16 March 2001
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US Department of State
International Information Programs
Washington File
_________________________________
15 March 2001
(Clinton's January decision criticized) (1490) A congressional investigative agency has criticized President Clinton's January decision to relax controls on computer exports. The criticism appears in March 15 testimony prepared by Susan Westin of Congress' General Accounting Office (GAO) for a Senate Governmental Affairs Committee hearing. Senator Fred Thompson, the committee chairman, has become a leading opponent of export control relaxation. Clinton's decision, announced January 10, in part would raise the threshold for permissible computer sales to a group of countries including Russia, China, India, Pakistan and Israel. If not blocked by Congress the decision would raise the threshold for the sixth time since 1995. It would allow exports of computers capable of 85,000 million theoretical operations per second (MTOPs), up from the existing 28,000 MTOPs threshold. Westin testified that Clinton's decision failed to meet two of three criteria for such action as required by a 1998 law: It neither addressed all the military uses that could be applied at the new threshold nor assessed the national security consequences of such uses. She said Clinton did meet the third criterion demonstrating that such high-performance computer power is becoming available worldwide; Clinton's report recognized that people can assemble such power by connecting lower-performance computers together. "The president's January 2001 changes in the export control thresholds for high performance computer exports are not adequately justified," Westin said. Following is an excerpt of the text as submitted for the committee's record: (begin excerpt) United States General Accounting Office Testimony Before the Committee on Governmental Affairs, U.S. Senate March 15, 2001 EXPORT CONTROLS: Inadequate Justification for Relaxation of Computer Controls Demonstrates Need for Comprehensive Study Statement of Susan S. Westin, Managing Director, International Affairs and Trade Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee: I am pleased to be here today to discuss export control issues for high performance computers. My testimony is based on work we have conducted over the past few years, particularly our December 2000 report,(1) and work we are currently completing for the Congress. As you know, export controls continue to be a contentious part of our national security debate. Over the past several years, there has been continuing congressional concern over the rationale for revising these controls and their effect on our national security. U.S. policy with respect to the export of sensitive technology, including computers, seeks to balance the national interest in promoting economic growth and trade against the essential national security requirement to prevent the proliferation of technologies related to weapons of mass destruction, missiles, and advanced conventional weapons. The United States has long controlled the export of high-performance computers(2) to sensitive destinations such as Russia and China. These computers have both civilian and military (dual-use) applications, and the recent technological advancements in computing power have been rapid. The Department of Commerce has primary responsibility for licensing these dual-use items and other agencies -- State, Defense, and sometimes Energy -- help to weigh promotion of commercial interests in exporting items against protection of national security interests. The regulations for high-performance computer control thresholds are currently based on a computer's composite theoretical performance as measured in millions of theoretical operations per second (MTOPS). We recently reported that the growing ability of other countries to cluster lower performance computers has made the current computer export-control system ineffective in limiting countries of concern from obtaining high performance computing capabilities for military applications.(3) In that report, we also reported that MTOPS is an outdated and invalid means for determining whether individual high-performance computers should be licensed for export. We recommended that executive branch agencies convene a panel of experts to (1) conduct a comprehensive assessment of available options to address weaknesses of computer export controls and (2) make a determination on what U.S. countermeasures, if any, are necessary to respond to any computing-related enhancements of military or proliferation capabilities in sensitive countries. The Departments of Commerce and Defense disagreed with the need to implement these recommendations because they said they were already engaged in interagency reviews of similar issues. However, when asked for documentation on how the agencies were pursuing the points covered in our recommendation, the agencies provided none. As a result, we believe our recommendations are still valid and we raised this matter to the attention of Congress in the December report. On January 10, 2001, President Clinton announced a significant relaxation in export-control licensing and notification thresholds for high-performance computers and a proposal to eliminate almost all controls on exports of computer hardware. Today, I will discuss our observations about these changes, specifically, (1) our evaluation of the President's justification for changing the computer control thresholds, (2) our evaluation of the support for the President's policy proposal to shift the emphasis of controls from hardware to software controls, and (3) implications of these changes. To assess the President's justification for changing the computer control thresholds and to evaluate the support for the President's policy proposal, we reviewed the President's January 2001 report to the Congress and announcement of computer control changes. We also reviewed Defense documents showing the results of calculations in support of the new control threshold. We interviewed officials from the Departments of Defense, Commerce, and State; and the national laboratories, Lawrence Livermore and Oak Ridge. We interviewed officials from major computer manufacturers, IBM, and SUN Microsystems, as well as the computer scientist responsible for the Top 500 List of the most advanced high-performance computers in the world. We also reviewed a Defense Department technical report and interviewed its authors. In addition, we interviewed officials of the Commerce Department's Information Systems Technology Advisory Committee. To identify implications of the computer control threshold and policy changes, we reviewed the President's report to the Congress and White House fact sheet on computer control and policy changes. We also reviewed interagency inspector general reports on export controls. In addition, we interviewed officials of the Departments of Commerce, Defense, and State. We also obtained and analyzed Commerce Department statistics on the disposition of notifications and license applications. SUMMARY The President's January 2001 changes in the export-control thresholds for high-performance computer exports are not adequately justified. While the President's report recognizes that high-performance computing capabilities will become increasingly available to other countries through computer clustering, the report fails to address all militarily significant uses for computers at the new thresholds and assess the national security impact of such uses, as required by law. The inadequacies of the President's report are further compounded by continued use of a flawed measure for assessing computer performance. The support for the President's policy proposal for relaxed U.S. computer controls also is not adequate. Although the new policy was based on a conclusion that computer hardware exports can no longer be controlled, the executive branch did not adequately assess alternative control options. Our prior report identified several other options.(4) In addition, the new policy would focus more attention on using new software controls to protect U.S. national security interests, even though such controls have yet to be identified and developed. We identified several implications of the changes to the control thresholds and the proposed change in U.S. computer export-control policy related to increased risks for U.S. national security. -- The inadequacies of the President's justifications again demonstrate the need for a comprehensive study of the issues involved. -- The new rules effectively eliminate routine prior U.S. government review of computer exports below the licensing threshold to sensitive countries. In the past, we found that establishing a notification threshold lower than the licensing threshold was useful in that it allowed the U.S. government to deny or defer some exports, or make other exports conditional upon additional safeguards. -- Raising licensing control thresholds in January 2001 increases the risk that more powerful computers might be exported without a license to sensitive customers nearly a year before Defense projects that these customers could attain the same computing power by clustering less powerful computers. -- Defense and Commerce officials said that the U.S. government will have to rely more heavily on computer vendors to "know your customers" and assess their intentions to use computers for proliferation purposes. Past evidence has shown this reliance may be misplaced. -- The policy proposal would reduce information that might be useful in detecting patterns of exports to customers engaged in proliferation activities because it would eliminate an annual reporting requirement that provides information on end users. (1)Export Controls: System for Controlling Exports of High Performance Computing is Ineffective (GAO-01-10, Dec. 18, 2000). (2)The Commerce Department considers a high performance computer to be one that exceeds a defined performance threshold, thus requiring an export license. (3)See Export Controls: System for Controlling Exports of High Performance Computing is Ineffective (GAO-01-10, Dec. 2000). (4)Export Controls: System for Controlling Exports of High Performance Computing is Ineffective (GAO-01-10, Dec. 18, 2000). (end excerpt) (Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)