REVIEW AND REPORT ON DECONTROL OF CERTAIN PERSONAL COMPUTERS

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Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 
CIA-RDP92M00732R001100010018-6
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RIPPUB
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K
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3
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December 23, 2016
Document Release Date: 
April 8, 2014
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18
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Publication Date: 
August 8, 1989
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MEMO
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Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2014/04/08: CIA-RDP92M00732R001100010018-6 8 August 1989 OCA 2790-89 MEMORANDUM FOR: C/Technology Transfer Assessment Center/OSWR/DDI FROM: Legislation Division Office of Congressional Affairs STAT SUBJECT: Review and Report on Decontrol of Certain Personal Computers Attached for your information is a copy of the 1 August 1989 Congressional Record, wherein the Senate approved an amendment to the DOD Authorization Bill pertaining to decontrol of certain personal computers. As you will note, the amendment requires the Secretary of Defense, in consultation with the Director of Central Intelligence, to conduct a review of the report issued by the Secretary of Commerce concerning the foreign availability of certain personal computers. Attachment OCA/LEG, STAT 8 Aug 89) STAT Distribution: Original - Addressee (w/att) 1 - OCA Records (w/att) 1 - D/OCA (w/att) 1 - OCA/LEG/Subject File: Technology Transfer (w/att) 1 - Signer (w/o att) 1 - OCARead Library STAT Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2014/04/08: CIA-RDP92M00732R001100010018-6 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2014/04/08 : CIA-RDP92M00732R001100010018-6 August 1,1.989 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD SENATE The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona reserves the right to object. Mr. McCAIN. I withdraw the objec- tion. The PRESIDING OFFICER. With- out. objection, it is so ordered. AMENDMENT NO. 633 (Purpose: To require the Secretary of De- fense to review and report on the report of the Secretary of Commerce regarding the decontrol of certain computers) Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk on behalf of the senior Senator from Wyoming and ask for its immediate consider- ation. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the amendment. The assistant legislative clerk read as follows: The Senator from Virginia [Mr. WARNER], for Mr. WALLOP, proposes an amendment numbered 633. Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, / ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with. The PRESIDING OFFICER. With- out objection, it is so ordered. The amendment is as follows: On page 293, between lines 13 and 14, insert the following new section: SEC.. REVIEW AND REPORT ON DECONTROL OF CERTAIN PERSONAL COMPUTERS. (a) REVIEW.?The Secretary of Defense. in consultation with the Director of Central Intelligence and the Science Advisor to the President, shall conduct a review of the report made by the Secretary of Commerce on the foreign availability of certain person-, al- computers entitled "Foreign Availability Assessment: AT-Compatable Microcomput- ers." In conducting such review, the Secre- tary of Defense shall, at a minimum? (1) determine the availability of micro- computers referred to in such report from sources other than members nations of the Coordinating Committee ?for Multilateral Export Controls or other nations that con- trol the export of such computers; and (2) assess the military significance of such computers for the Soviet ,Union and its Warsaw Pact allies. (b) Repoirr.?The Secretary of Defense shall submit to the Committee on Banking. Housing, and Urban Affairs of the Senate and the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives a report con- taining the results of the Secretary's review. The Secretary shall include in such report such recommendations for legislative changes as the Secretary considers appro- priate to protect the national security of the United States. (C) DEADLINE FOR REPORT.?The report re- quired by subsection (b) shall be submitted not later than January 1, 1990. Mr. WALLOP. Mr. President, the amendment which I intend to offer to the Department of Defense authoriza- tion bill deals with the recent decision to ease export control restrictions on certain advanced personal computers to the Soviet Union and other Warsaw pact countries. First of all, Mr. Presi- dent, I want to make very clear that it is not my intention to permanently prevent such sales of personal compute . ers. However, I am extremely con- cerned from what I have seen in the press and from. briefings by adniinis- tration officials that U.S. national se- curity interests may have not been fully taken into account. In particular, Mr. President, I am appalled at the apparent disregard by the Department of Commerce for the Department of Defense's objection to the easing of these restrictions. Having just completed the wrangle over the FSX through which I was persuaded?as was the President?that the Department of Commerce needed to take another look at this issue, I am surprised that Commerce