SPEAKERS CONTENTS INSERTS
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50–111 CC
1998
H.R. 695, THE SECURITY AND FREEDOM THROUGH ENCRYPTION (SAFE) ACT
MARKUP
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FIFTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
JULY 22, 1997
Printed for the use of the Committee on International Relations
COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York, Chairman
WILLIAM GOODLING, Pennsylvania
JAMES A. LEACH, Iowa
HENRY J. HYDE, Illinois
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DOUG BEREUTER, Nebraska
CHRISTOPHER SMITH, New Jersey
DAN BURTON, Indiana
ELTON GALLEGLY, California
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida
CASS BALLENGER, North Carolina
DANA ROHRABACHER, California
DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California
PETER T. KING, New York
JAY KIM, California
STEVEN J. CHABOT, Ohio
MARSHALL ''MARK'' SANFORD, South Carolina
MATT SALMON, Arizona
AMO HOUGHTON, New York
TOM CAMPBELL, California
JON FOX, Pennsylvania
JOHN McHUGH, New York
LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina
ROY BLUNT, Missouri
JERRY MORAN, Kansas
KEVIN BRADY, Texas
LEE HAMILTON, Indiana
SAM GEJDENSON, Connecticut
TOM LANTOS, California
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HOWARD BERMAN, California
GARY ACKERMAN, New York
ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American Samoa
MATTHEW G. MARTINEZ, California
DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey
ROBERT ANDREWS, New Jersey
ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey
SHERROD BROWN, Ohio
CYNTHIA A. McKINNEY, Georgia
ALCEE L. HASTINGS, Florida
PAT DANNER, Missouri
EARL HILLIARD, Alabama
WALTER CAPPS, California
BRAD SHERMAN, California
ROBERT WEXLER, Florida
STEVE ROTHMAN, New Jersey
BOB CLEMENT, Tennessee
BILL LUTHER, Minnesota
JIM DAVIS, Florida
RICHARD J. GARON, Chief of Staff
MICHAEL H. VAN DUSEN, Democratic Chief of Staff
WALKER ROBERTS, Senior Professional Staff Member
HILLEL WEINBERG, Senior Professional Staff Member and Counsel
PARKER H. BRENT, Staff Associate
C O N T E N T S
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Markup of H.R. 695, the Security and Freedom Through Encryption Act
APPENDIX
H.R. 695, reprint of
Amendment to H.R. 695, offered by Chairman Benjamin A. Gilman
Article dated July 7, 1997, entitled ''Israel Admits That Its Crypto Policy Was Imposed by the U.S.'', The Jerusalem Post, submitted by Representative Bob Goodlatte
Article dated July 9, 1997, entitled ''Europeans Hit U.S. Encryption Policy'', by Jack Breibart, American Reporter Correspondent, submitted by Representative Bob Goodlatte
Communication to the European Parliament entitled ''A European Initiative in Electronic Commerce'', submitted by Representative Goodlatte
Article dated July 9, 1997, entitled ''Should Encryption Software Have Limits?'', MSNBC, submitted by Representative Goodlatte
Letters submitted for the record by Chairman Benjamin A. Gilman
MARKUP OF H.R. 695, ''THE SECURITY AND FREEDOM THROUGH ENCRYPTION (SAFE) ACT'' CONSIDERATION OF A MOTION TO AUTHORIZE THE CHAIRMAN TO MAKE MOTIONS ON THE HOUSE FLOOR UNDER RULE XX, RELATIVE TO H.R. 1757.
TUESDAY, JULY 22, 1997
House of Representatives,
Committee on International Relations,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 4:40 p.m. in room 2172, Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, DC, Hon. Benjamin A. Gilman (chairman of the Committee) presiding.
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Chairman GILMAN. The Committee on International Relations meets today in open session to mark up H.R. 695 and to consider a motion to allow the Chairman to make rule 20 motions on H.R. 1757 so that we may go to conference. At this point, unless Mr. Hamilton has a statement to make, I propose we begin our consideration of H.R. 695.
The Chair apologizes for the delay. I have been on the floor with five measures that came out of this Committee. The Chair lays the bill before the Committee. The clerk will report the title of the bill.
Ms. BLOOMER. H.R. 695. A bill to amend Title 18 U.S. Code to affirm the rights to U.S. persons to use and sell encryption and to relax export controls on encryption.
Chairman GILMAN. This bill was referred in the first instance to the Committee on the Judiciary, and in addition to the Committee on International Relations for a period subsequently to be determined by the Speaker, in each case the consideration of such provisions does fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned. The provisions within the bill, within the jurisdiction of this Committee are Sections 1, 3, and 4. The bill was marked up in the Subcommittee on International Economic Policy and Trade and favorably reported with an amendment. The Members have before them the bill as amended by the Subcommittee on International Economic Policy and Trade. Without objection, the amendments adopted by the Subcommittee will be considered as original text for the purposes of amendment. The clerk will read the bill for amendment.
Ms. BLOOMER. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America——
Chairman GILMAN. Without objection, the provisions of the bill as amended within the jurisdiction of the Committee are considered as having been read. And the bill, as amended, is open to debate at any point. I would like to get my amendment out before the Committee at this point and we can proceed to discuss both the bill and the major amendment. The Chair has an amendment at the desk which the clerk will report and the staff will distribute.
