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President's letter

President's letter by Paul Abraham, am president president ™s letter NATO countries (excluding Iceland), together with Japan,have established CoCom,the Coordinating Committee on Multilateral Export Controls. Thus there are several rings of protection: the United States itself, the CoComnations, other Western nations that cooperatewith CoCom,and finally the rest of the world. The NAS report comesdown hard on the foolishness the present sysof tem of controls. They are l.argely ineffective, becausemost of the controlled items (such asperssonal computers) can be gotten on the open market. They place American manufacturers at a competitive disadvantage in world trade, becausepotential customersdon ™t want to cope with all the paperwork and delays involved in buying listed American products. They infuriate our allies, becauseof the implication that the United States hasjurisdiction over the actions of their citizens outside U.S. territory. And they are inconsistently administered, becausethe three agencies involved work under different assumptions and ,with different goals,without any consistent direction from the highest level of government. The NAS report recommendstwo lines of policy: strengthening the CoCommechanism,and giving greater priority to maintaining the technological strength of the United States.Items that cannot be feasibly controlled should be taken off the restricted lists, and the U.S. should rely more heavily http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Communications of the ACM Association for Computing Machinery

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Publisher
Association for Computing Machinery
Copyright
Copyright © 1987 by ACM Inc.
ISSN
0001-0782
DOI
10.1145/27651.315741
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

by Paul Abraham, am president president ™s letter NATO countries (excluding Iceland), together with Japan,have established CoCom,the Coordinating Committee on Multilateral Export Controls. Thus there are several rings of protection: the United States itself, the CoComnations, other Western nations that cooperatewith CoCom,and finally the rest of the world. The NAS report comesdown hard on the foolishness the present sysof tem of controls. They are l.argely ineffective, becausemost of the controlled items (such asperssonal computers) can be gotten on the open market. They place American manufacturers at a competitive disadvantage in world trade, becausepotential customersdon ™t want to cope with all the paperwork and delays involved in buying listed American products. They infuriate our allies, becauseof the implication that the United States hasjurisdiction over the actions of their citizens outside U.S. territory. And they are inconsistently administered, becausethe three agencies involved work under different assumptions and ,with different goals,without any consistent direction from the highest level of government. The NAS report recommendstwo lines of policy: strengthening the CoCommechanism,and giving greater priority to maintaining the technological strength of the United States.Items that cannot be feasibly controlled should be taken off the restricted lists, and the U.S. should rely more heavily

Journal

Communications of the ACMAssociation for Computing Machinery

Published: Aug 1, 1987

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