Bill Bennett: “How would you feel if you were the manufacturer of a computer that could compete internationally with the best the…”

“How would you feel if you were the manufacturer of a computer that could compete internationally with the best the Japanese, the Chinese, the Germans, the Dutch or the British could offer and you were told: No, you cannot export that until this long regime of analysis has gone on because it might be used to duplicate the outcome of a supercomputer, and you saw that people were using obsolete computers to produce the same result? The reality is, we find ourselves in an age that, as recently as 5 years ago, and certainly as recently as 10 years ago, we could never have imagined. This bill before us is an attempt to bring the law into some kind of congruity with reality and say we have to make the opportunity for American computer and high-tech firms to compete in the world marketplace and thereby prosper as friendly as possible. We have a national security obligation to see to it that the American firms retain their lead, the lead that has been established at great expense and great effort by American research firms, by American universities, by the inventiveness of American entrepreneurs and American programmers. We must not deny them the opportunity to compete in the world market on the same basis as every other country's entrepreneurs can compete because, if we do, we run the risk of having them fall behind to the point that America will ultimately end up being as dependent on foreign technology as we are currently dependent on foreign oil.”