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Ms. BLOOMER. Amendment offered by Mr. Gilman in Section 17(g) of the Export Administration Act of 1979 as added by Section 3 of the bill, redesignate paragraph five as paragraph six and insert after paragraph four the following five.
National Security Exception. Not withstanding any other provision of this subsection, the President shall have the authority to regulate, including through the approval or denial of licenses or other means deemed appropriate the export or re-export of encryption items including hardware and software with encryption capabilities if the President finds that the export of such items would adversely affect the national security.
National security shall include but not be limited to the ability of law enforcement agencies, including Federal, state and local agencies, to combat espionage, terrorism, illicit drugs, kidnapping or other criminal acts or otherwise would involve the potential for loss of human life.
Chairman GILMAN. At this point, we will entertain debate on both the bill and the amendment. This bill presents some of the most difficult issues of establishing a clear and reasonable balance between commerce and our national security. And it is more than I can remember as a Member of the Congress to be having that kind of a competitive issue before us. I will call on the Subcommittee chair to discuss the bill in detail in just a moment.
However, allow me to set the record straight. The need for robust encryption is one we all favor as does the law enforcement and the intelligence community. We have all heard from them in recent days. However, we cannot be put in the position here of making mistakes and creating a proliferation of encryption that down the road ties the hands of our law enforcement and intelligence community and that one day we may realize was an error.
There is no getting this genie back in the bottle if we err. Let there be no mistake about that. I am pleased that we have representatives of the FBI, the DEA and others and the Administration here that can help ensure that we create that necessary and reasonable balance. And to make certain that we do not make serious mistakes that one day endanger the safety and security of our people.
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Attorney Janet Reno in a recent letter to me summed up the choices we make here today when she said, and I quote, ''The misuse of encryption technology will become a matter of life and death in many instances. That is why we urge you to adopt a balanced approach.''
Mr. MANZULLO. Mr. Chairman, point of order.
Chairman GILMAN. The gentleman will state his point of order.
Mr. MANZULLO. The point of order is that the Chairman, whom I respect immensely, has introduced essentially a brand new bill by putting a national security exception here. We labored pretty hard, and did a lot of study in our Subcommittee on this issue. And I think if we are going to have Administration witnesses testifying here on behalf of your amendment, then we should also let the industry speak. I think it is appropriate at this time to send the amendment back to the Subcommittee to have a hearing on it because otherwise it really means that the work we did in Subcommittee was in vain.
Mr. FOX. May I comment on that?
Chairman GILMAN. Mr. Fox, on the point of order.
Mr. FOX. On the point of order. Yes, I understand and respect greatly my friend Mr. Manzullo and his concern. However, I would say when approaching any piece of legislation for this Committee and for this Congress that the public safety issues are always paramount and when it comes to those kinds of issues, I look to the FBI and other Federal agencies for direction. And nothing that I think that business would tell us would change the opinion of whether from a public safety point of view we need to have, from my perspective as one Member, that over reaching national security, national safety issues would always be paramount for your constituents as well as mine and that we want to make sure that the business interests are represented. You have done a good job on the rest of the bill up to now to make sure that they are represented. But I do not know how there is a counter view of what public safety is. These are the experts.
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Mr. MANZULLO. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. FOX. I will yield.
Mr. MANZULLO. The point here is that there are two sides of the public safety issue. One is that proper encryption can protect trade secrets and proprietary information of businesses. Pirating that type of information is also a crime. Under the circumstances, because the Chairman's amendment so radically alters the base bill, that if the Chairman insists on it being offered, then it should go back to the Subcommittee for a full hearing.
Chairman GILMAN. On the point of order, Mr. Bereuter.
Mr. BEREUTER. Mr. Chairman, I would like to address this point of order. The Chairman's amendment is indeed an important amendment, but it does not amount to a basic restructuring of the legislation before us. It does not change the legislation except to say we grant an exception for national security reasons. Therefore, I think that the gentleman's point of order is not appropriate.
Chairman GILMAN. I thank the gentleman. I will rule on the point of order that we are conducting the procedure in the proper manner. The amendment is in order and we will allow if there is someone from the industry who wants to speak on the measure at the appropriate time. That is not the question at this time.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman.
Chairman GILMAN. Yes.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. I would ask——
Chairman GILMAN. Is that on the point of order?
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Well, it is a unanimous consent request.
Chairman GILMAN. The gentleman is recognized for a unanimous consent request.
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Mr. ROHRABACHER. I would then in the spirit of what you have just determined to ask unanimous consent that the two authors of this bill, Ms. Lofgren and Mr. Goodlatte who are present with us today, be permitted at some point to say a few words to the overall Committee as the debate moves forward so they can present their side. Whereas we do have people from the industry with us.
Chairman GILMAN. If the gentleman has an appropriate question for them, we will be pleased to recognize them.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much.
Chairman GILMAN. At this point, we begin the process. I now recognize the Ranking Minority Member, Mr. Hamilton.
Mr. HAMILTON. Mr. Chairman, I think the beginning point for me would be simply to ask some of our Administration witnesses from the Commerce Department and the FBI and the National Security Agency to come forward so that I could pose a couple of questions to them. Is that in order at this time? Or would you prefer to delay that?
Chairman GILMAN. We were waiting for the chairlady of the Subcommittee, but we can proceed in that manner if you like.
