Special emphasis in this decontrol proposal is on computers, machine tools, and telecommunications equipment.
CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Summit Watch: Tough Questions For President Bush
Regrettably, some member nations objected and the 15 September 1988 decontrol date was observed.
The Bush Administration has decided to decontrol next week yet another sensitive dual-use technology: polysilicon.
In the Senate, meanwhile, an encryption decontrol measure has been approved by the Commerce Committee.
He should also become personally engaged in a review of the technology decontrol process.
The new Commerce decontrol proposal would allow the transfer of personal computers capable of processing 68 million mips.
This forum of experts would serve as an advisory body to guide U.S. export control and decontrol efforts.
What is the estimated loss to taxpayers of previous investments made for superior weapons capabilities by these decontrol proposals?
CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Summit Watch: Tough Questions For President Bush
At this meeting, the United States is poised to agree to the most sweeping decontrol of dual-use technology in history.
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As a consequence, Commerce is at liberty to make most licensing and wholesale decontrol decisions irrespective of objections by the national security community.
In particular, the creation of new high-level U.S.-Soviet working groups on economic issues and the decontrol of sophisticated dual-use technology should be deferred indefinitely.
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The Center also recommends legislation to require the concurrence of the Secretary of Defense on future East-West decontrol actions proposed by the Commerce Department.
The encryption debate is in its fifth year of congressional hearings, but passage of a decontrol measure did not gain momentum until the current session.
Michel Leger, a key member of France's delegation to COCOM responsible for technology decontrol matters, was arrested by French authorities and charged with acting as a Soviet spy.
This latitude for reckless decision-making is the more worrisome for the fact that a vast array of other technology decontrol proposals are now the subject of foreign availability assessments.
Prior to his confirmation by the Senate last summer, Kloske tried to allay the concerns of a number of Senators about the process by which decontrol actions were being handled.
Indeed, the NSC has shown irresponsible disinterest in the whole matter of technology security, enormously compounding the risks of capricious decontrol actions -- and increasing the likelihood that they will occur.
The meeting was originally scheduled for 28 February, but was postponed last week because, according to State Department sources, the decontrol agenda is so ambitious that preliminary work by functionaries remains incomplete.
Another 13 categories are slated for substantial decontrol.
CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Summit Watch: Tough Questions For President Bush
At a minimum, Commerce should defer further decontrol action pending the outcome of a report required by law last year on the foreign availability process due to be submitted to the Congress on 15 April.
The Center calls for an immediate moratorium on further decontrol actions pending thorough executive and legislative branch reviews of the present procedures and consideration of statutorily mandated safeguards needed to protect against ill-advised initiatives in this area.
Administration officials testifying recently in hearings convened by the Joint Economic Committee and the House Government Operations Committee have conceded that insufficient attention has been given to the implications of East-West technology decontrol decisions for weapons proliferation from North to South.
Among those items reportedly slated for decontrol are sensors capable of testing missile silos, high-speed microprocessors with a wide variety of applications for military systems, solid and liquid rocket motors and spacecraft, advanced lasers, electronic navigation equipment, and sophisticated machine tools.
One can only conclude that Kloske dissembled when he promised the Senate that he would create an interagency mechanism for eliciting and incorporating such experts' views so as to avoid the sort of problems that arose in the initial computer decontrol case.
As Ambassador Alan Wendt, the State Department's senior official for technology transfer matters, prepares to depart for a series of consultations next week with key COCOM partners, the pressure is on to show an American willingness to be "flexible" on further decontrol proposals.
While the foregoing litany illustrates the mindset of many in the Bush Administration on the irrelevance of a rigorous technology security policy in the so-called post-Cold War world, the specific device being used to force reckless decontrol actions through the U.S. government warrants special mention.
More troubling still, it is now evident that -- despite his commitment to have decontrol decisions made on a strategic basis rather than on an "ad hoc" one -- Kloske apparently has no intention of imposing such discipline on the Commerce Department or the foreign availability process it runs.
Because the Secretary of Commerce is not required to seek the concurrence of any other Cabinet officer in making the final determination about foreign availability, however, and because there is no statutory mechanism established for resolving disputes over associated findings, Secretary Mosbacher has the authority to make decontrol decisions -- no matter how ill-advised and irrespective of the serious deficiencies in the supporting analyses.
In the aftermath of the computer decontrol fiasco, Mr. Kloske (who was then awaiting Senate confirmation for his present position as Under Secretary of Commerce for Export Administration) promised to develop an interagency mechanism for eliciting and incorporating the views of technical and intelligence experts throughout the U.S. government with a view to avoiding the sort of problems that arose in the earlier case.
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