seems to be denying its sister agencies an opportu- nity to play a comparable role in fash- ioning a sensible approach to East- West technology flows. As I understand the Export Adminis- tration Act, a study must be conducted which concludes that an item is found in a controlled country "in sufficient quantity and of comparable quality sufficient to meet the military needs of proscribed destinations" thus estab- lishing that export controls on such Items are ineffective. Mr. President, I have serious reser- vations regarding the integrity and extent of Commerce's foreign avail- ability study. First, the Commerce De- partment's assessment of the foreign availability of these more powerful desktop computers depends in large part on circumstantial evidence such as advertisements and occasional eye- witness sightings. Second, Mr. Presi- dent, Commerce's conclusions provide us with precious little hard data?espe- cially given the fact that their decon- trol initiative would seek to loosen controls by more than 10 thnes in some categories. Although separate components may be sold in the world marketplace at these levels?meaning components would have to be mixed and matched?the study does not show how many whole machines are avail- able to Warsaw Pact countries. In fact, Mr. President; I am hard pressed to find very many hard numbers from Commerce's foreign availability study. The severity of this issue can be un- derstood in light of the following sce- nario: If the United States were to follow the Department of Commerce's decontrol initiative, we effectively would be putting at the disposal of Soviet military PC's that surpass those of our own Armed Forces. Of the 19 countries the Commerce study said could provide these comput- ers to the Soviets, only 2 were either not already members of Cocom, par- ties to existing agreements designed to limit technology flows to the U.S.S.R., or parties with whom we are currently negotiating to follow Cocom regula- tions. These two countries are Czecho- slovakia and Hungary. Although these two countries may have some indige- nous capabilities, they depend very heavily on key components from the West. Moreover, Mr. President, there Is no evidence that either has the abil- ity to produce computers up to the standard or in sufficient quantity to meet Soviet military requirements. S 9291 Although Commerce has asserted that decontrolling certain _advanced desktop computers will result in sub- stantial commercial benefits for Amer- ican computer manufacturers, they are overly optimistic. While the poten- tial Soviet market may be huge, people who are unable to obtain basic commodities like milk and sugar are unlikely consumers of advanced tech- nology computers. The latter -point serves to reemphasize Secretary Che- ney's observation: The most signifi- cant end-users for the new, more pow- erful PC's will be Soviet military and intelligence organizations. Mr. President, I regret that action at this time cannot change the decision Secretary Mosbacher pushed through without regard to Defense Depart- ment concerns. However, I do think it is important for the Senate to go on record -against an unbalanced, and I believe misguided, approach to mahag- ing East-West technology flows. My amendment, if accepted, would require the Secretary of Defense, in consultation with the Director of Cen- tral Intelligence and the President's science advisor, to conduct a review of the foreign availability assessment conducted by the Department of Com- merce. The Secretary of Defense shall then submit a report, no later than January 1, 1990, on the findings of this review to the Committees on Armed Services of the Senate and the House along with recommendations for legislative changes as the Secre- tary Considers appropriate. With this measure, Mr. President, both Armed Services Committees can determine whether or not Commerce's original study was indeed inconclusive. If such a determination is made, Mr. President, I would hope that Senators on both sides of the aisle would agree that legislation regarding potentially dangerous technology flows should be more comprehensively considered in the future. Mr. President, I ask unanimous con- sent to print in the RECORD various items pertaining to this matter. There being no objection, the mate- rial was ordered to be printed* in the RECORD, as follows: (From the Washington Post, Apr. 28, 1989] Sow= SATELLITES' RADIATION DISTORTs SCIENTIFIC OBSERVATIONS (By Philip J. Hilts) Some sky-watching satellites have been blinded as much as half the time by radi- ation leaking from nuclear reactors that power Soviet satellites, a fact U.S. officials knew for eight years but concealed from much of the scientific community, according to the authors of five reports in today's issue of the journal Science.- ? . ? . As a result, large amounts of data that sci- entists thought were telling them some- thing about the universe must be weeded out and discarded. Moreover, the continuing radiation problem may threaten informa- tion to be collected by some of the biggest space science projects planned for the near future, according to Joel R. Primack of the University of California at Santa CMS. Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2014/04/08: CIA-RDP92M00732R001100010018-6 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2014/04/08: CIA-RDP92M00732R001100010018-6 S9292 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD ? SENATE August 009 author.of one of five papers .in Science de- tailing the astronomical disaster. The threatened projects include the $500,000 Gamma Ray Observatory and the $1 billion Hubble Space Telescope, the most expensive piece of equipment ever put in space and the first optical telescope to see' to the edgrof the universe, Prithack said. The problem is caused by the Radar' Ocean Reconnaissance ? Satellites- Used by ?? the Soviets to observe U.S. naval operations. The problem could be made even worse, sci- entists say, by the U.S. Department of Energy, which plans to develop more reac- tors for space, and by similar reactors planned.forthe Strategic DefensaInitlative. ? Some scientists -are now arguing for ban-' ning reactors in orbit, a 'step that would re- ? quire the' agreement of the Sciviets and force the Bush administration publicly to abandon SDI plans as they are now drawn.. The Soviet Union has put up an estimated 35,spy satellites powered by nuclear reactors in the past two decades, and the United States has launched one. The reactors being designed by the Energy Department for the. SDI are 25 times more powerful than the eatlier TJ.S.'' device and would . create far more contamination. A number of astronomical instruments on satellites and high-altitude balloons look out into the universe specifically. to see ? gamma rays coming from celestial objects. They are- the highest-energy "light" that can be seen, and are the best Way to observe the most mysterious of objects in the uni-, verse such as black holes, neutron stars, and quasars. But the gamma rays coming from the re- actors in orbit are 50 times brighter than? ? those from sources in the sky, Prirnack said.. So whenever -a gamma ray instrument pens to. look in the direction of one of the. reactors, or ,whenever -other' instruments'', pass through the cloud Of Charted particles left behind by reactors, ? their detectors' crackle madly with signals from the reactor', that have been interpreted as sigrit of Mys- terious phenomena in space. Astronomers at the University. of .New ? . Hampshire who operated the 'instrument on a satellite called Solar Max first noticed something amiss in 1980 when they enconnr: teted about five iinexPlained.huists of data per month: The researchers were not told, about the problem until 1981, when one was given a security clearance. Then he- and his group' were. told not to discuss the matter, according to documents obtained from the Defense Intelligence" Agency by a Loa Angeles' group that moni- tors nuclear activity it space, called the ? Committee to Bridge the Gap. By 1987 'and 1988, the number and Power of reactors in orbit had increased and the' ? bursts contaminating data-had grown to five ? a day, each lasting from less than a second to 20 minutes.- [From the New York Times, Dec. 27, 19883 :: ? SPACE POLLUTION FORCES NASA To CHANGE PLANS FOR KEY PROJECTS (By William J. Broad) . ,? ? Upset and angry, scientists are being forced to modify plans and equipment for space missions in a last-ditch attempt to protect billions of dollars worth of tele- scopes and spacecraft from the growing haz- ? ards of pollution in the heavens. Hundred of thousands of large and small objects left from past- launchings are zip- ping through space at speeds up to 25 miles a second. Sky watchers now track more than 7,000 objects- the size of a baseball or larger in orbit "around the Earth. 'Moreover, a recently revealed peril, radi- ation from distant nuclear-reactors in space; is already causing false readings in orbiting scientific sensors and may threaten the suc- cess of a new generation of observatories that are more sensitive to radiation., Spacecraft designers and scientists are trying to cope with this celestial pollution by adding shielding to satellites, modifying equipment, reprogramming computers, and exploring ways to dodge debris. In several Instances, however, the spacecraft are large- ly built, limiting the extent and .effectiva ness of such precautions. Designers are considering heavy shielding and maneuvering capability for the pro- posed space station, which the space agency Wants to loft by the late 1990's; computer software changes and minor shielding for the Gamma Ray Observatory, which is, nearly finished; and software changes for the Hubble Space Telescope, which is al- ready built and would be-enormously expen- sive to modify extensively. More immediately, new plans are already in place to help space shuttle crews dodge debris: Scientists on the-ground are Calculat- ing the orbits of space junk that might col- lide with the shuttle, damaging or destroy- ing the winged spaceship. But space scientists are clearly upset with the need for such efforts. "There's frustration and disgust that what ought to be a clean environment-is a mess and seems to be getting. worse," said Dr. James M: Ryan, an astrophysicist at the University of New Hampshire. Telescopes on Earth, he noted, already suffer earthly interference such as "light pollution" from cities. ? Now, ironically, orbiting telescopes that were meant to get above those problems and the obscuring effect of the Earth's atmos- phere are facing a host of man-made im- pediments to Such 'efforts to observe the universe. . Planners especially worry - that space debris ?