Mr. HAMILTON. Whatever the Chairman prefers. I have some questions I would like to put to them
Chairman GILMAN. All right. Why do we not proceed with your questions?
Mr. CAMPBELL. Would the gentleman yield just for a moment?
Mr. HAMILTON. Sure.
Mr. CAMPBELL. I just wonder in simple courtesy if the author of the bill might also be allowed to approach? If a question is relevant, he might raise his hand.
Mr. HAMILTON. It is perfectly OK with me.
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Mr. CAMPBELL. Then that would be my request that he might be allowed to sit as well.
Chairman GILMAN. Mr. Goodlatte is here I see. Is that the person you are referring to? Sure. Mr. Goodlatte.
Mr. HAMILTON. Well, I wonder if Mr. Reinsch might come up and then the FBI. I am not sure of all the correct people to testify here—and the National Security Agency as well. Certainly glad to accommodate Mr. Campbell's request and have Mr. Goodlatte appear as well.
Now, the basic question I have is what are the consequences for U.S. national security interests, U.S. law enforcement interests, U.S. commercial interests if this bill is passed with or without the Gilman amendment. Let us take it without the Gilman amendment, the so-called Goodlatte bill. What are the consequences in each of your areas if the bill is passed without the Gilman amendment? That is the Goodlatte bill.
Chairman GILMAN. Will the gentleman please identify himself for the record?
Mr. KALLSTROM. I am Jim Kallstrom, the Assistant Director of the FBI in charge of the New York field office.
Chairman GILMAN. Thank you.
Mr. KALLSTROM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee. We feel it is not a comprehensive approach to the encryption issue, No. 1. It deals with export only. It does not really deal with the law enforcement issues. It fails to consider the public safety and the national security issues that we face day in and day out. And I guess it does not balance in our view the public policy issues.
We in law enforcement depend heavily on the tools given to us by the Congress in 1968, wiretapping. Now, we do not wiretap because we like it or we get any personal thrill out of it. We wiretap to save lives, to break up major criminal conspiracies. There is not a case, if there is they are in the minority, extreme minority, in organized crime, in drugs, in terrorism, in the violent crime arena where we do not depend heavily on the use of electronic surveillance.
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We are in the information business. And if we are going to be excluded from information in the new information age due to unbreakable encryption where there is no methodology to recover the keys with a court order, then we are not going to save lives to the extent we do today. We are not going to protect the country against major issues like the theft of our intellectual property, nuclear proliferation and a whole host of other things.
So to us, I guess if I have to summarize, it is just lacking the balance that deals with the law enforcement and national security issues.
Mr. HAMILTON. If I understand your comments, Mr. Kallstrom, if the Goodlatte bill became law, then in the judgment of the FBI, there would risk very great harm to our ability to enforce the law and to protect our citizens. Is that correct?
Mr. KALLSTROM. Yes, sir. In my opinion, it would.
Mr. GEJDENSON. Would the gentleman yield for one moment?
Mr. HAMILTON. Sure.
Mr. GEJDENSON. I appreciate his kindness. You are aware that there is encryption available in this country today that there is no back door to, that there is no clipper chip to, that is readily available on the market.
Mr. KALLSTROM. I am quite aware of that. I am very aware of that, but it is not a big issue yet. And we are trying to not have it proliferate to the extent where we cannot do——
Mr. GEJDENSON. I mean, you can buy it in any computer store in the smallest town in America. Now, that is gone. The rest of the world sells it too. It is akin to flash cards for geometry. Maybe we do not want——
Mr. KALLSTROM. The reality is that it is not widely used by the criminals. It is not widely used by terrorists or any other organization yet.
Mr. GEJDENSON. No argument on that. But if they were smart enough or wanted to, it is already generally available.
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Mr. KALLSTROM. There is encryption available. That is correct.
Mr. GEJDENSON. And is it available internationally as well?
Mr. KALLSTROM. Sure.
Mr. GEJDENSON. So what are we doing here by stopping the export of American product?
Mr. KALLSTROM. And there are many versions of encryption. Everything that is said on the packages is not necessarily correct. I will just point that out to you.
Mr. GEJDENSON. But the reality is there is very high quality encryption available globally. And this Administration that I have the greatest admiration for at the beginning of its tenure 5 years ago made the same mistake with telephone equipment. The Chinese wanted to buy switching systems for their phones. They wanted to buy something that operated at 565.
We said no. We are not going to sell that to you. A lot of people said it is made all over the world. It is available. We did not sell them the 565. So another country sold them 625. The Chinese developed their own indigenous capability of 565.
And so what did we achieve by a policy that, yes, if I had the ability go wave a magic wand and give the government when it went through the proper court procedures access to encryption as they can get everything else, I would be for it.
The reality is we do not control this. We do not control it. It is available from Russia. It is available from Israel. It is available from dozens of other countries. We better invest in fast computers to catch these guys. But simply moving the industry offshore is not going to achieve your very laudable goal.
Mr. KALLSTROM. Well, my only response is, I mean, you make some points that are irrefutable. But it is not quite that simple either. The notion that there is this encryption around the world that is superior to products that we have that is used for the full function that people think it is used for is just not totally correct.
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Mr. HAMILTON. Now, let me ask also the national security people the same question. If this becomes law, the so-called Goodlatte bill, what are the consequences for the U.S. national security interests?
