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US Senate clears bill to curb computer exports

The bill makes it necessary for the Commerce Department to verify the end users of the exports after shipment as the supporters of the provision have cited reported illegal diversions of US-exported computers to military users in China and Russia.

T O D A Y

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The Senate favoured the restriction 90 to 10 but the house also went along with a vote of 286 to 123. The house had earlier thought of even stiffer restrictions.

Apart from India, countries to be affected include China, Russia, Pakistan, Israel, Middle-East Asia, North African nations, the former Soviet republics, Vietnam and East European countries.

The Clinton administration, in the interest of American exports and after realising that nations like India can make supercomputers if the US places too many restrictions, had relaxed computer export controls.

Whether Clinton will veto the bill, and if he does, whether the two houses will override the veto, remains to be seen.

Overriding a veto requires a two-thirds vote in both the lower house and the Senate. With the Congress adjourned till mid-January, any attempt to override the veto is not likely to happen before February.

The bill would require the administration to give the Congress notice of 180 days before relaxing computer export controls further and 120 days before removing any of the 50 countries from the category, subject to these requirements.

For these 50 countries, under the existing administration policy, no licenses are required for exports and re-exports of computers operating up to 7,000 'million operations per second' for civilian users and 2,000 million operations per second for military users.

Earlier: Xenophobia!

- Compiled from the Indian media

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