-might hit a manned spacecraft.. A small piece of debris hit the shuttle on -one flight and planners consider it luck that a severe collision has not yettaken.place.: To protect the space telescope, the -Gamins Ray ObSerVatorY and the space station -from celestial ? pollution, scientists -are taking a variety of steps: - ? . ? ? ? Hubble Space Telescope. Now scheduled for launching late next year,. the $1 billion observatory is to search for bizarre objects at the end of the universe, its sensors prob- ing the visible -universe more deeply than any Earth-based telescope. . . Precautions. against space pollution have been minimal, designers say, because the telescope was started in 1976 and finished long before the severity of the problem was realized. Jean Olivier, a manager for the project at the Marshall .Space Flight Center in Hunts- ville, Ala., said that some changes have been made in the software for "star trackers" so that they would not be misled by reflections from orbiting debris. The trackers fix on a star, helping the telescope's jets keep the platform Stable in relation to the stars. The danger ? is- that - floating debris could be mistaken for a star. sending the telescope into wild gyrations. . It is too late, he added, to try to redesign .the -telescope to be better shielded from the direct impact of speeding debris. "It's im- practical to try to change the hardware." he said. He noted that the telescope, as originally designed, had only a 5 percent chance of suffering "serious degradation" during two years of operation because of the impact of ' orbiting debris: But now, he said, with the steady rise over the years in space junk orbiting the Earth, that figure has increased to 15 pertent. ? ? 'a "When it was designed, no one Was Wor- ried about debris." he said. "But now we have a problem." , ? " ? . Gamma Ray Observatory. TO be.lofted -In- 1990, the $500 million Gamma Ray Obseiva tory is to probe the highly energetic, 'MILO- ?? ble radiations spewed 'by the hottest, most violent stars and galaxies. ? ,.. ? It also aims to study such mysteries as. gamma-ray bursters, points in space that?oc- - casionally emit explosive packets of gamma- ray energy. These bursts have yet to be linked with any known object-. in the uni- verse. - A new threat to its operatiOnwas recently revealed by- its designer,-the National Aero- nautics and Space Administration, Orbiting nuclear reactors, the agency said, emit radiation and charged ? particles that can streak across hundreds of miles of space to hit orbiting gamma ray telestiMes and ? sensors on spacecraft, producing a host of ? false 'readings. In November, scientists revealed that radi- ation from Soviet nuclear reactors in 'space' has already hampered the operation Of an ? . American satellite designed to' measure gamma rays from the'Sun: - The danger will be greater with the Gamma Ray Observatory. Which is far more' sensitive than the current' gamine' ray in-- struments in space. -,?? - ? -' ? Dr. Ryan, the- astrophysicist.- at the Uni- versity of New Hampshireand a scientist on the observatory project,- said two; protective ? ? steps were being weighed, both involving - wchaanreges in the craft's on-board control soft- .The first would try-16 pre-dict when the craft would encounter reactor radiation arid . ttien turn off its Instruments, in effect "turning a blind eye, to the problem.'! he. said. The Second Vatild try to. lee 'lithe - ? craft's onboard conmutets- can 'discriminate between real and artificial readings, and-- filter out the false ones before, they are ?ra- dioed to Earth. . ? The other threat tO. the Garnina.Ray Ob- servatioy is a collision with -orbiting debris.', EVen. minor impacts could virtually' Wipe? out its capability by damaging darriaging eoVeringi.on,.. Its sensors, allowing the instruments-to be blinded by the Sun. , _ ? ? t- , To try to -prevent Such problems, design- ers are increasing the thickness of coverings ? over sensors to better shield them. - . ? ? . The Space Station. The $28 ?billion NASA ? manned space station is to be launched in the .mid-1990's. At 508 feet long, it is ?a large target.'So too, the consequences of collision - are seen as great Since its crew compart- ? ments can carry up to eight, astronauts.. Debris the size of a marble, traveling a few miles per second, can pack the explosive- power of a hand grenade. . Sherman L. Avans, lead engineer for. the . Space Structures and Dynamics Lab at the Marshall Center, said a gas gun installation there had fired small projectiles at simulat- ed space-station" walla some 700 times. to study the danger. As a result, the station . will be fitted with double-walled structures and "bumper shields," adding at least 2,000 ? pounds of shielding to each of the six mod- ules occupied astronauts. Mr. Avans noted that the station also,. , might have the capacity to,.be_ actively. moved out of harm's way: 'With "a feu - hours of advance Wain:Mg." he siad,'sthO.11 jets might push the station to safety. Warn- ? ings for such "collision avoidance" might be provided by ground controllers or .by on:=. ? board radar orinfrared telescopes; he said, For -unmanned 'spacecraft; such precau- tions are too, costly. The ?nestrit.. said...Dr. -.? Ryan, is that "there's a real. tive.possibility ' that a significant chunk Of .niaterial is even; Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2014/04/08: CIA-RDP92M00732R001100010018-6