Mr. TAYLOR. I am James Taylor, Executive Director of the National Security Agency. I think the most immediate impact on national security would be a chaotic and immediate decontrol of encryption.
We have had an ordered process for years that has allowed us to look at products that are going to be exported, allowed us to understand the products that are going to go offshore, and to know with some certainty where those products are headed.
We believe the bill in question would remove all structure and order in that process. And so instead of a structured change into the future, it would be chaotic. The immediate impact would be on issues such as counter terrorism, counter narcotics.
Mr. HAMILTON. Now, your ability to intercept foreign communications is a very valuable source of intelligence, is it not?
Mr. TAYLOR. Yes, sir.
Mr. HAMILTON. If the Goodlatte bill were passed, what would happen to that capability that you now have?
Mr. TAYLOR. Well, we believe that immediately there could potentially be some severe impacts to our capability to do that. It is difficult to quantify what the impacts would be, but going from our ordered process today to an unstructured process is clearly bad for national security concerns.
Mr. HAMILTON. So, if the Goodlatte bill were enacted into law, it would be a serious detriment to the American national security.
Mr. TAYLOR. It would. Not only would it remove the controls that we have on cryptology, but foreign nations are watching the debate here in this country. Many of those nations are several years behind our public debate and they are watching what we do.
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And many of the countries that the Congressman mentioned earlier, that sell cryptography or manufacture it today, also have controls on its export. They control in similar fashion to the United States. They export to financial institutions and to subsidiaries of their overseas corporations, but do not export to any user for any use.
We believe if we remove our structure that others then would follow suit. And we would truly have chaos.
Chairman GILMAN. Mr. Reinsch, Mr. Gejdenson makes a pretty powerful point. I mean, it is kind of the key argument it seems to me of those who support the bill. If in fact encryption products comparable in quality are widely available to the ones that U.S. firms would be forbidden to export, that is obviously a pretty serious matter. How do you respond to this widely available argument, that is made by the proponents of the Goodlatte bill?
Mr. REINSCH. My name is Bill Reinsch, the Undersecretary of Commerce for Export Administration. Let me say first, Mr. Hamilton, that the bill as drafted would have some other serious side effects that I would like to mention at a later point if there is time.
With respect to your question, it is our judgment as Mr. Kallstrom said, that while there are products out there that are serious and strong encryption products that are manufactured abroad, they are not being widely used right now for a number of reasons.
One is that the key management infrastructure to sustain them does not exist. There is not sufficient interoperability. And because the infrastructure does not exist, there is not trust in those products. All those elements we believe hold back the widespread use of these products even though it is correct to say that many of them exist.
We are working very hard with our friends and allies to try to bring about a multilateral resolution of this issue so that we get all the countries and all the producers moving in the same direction in order to deal with the potential for this situation exploding.
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I think if we do nothing, at some point in time Mr. Gejdenson will be right. I do not believe he is right at this point.
Mr. HAMILTON. You have examined these provisions pretty carefully. I am referring now to paragraph two.
Mr. REINSCH. Yes, sir.
Mr. HAMILTON. And paragraph three and paragraph four. I presume you are quite familiar with those. What is your understanding of how, if enacted, this would change a current policy?
Mr. REINSCH. We believe it would have a serious adverse affect on our ability to exercise national security controls on a variety of items. In particular, and I can make reference to the specific provisions if you want, Mr. Hamilton, but in particular, we believe it would make it impossible for us to meet our multilateral obligations under the Wassenaar Arrangement with respect to encryption items.
We believe that the provision, intentionally or not, would have the effect of making it impossible for us to control most if not all computers, including high performance computers, including the same computers this House voted overwhelmingly to place back under controls a month ago.
And we believe the provision would decontrol all software, including software, with encryption features or not, including software which we presently control for national security purposes for other reasons. Such as, for example, software for five access machine tools.
Mr. GEJDENSON. Would the gentleman yield for one moment? I mean, just so we stick close to the facts here. I understand where the gentleman wants to come out. But the reality is in this Wassenaar Arrangement, basically the other countries operate, if it is generally available, they sell it.
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Mr. REINSCH. There is an exception for mass market software in the Wassenaar Arrangement.
Mr. GEJDENSON. But even in other technology.
Mr. REINSCH. My point, Mr. Gejdenson, is that this provision as written would force us to decontrol all software.
Mr. GEJDENSON. To operate the way all of our allies operate.
Mr. REINSCH. All of our allies have not decontrolled all software which would force us to do that.
Mr. GEJDENSON. Which countries?
Mr. REINSCH. The Wassenaar countries generally do not decontrol all software.
Mr. GEJDENSON. Well, let me tell you, you can get any product you want from most of these countries, except for as you point out France, and I do not want to do this on my time, but the reality is that when the cow is out of the barn or the horse is out of the barn, it is out of the barn. You have got this product available generally.
American companies are importing Russian products and putting it on their machines and then exporting their machines and adding Russian products outside the country. If the goal is to drive the capability to develop the next generation of this out of the country, we may achieve that. But we are not going to control the technology by gutting this legislation.
Mr. REINSCH. The point that I was trying to make, Mr. Gejdenson, was that the effect of the provisions as drafted would go far beyond the decontrol simply of encryption. It would control a lot of products, consumer products, commercially available in the United States. I am looking now at subsection (a) of the amendment as well as (c).
