Thad Cochran: “I must say that the language of the amendment is appealing in some respects, particularly the suggestion that the…”

“I must say that the language of the amendment is appealing in some respects, particularly the suggestion that the General Accounting Office ought to be asked to conduct a review of this situation and the apparent risk to our national security caused by the export policies of this administration with respect to the sale of supercomputers and its technology to foreign purchasers. There is some question in my mind about the efficacy of the last part of the amendment particularly, because in our hearings in the Governmental Affairs Committee the administration officials talked about the fact that the reason they did not publish and make available a list of end users or potential purchasers of these computers at this time was because of diplomatic considerations and the questions about whether it puts in jeopardy our intelligence-gathering capabilities and a number of other issues that concerned them enough so that they do not now make available this list even privately to exporters of supercomputers. So to require them to publish it in the Federal Register and to make it available to the general public is probably something that ought to be reconsidered and not approved by the Senate.”