[DEC] U.S. Computer May Have Violated Export Regulations

[gnu (John Gilmore)]

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^U.S. Computer May Have Violated Export Regulations<
^By PAUL RAEBURN=
^AP Science Editor=
	NEW YORK (AP) _ The Digital Equipment Corp. abruptly pulled
two powerful new computers off a global computer network out of concerns
about possible export violations, even though the computers never left
the country.
	The result of Digital's action was to deny U.S. computer users
access to U.S. computers operating in the United States.
	Critics said the episode demonstrates how export laws intended
to regulate weapons technology are not only infringing on American
civil liberties but also stifling innovation and hurting American
businesses.
	Digital said its concern was that foreigners could connect to
the computers from abroad, generate data, and illegally export it over
the Internet computer network, which carries data and electronic mail
around the world.
	The computers were reconnected to the computer network on July 7,
but access is now limited to people who are screened by the company,
Mark Fredrickson, a Digital spokesman, said Friday.
	The computers are not what industry would call supercomputers, but
they do fit the government definition of a supercomputer.
	A former Commerce Department official who is now a trade consultant
in Washington said the connection of a supercomputer to a global network
could lead to violations of federal export regulations.
	``If it was available overseas and they allowed people overseas to
use it, then technically they were allowing access to a supercomputer to
people they didn't know,'' said Paul Freedenberg, who was the
Commerce Department's undersecretary for export administration at the end of
the Reagan administration.
	Freedenberg is an international trade consultant at Baker and Botts
in Washington, the law firm of former Secretary of State James Baker.
	He emphasized that he had no personal knowledge of the Digital
computer hookup and that he was speaking of the regulations generally. ``I
can't say Digital violated the law, because I don't know what Digital did,''
he said.
	Lee Mercer, Digital's corporate export manager, said making
the computer available was not a violation. A Commerce Department
official, speaking on condition his name not be used, agreed that making the
computer available was not a violation, but that export of data generated on
the computer would be a violation of regulations.
	The computer hookup was in place for five weeks in April and May,
said Fredrickson. It was intended to give potential customers the
opportunity to test-drive the computers. It was terminated by company
executives who wanted to avoid any appearance of violating export
regulations, he said.
	``None of this has been motivated by anyone from the
government suggesting that we do anything here,'' said Fredrickson. ``This
was simply our own internal people raising the possibility of concern.''
	In a separate incident last year, a Digital computer
``bulletin board,'' offered access to programs for encoding computer data.
	Exporting such software is a violation of federal
regulations, Freedenberg said. ``It's a technical data transfer'' that falls
under the State Department's control of munitions export, he said.
	Frederickson said the company shut the bulletin board down to
ensure that the software would not be exported illegally. ``Nothing was
found that was thought to be a concern even meriting informing the
government about it,'' he said.
	Digital, the nation's No. 2 computer maker after IBM, said that
65 percent of its $14 billion in annual sales are overseas. In December
1991, the Commerce Department charged the company with 62 violations of
export laws and fined it $2.4 million.
	It was the largest fine the department had imposed for
export violations. Digital agreed to pay it without admitting or denying
guilt.
	The Digital computers connected to the network were two of
Digital's new AXP 4000 computers, operating in a Digital laboratory in Palo
Alto, Calif. The computers, which cost from $77,000 to $100,000, are
considered midsized computers by industry standards.
	Freedenberg said that the government would probably soon revise
its outmoded standards that define those models as supercomputers and
bring them under export regulations.
	Robert Kaylor, a spokesman for the Commerce Department, said
the department was prohibited by law from discussing the details of a
specific case.
	Critics called for speedy revision of the export laws, which date
from the Cold War.
	``Export control policies are shutting us directly out of
certain markets,'' costing U.S. businesses at least $10 billion a year in
lost exports, said Howard Lewis, vice president of the National Association
of Manufacturers.
	``It's harmful to innovation, but we think it's also very harmful
to the privacy interests of American citizens,'' said Daniel Weitzner,
an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a group concerned
with computers and civil-liberties issues.