Jeremiah Smith: “in section 1402 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal year 2000, Congress required annual reports by the…”

“in section 1402 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal year 2000, Congress required annual reports by the agency Inspectors General on the transfers of militarily sensitive technology to countries and entities of concern. The first report was issued this spring and focused on so-called ``deemed exports'' or the release of technical data to a foreign national working in or visiting a federal facility in the United States. The DOD IG found that Defense Department research centers released militarily valuable information to foreign visitors without ever determining whether export licenses were required. For example if foreign scientists (whether Chinese or Swedish) visit DOD or other federal labs, export licenses are not being requested before information is transferred. The IG found that Defense Department laboratories and research facilities lack procedures for determining whether export licenses are required, and the auditors found that the services were not even aware of the concept of ``deemed'' exports. During FY99, DOD never asked for a deemed export license and out of 783 deemed export license applications to the Department of Commerce, only five came from the federal government (2 from NASA and 3 from DOE) despite wide-ranging scientific exchange programs with foreign nationals coming to our labs. The IG's report reveals another in a long line of security weaknesses recently uncovered.…”