Mr. GEJDENSON. Lotus notes.
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Mr. REINSCH. Well, that is already permitted to be exported.
Mr. GEJDENSON. No, no, no. It says right on the box. The box says we cannot sell it.
Mr. REINSCH. I would be glad to explain to you afterwards——
Mr. GEJDENSON. American national security.
Mr. REINSCH. I believe we have issued a license for that product, Mr. Gejdenson.
Mr. HAMILTON. Mr. Reinsch, there are provisions in the Goodlatte bill that try to deal with national security. Paragraph three says that the Secretary of Commerce does not have to permit the license of the export of software products with encryption if there is substantial evidence that these products will be diverted or modified for military or terrorist use. Now, why are those exceptions not adequate? Why are they not satisfactory?
Mr. REINSCH. Because you would never get there, Mr. Hamilton. Because paragraph two in its entirety decontrols all those products without reservation. And in our judgment, that makes paragraphs three and four essentially irrelevant.
Mr. HAMILTON. OK. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I thank you for your leniency on time. We have a representative of the Drug Enforcement Administration here. I will ask him to respond. And I know Mr. Campbell is anxious to have Mr. Goodlatte and Ms. Lofgren speak. I will leave that to the discretion of the Chairman. Whatever is fair. Mr. Gejdenson, I have tried to be very fair to you. And I will keep trying to be very fair to you. So how we proceed, it really does not matter to me. But I would like the drug enforcement people to speak to this and then the Chairman can decide what order to follow from that point on.
Mr. BOCCHICHIO. Thank you. I am Tony Bocchichio, an Assistant Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration. One of the concerns that DA has is the proliferation of encryption devices down to the lower echelon, individuals in the street. Right now that is not there. Our concern is tactical information, information that we can get readily available.
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If we intercept a conversation or we intercept information about an individual who might be saying we are sending an undercover agent into a home or onto a case and it is encrypted and we cannot decrypt it, that agent's life is at risk. I mean, 2 days after we decipher it, if we have the capability to decipher it, it does us no good to go to the individual's wife and say we would have known he was going to get killed. We just could not decrypt it.
This is our concern. Our concern is the fact that tactical information that we need instantaneously we will not be able to get if we have a proliferation of encryption devices at that level.
Mr. HAMILTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Hamilton. I am going to ask the panelist to stay put. First I am going to call on our Subcommittee chairman, the sponsor of this resolution, Ms. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, to explain the resolution.
Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. This bill was overwhelmingly supported by most Members of our Subcommittee as reflected by the vote that took place, fourteen in favor and only one against. And for months prior to our Subcommittee markup, we also heard all of the arguments discussed this afternoon about a potential negative impact on national security and law enforcement. And we too did not want to make a decision which could in any way endanger U.S. national security.
However, after all the facts were presented, after all of the hearings and testimony, after all of the briefings, formal and informal discussion that took place, it became crystal clear that the only decision to make, that which would be of interest to the totality of the American people was to support the liberalization of export controls on generally available encryption products.
Current law regulates the export of encryption technology in a manner similar to military technology. The Safe Act brings U.S. law into the present and the future by looking at today's reality and not at the myths surrounding it, but at the actual technological developments that are taking place on the world's stage.
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And what is this reality? And what repercussions will it have on our U.S. American companies? The fact is that if U.S. laws are not changed soon as the Safe Act attempts to do, it will result in world standards for security technology shifting away from the United States as customers buy products from foreign manufacturers.
The U.S. Government will not have a view into the security technology that replaces U.S. technology as the world's standard. Our industries in the United States will lose control of critical information, security technologies that are needed to provide for economic security. The lack of effective encryption would have a chilling effect on the use of the Internet as a significant vehicle for electronic commerce.
Finally, failure to change U.S. laws would lead to an inadequate protection and greater vulnerability of U.S. institutions and confidential information. And while U.S. security and law enforcement agencies argue as we have heard today about the need for key recovery systems to monitor illegal activities which threaten U.S. national security, the other side of the security issue is sometimes overlooked.
The National Counter Intelligence Center established in 1994 by Presidential directive concluded in the annual report that such specialized technical operations including computer intrusions, telecommunications targeting an intercept and private sector encryption weaknesses account for the largest portion of economic and industrial information lost by corporation.
The reality is that the broad spectrum of information vulnerabilities exceeds the protective powers of the U.S. Government driving U.S. businesses and individuals to turn to sophisticated methods of encryption to protect their customers and indeed themselves.
And with regard to key recovery while the decision to permit the export of higher encryption is a positive sign, the forced linkage with a commitment to a government mandated key recovery system raises serious concerns.
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A recent study conducted by the Center for Democracy and Technology concluded that key recovery systems would create new vulnerabilities. It would create new complexities as key recovery would require vast infrastructure of recovery agents and oversight bodies to manage access to the large number of keys that must be recoverable.
Furthermore, it concluded that the forced linkage of encryption with key recovery made no sense technically and has serious liabilities.
I would like to underscore that the Safe Act already has over 180 cosponsors, many of whom are Members of this Committee. It enjoys the enthusiastic support of related industries and industry groups, and more importantly of civil liberty organizations and privacy advocates. I believe that the Safe Act is a necessary piece of legislation. It provides a tool for individual citizens to protect themselves from intrusion.
