A Bureaucratic Logjam?
     Without such easing, industry officials are concerned about a serious bureaucratic logjam thanks to the steady application of Moore's Law: computers are becoming so much more powerful and so much cheaper that technology viewed as highly sophisticated a few years ago becomes available for mass-market commercial purposes. Advances in chip technology are expected to push the next generation of business computers into the category of devices subject to export review, high-tech industry and Clinton administration officials say. That could pose significant problems for exporters and government officials who must review such exports.
     "Technology trends are getting to the point where... there will soon be really potent computer capabilities available to anyone," said information systems professor Seymour Goodman of the University of Arizona. Goodman helped conduct two Stanford University studies for the Commerce and Defense Departments on the availability of high-performance computers abroad, and the capability of some countries to use them for military purposes.
     "There was a time when these controls were reasonably effective," he said. "But the world of high-performance computing has changed dramatically in recent years."

Cox Report Impact
     While the Cox committee shied away from recommending any broad new restrictions, it did call on Congress to take steps to ensure that high-performance computers are not sold to China for military purposes. Specifically, the panel said Congress should pass legislation reducing the performance level of computers it allows for export -- or deny export licenses on computers destined for China altogether -- if the U.S. government fails to implement a system by Sept. 30 for surprise end user checks on computers sold to China.
     "Our focus needs to be on those items that are uniquely American and uniquely suited for the development of weapons of mass destruction," Cox said.
     Whether Congress will move on this recommendation remains to be seen. But those members who have been critical of the industry for not using enough discretion in choosing its customers may be emboldened by the report. Rep. Duncan Hunter R-CA, a defense hawk who has pushed for controls on supercomputers in the past, said Congress should consider cutting off high-performance computer exports to countries such as China altogether, saying there is no way to guarantee that such computers will not end up in the wrong hands.
     The Clinton administration has moved twice since 1993 to loosen controls on high-performance computers in response to changes in technology. But after reports surfaced that unlicensed U.S-made high-performance computers had ended up in China, and in a Russian nuclear weapons facility, Congress reversed some of those changes. Lawmakers required increased scrutiny of exports to countries like Russia and China of computers with performance levels over 2,000 MTOPS (millions of theoretical operations per second). In addition, lawmakers also required that any move to loosen restrictions on the export of supercomputers must first go through a six-month review by Congress.
     While even critics of the administration's policy agree that figuring out the right balance is getting more difficult, they say government has little choice but to try control what it can. "We still have to be on the cutting edge of controlling it," said Rep. Curt Weldon R-PA, a member of the Cox committee.

Pushing For A Change
     Despite some setbacks, industry officials say they plan to launch an aggressive education effort to convince lawmakers and other skeptical policymakers of the need to loosen controls again to keep up with advances in technology. The Computer Coalition for Responsible Exports, a group of computer companies that favors loosening export restrictions, is expected to release in coming weeks a study that will show a dramatic increase in the number of computers that will be sold overseas in the next few years with an MTOP rating above 2000.
     If computer companies want more liberalization, "it is going to require that industry really get organized [and] make its case often and in a dramatic way," said former National Security Agency General Counsel Stewart A. Baker, a lawyer who specializes in technology and international trade issues.
     Industry has some support for its cause within the administration. Commerce Undersecretary William Reinsch, who heads the Bureau of Export Administration, which oversees the export of supercomputers, has argued that the best way to protect national security is to ensure that the United States has a healthy high-tech industry that is producing better products than any other country. When "government gets behind the curve, you end up controlling" hundreds of thousands of computers, Reinsch said. "We believe we still have to control at the high end...The problem is getting everyone to agree" on what is considered a high-end computer.

Industry Seeks Allegiance With Hill
     But even industry officials acknowledge that the administration may be reluctant to act in the near future unless it senses that those changes will not be widely rejected on Capitol Hill. "There's a great reluctance (within the administration) to take action on this issue because of all the beatings" it has taken, said Dan Hoydysh, director of the Washington office for Unisys and co-chairman of the Computer Coalition for Responsible Exports. "There's a reluctance to move forward until you actually see the results of the controls."
     Many of these issues are likely to get a full airing as congressional committees scrutinize the Cox report, which is still in the process of being declassified, and as debate begins in full over reauthorization of the Export Administration Act. The law, which expired in 1994, regulates dual-use products, items that have both commercial and military value such as high-performance computers. The House International Relations Committee is tentatively expected to a hold a hearing on the act next week, according to an aide. The Senate Banking Committee's international trade and finance panel also has tentatively planned a second hearing on reauthorization of the act for March 10.
     "Finding a balance is the real difficulty of the reauthorization. Everyone can agree on the need to protect our national security interests, and the need to keep technologies from the truly bad actors," said Sen. Michael Enzi R-WY, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee's International Trade and Finance Subcommittee. "The hard part comes in the gray area of determining what constitutes an acceptable risk."

- by Juliana Gruenwald