of controls as computer computational capabilities increased.
In July, Mr. Clinton loosened the restrictions further to allow exports of machines capable of 6.5 billion operations per second, and in February announced he will allow sales of computers that carry out 12.5 billion operations per second.
According to the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, the Chinese Academy of Engineering Physics was identified in June 1997 as an "entity of concern," a designation that warned American exporters that the institute was involved in defense programs.
Time to open up some of those back doors.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.