And furthermore, if our country is going to be able to effectively compete in the global arena, and not only participate but assume a leadership role in the formulation of international cryptology, we must support the Safety Act and I encourage all of our Members to vote in favor of it today and reject any amendments to weaken it. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman GILMAN. Thank you, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, for your explanation. I would like to ask just a few questions of the panelists before we proceed to our other questions. Our FBI representative, Mr. Kallstrom, how many major organized crime, terrorism, drug and espionage cases can the FBI and DEA make without access to the illegal communications that may be encrypted?
Mr. KALLSTROM. Substantially less than we make today, virtually none in my view.
Chairman GILMAN. FBI Director Louis Freeh has said that if this bill passes in its present form, the FBI will be out of the public safety business. Can you tell us is that statement a reasonable statement?
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Mr. KALLSTROM. Well, I believe it is because we depend—regardless of who said it, I believe it is.
Chairman GILMAN. I am going to turn to our DEA representative. More than 70 percent of the annual wiretaps in this nation at all levels, Federal, state and local, are for drug cases. What impact will the unrestricted proliferation of encryption devices that you cannot access ultimately have on your fight against illicit drugs?
Mr. BOCCHICHIO. It would have a devastating effect. We would not be able to tactically respond as I said earlier, to information that is happening right then and there. We would be unable to pass information on to other agencies such as U.S. Customs and the Coast Guard for interdiction as we intercept the communications. These things would prohibit us from carrying out our duties tactically.
Chairman GILMAN. Thank you. Mr. Gejdenson.
Mr. GEJDENSON. Thank you. I think the real conclusion is that we would see the end of western civilization as we know it. But the reality is maybe we should not be doing this in public. The crooks can go out and buy all that encrypted software today. It is on the shelf. They can talk to each other in deaths or triple deaths. This bill is irrelevant to them.
Now, the ones outside the country can buy it from other countries and ship it in here. Why are we in this state? Well, first of all, let me say nobody in my district manufactures, sells, distributes or does anything else with encrypted software except for maybe the local Egghead or whatever software salesperson. Why cannot we trust the executive?
Well, for the same reason the executives had the inability to deal with these technology issues for the last 20 years. When Secretary Mosbacher, not exactly known as a radical revolutionary friend of drug dealers or Communists, decontrolled the 286 computer, his Cabinet mate, Mr. Cheney, showed up here telling us it was the end of freedom.
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Now, the 286 computer generously operated at ten megahertz. The one I have at home is now 200 megahertz. And shortly after we decontrolled the 286 computer, the Soviet Union fell apart. I am not sure you can make that link.
The reality is that this technology is generally available. What happened in machine tools? The Administration then said, oh, you cannot sell American machine tools overseas because the Soviets might get them and then they will build quieter submarines.
So we would not sell our machine tools overseas. Guess what? About 5, 6 years later, the Defense Department said, you know what? We want to buy Japanese machine tools. They are better. They are more precise than ours. And they were already selling to the Russians through third countries if not directly, but I think directly.
So what are we doing here? The question is whether or not we are going to participate in this internationally. For the last 10 years I have had Administration after Administration tell me we are just about to reach an agreement with all our allies which will ban encrypted software or somehow limit it. It has not happened.
Then we started off, I think Clipper chip was the first one. We were going to market our products with a key held safely here in the United States. Of course, you know the French and Germans and the Japanese and all these other countries would not worry about any spying on them by the United States, industrial or otherwise.
Well, Clipper chip was touted by some of our brightest and most forward thinking people in this Administration and elsewhere and then Clipper chip died. And now we are onto a new program.
If you had flash cards for algebra, you probably would not want the Iranians or the Iraqis to have them today. Critical in building all kinds of defense systems. So we would mark these flash cards not for export. That is what we are trying to do with this encryption.
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Our friends here can tell us horror stories that will blow you away. All of those concerns are here today. We need to invest a lot of money in faster computers at the Federal level so that we can decrypt things. Because any scoundrel, any third country that has its interest against the United States can walk into any store in any country and buy encrypted software that will give our intelligence boys a heartache.
The question is whether we are going to make believe we are doing something. And I suggest a policy that continues to limit the export of these products or force American companies to buy Russian products and add it to their machines only creates expertise outside this country that will leave us less capable of delivering an intelligent solution that addresses our national security needs.
We do not want to see happen in the computer industry, in the software industry, what has happened in machine tools and so many other industries. None of our colleagues in COCOM went to the length to control items that we did and we lost markets for that and I am not sure we gained any national security advantage.
We need to focus on the critical technologies. We need to try to come to agreements where we can achieve agreements and not simply make Don Quixotiesque statements about what we would like. Encryption is out there. It is generally available.
And you are fooling yourself if you think by passing a statement here it gives the President of the United States the ability to stop it or change anything. The President and the Vice President are always in this box.
One of you gentlemen walk into the room and you say the next time there is a World Trade Center incident, we are going to say we could not catch them because of encryption. The next time some other incident happens, we are going to blame it on encryption.
The White House cannot act. That is why we did not decontrol 286 computers until they were obsolete. That is why we killed the American machine tool industry by not letting it go after the front end of technology. Let us try to do things we can actually do. And I think one of those things are to make sure we control the technology by developing in this country.
