Adam Smith: “I think the most telling thing about this debate thus far is that those who oppose this amendment have said virtually…”

“I think the most telling thing about this debate thus far is that those who oppose this amendment have said virtually nothing about the amendment itself. We absolutely completely agree that that system on the gentleman from California's chart should stay in place. We should have checks on end use. We should have some standard for what to ship to countries that we do not want to ship it to. This amendment does not eliminate that. It merely recognizes the fact that the existing standard does not work and actually places our country in precisely the danger the opponents have described. The MTOPS system is hopelessly out of date and keeping up with it is virtually impossible. Just to give you one example, by trying to figure out what a supercomputer is, you have this concept that you can simply look at a computer and say, it's a supercomputer or it isn't. It is not that easy. MTOPS is the way it is currently measured, but that does not take into account that a computer that would be under the supercomputer level can be elevated to the supercomputer level simply by adding another processor which is about the size of my hand, or smaller, to the computer. The point here is that the MTOPS system does not work. The Dreier amendment would change that and has nothing to do with the letter that people signed back in 1993. We should absolutely keep standards in place for what technology we export, particularly to countries that we are concerned about.”