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Chairman GILMAN. The gentleman's time is expired. Mr. Bereuter.
Mr. BEREUTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to support your amendment. I think it is a much needed national security exception to the mandated export control liberalization of Section 3.
This legislation I think is unprecedented in both its micromanagement by the Congress of U.S. export control policy and its effort to take away discretion from the executive branch to determine just what exports need to be controlled for national security exceptions.
Now, Section 3, the section under the jurisdiction of this Committee, would create the results to deny the Administration the ability to stop the export of encryption to even known bad end users such as drug dealers, terrorists and so on.
And Mr. Chairman for the record here today, the Attorney General of the United States, the Director of the FBI, the Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, the Director of Drug Enforcement Administration, the Director of the U.S. Secret Service, the Undersecretary of Enforcement of the Treasury, Commissioner of the U.S. Customs Service and the Director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, sent a letter to the Members of this Committee today.
That letter says as follows: The other bills being considered by Congress, and that reference includes this legislation, H.R. 695, as currently written, risks great harm to our ability to enforce the laws and protect our citizens. If there is anybody else that has not weighted in the executive branch against this legislation, I do not know who it would be.
As a minimum, I think we should include this national security exception to H.R. 695 so as to give the President of the United States the ability to regulate the exports of something which is of serious concern to our law enforcement and intelligence agencies.
I would ask Mr. Reinsch, the Undersecretary, if he would respond to a question. Since we know that really the solution to this export control issue is found primarily ultimately in a multilateral approach, what is the Administration doing to work with other nations on supporting key recovery policies, who is with us on this issue, what countries are likely to be, what are our problems, what is our progress?
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Mr. REINSCH. Mr. Bereuter, the President appointed David Aaron our ambassador to the OECD as a special ambassador of cryptography to do precisely what you just indicated. Thus far, Ambassador Aaron has had bilateral consultations, in some cases more than one, with at least the following countries: Great Britain, France, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, South Africa, Israel, Brazil, Singapore, Australia, Finland if I did not mention them, and perhaps a couple of others, Canada and Japan.
Out of that we have developed a multilateral group of eight of those countries including ourselves which has had two meetings, both in Europe, out of which in turn has grown an agreement to create two subgroups, one on interoperability, which was one of the big problems that we all face trying to develop systems that work together, and one group on export controls.
Those two groups are meeting, the first one this week here in Washington and the second one I believe in 2 weeks, also here in Washington, with what we hope will be after some additional work in September some conclusions or recommendations for the group to consider.
I spoke with Ambassador Aaron today before the markup. He has had some additional consultations recently and continues to believe that the bulk of these countries are in their own way moving in our direction.
We have not said, as Mr. Gejdenson indicated, that we are on the verge of a multilateral agreement. Most of these countries are going through exactly the same debate internally that you are going through right now and that we have gone through ourselves. Most of them are behind us in doing so.
This is a difficult process. As they think about it, as their law enforcement agencies, as their national security agencies, weigh into their processes, we believe most of them will come out essentially in the same place that we are.
Some have been more restrictive like the French. Some will be a little bit less. But all seem to be striving for a policy of balance that reflects the concerns that Mr. Kallstrom and the others have brought up.
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Mr. BEREUTER. Mr. Secretary, before my light turns there, if the House, if the Committee and then the House takes action, what will be the results of your negotiations?
Mr. REINSCH. I think that it would cripple them, frankly, Mr. Bereuter. I think if the House or the Committee today sent a signal today that you did not favor controls and that you wanted us to eliminate them, I think that it would make it somewhere between difficult and impossible for us to achieve anything multilaterally.
Chairman GILMAN. The gentleman's time has expired. Mr. Berman.
Mr. BERMAN. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to ask some questions in the area of genies and barns and horses and bottles. I do not understand both the representative from the FBI and the DEA. The DEA representative talks about your tactical ability on the street.
Mr. Gejdenson holds up a box. There are no, as I understand it, no domestic controls on what can be manufactured and put into the stream of commerce within this country. You tell me that this kind of very sophisticated encryption is not now used by the people you need to be able to track and follow in your work dealing with the sale and distribution of drugs, illegal drugs.
If it is not a problem, not withstanding the fact that you are able to put it into this stream of commerce now and it is easily accessible to anybody in the United States, why will lifting the controls on the exports make your problem that much more difficult?
Some of the enemy is within. It is not all without. And it seems there is a disconnect between your statements about the tremendous problems this bill would cause when everything you do not want to export is now available to criminals within the United States who want to purchase it. Could you respond to that concern?
Mr. KALLSTROM. First of all, we have only run into eight cases in which that has been used. We have only run into eight cases where encryption has been used along the border basically. And it is being used by people involved in the Cali cartel and the Mexican cartel. And six of those cases have been along our borders. And it is the higher echelons that are using it. We have not had it used domestically and it is not being used domestically by the traffickers that we work on, on a regular basis.
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Mr. BERMAN. But then why are we lifting—that is my point.
Mr. KALLSTROM. Lifting the ban on exports overseas does not make that much difference. It makes a difference——
Mr. BERMAN. But that is all this bill does.
Mr. KALLSTROM. It makes a difference when you take all the controls over it with no key recovery systems or anything like that. That poses a problem. If you had a key recovery system, just like you have—you do not sell weapons without taking the serial numbers.
So what you are talking about is one of the issues here is a key recovery system would require someone to keep a record of what key is available. As long as we have access to the key, we do not care if encryption is out there.
Mr. BERMAN. At least in theory, I am very sympathetic to the argument of a key recovery system which under limited circumstances with warrants approved by judges based on probable cause and real evidence allows you to find and grab the key.
Why do you not put in a bill and present us with a bill that at least—I mean, I do not know how it would work in practice and I do not know if you know how it would work in practice, but at least in theory puts that issue to us for domestic sales as well as for exports? Instead of focusing your opposition on an export which is already available within the United States and accessible to all of those criminals on the street. And you say they do not use it? That is the problem I have with your argument. And I guess I would like for any of you, do you see what I am saying?
Mr. KALLSTROM. The problem is that it is not readily available on the street right here. Not everybody——
Mr. BERMAN. It is readily available.
Mr. KALLSTROM. Telephone encryption is available in some systems today, but we have access and we have means of getting to that right now in some of it.
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Mr. BERMAN. Because?
Mr. KALLSTROM. Because it is very simple. If it gets more complex, then it requires more difficulty. If you open this area up and you allow more encryption to come into the country, you allow more encryption to proliferate.
Mr. BERMAN. This is not about import control. This is not about allowing more sophisticated things to come into the country as I understand it. It is about allowing more sophisticated things to be sold outside the country.
Mr. KALLSTROM. But it basically lifts the ban on any encryption controls.
Chairman GILMAN. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. BERMAN. Can I ask one last question?
Chairman GILMAN. Yes, go ahead.
Mr. BERMAN. Mr. Kallstrom. Well, I would like to hear the sponsors of the bill just respond to the answer that I was given, but I would also like, Mr. Reinsch, in response earlier either to Mr. Hamilton or Mr. Gejdenson you talked about two things that I could not understand about on the issue of foreign availability.
The lack of management systems, means the stuff that can be downloaded or brought in from other countries where they do not control this does not bother you too much because of the inadequacy of management systems and interoperability. I could not understand what all that meant and could you explain that?
Mr. REINSCH. Well, let me try, Mr. Berman. First, let me say you raised some very good points about what we are trying to accomplish. What we are trying to do is move the marketplace in the direction of key recovery because that provides a technology that helps my law enforcement colleagues and at the same time permits secure electronic commerce which I think is very much in the interest of the authors of the bill and the Members of the Committee.
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The point I was making earlier that you referred to is that in order to have secure electronic commerce, you need a number of things that go beyond encryption. You need authentication. You need to know that if you are my bank and I am sending you a message, I need to have confidence that you are going to get that message because it contains my credit card number or whatever, and that nobody else is going to intercept it along the way and that in fact it is going to be used in the way that I intended.
So there has to be some sort of authentication, some security. There also has to be some management of the system. If I am going to communicate with you as my bank or even with you as an individual through a public/private key system, I need to know your public key.
Well, I am going to look that up. I am going to get it off the net or I am going to get it out of a directory or something like that. Maybe I am going to call you up and ask you for it.
But if I am engaging in electronic commerce where I might be a company that is dealing with thousands and thousands of customers, I am going to need a structure to make this work. And I am going to want to have confidence that the person I am communicating with is still alive and is still using that key.
It is a little bit like a phone book. Somebody has to manage—not somebody, lots of somebodies, have to manage infrastructures or systems within which this kind of encryption and security of transaction can occur. That infrastructure both here and elsewhere by and large does not exist right now, although it is beginning to develop. But it is an integral part of making encryption work. Whether it is key recovery or not, no matter what anybody wants to do with it, it is not going to work unless we can create that kind of infrastructure.
The point I made earlier is that the mere existence of a product that has encryption features is not by itself the most significant factor if in fact it does not provide security, because the infrastructure within which it can operate does not exist, and if it cannot interoperate with other technologies that are operated by the people that you want to communicate with.
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Chairman GILMAN. The gentleman's time has expired. Mr. Campbell.
Mr. CAMPBELL. Mr. Chairman, I would like to yield as much time as I might have to the authors of the bill. I think it is fair to ask them to comment on any of the foregoing. And if there is any time left, I have some questions of my own.
Mr. GOODLATTE. I thank the gentleman for his generosity with his time. And the first thing I would like to address are the questions raised by Mr. Bereuter and Mr. Berman regarding the availability of this encryption technology and what foreign governments are going to do. Because the gentleman from California is exactly right.
This is available internationally. It is available domestically. There are no domestic laws restricting access to strong encryption. And the only way you are going to get to what they want is to pass legislation as you suggested which would impose domestic controls.
I do not think it can be done. I think the overwhelming public opinion would be so alarmed by that that they would oppose it. But as to the business of foreign governments cooperating with us in this area, no such thing.
In fact, Mr. Reinsch's boss knows very well that this is not the case. Here is an article from the American Reporter Correspondent entitled ''Europeans Slam U.S. Encryption Policy''. As the article states, ''For the past 2 days at a European cyberspace conference, the United States has been taking heat on its restrictive encryption policies.''
''But that comes as no surprise to U.S. Secretary of Commerce William Daley. 'We did not come here with an anticipation that on the issue of encryption our opinions would receive a standing ovation,' Dailey said. 'Clearly, we are in the minority on this issue'.''
Here is an article. Mr. Chairman, I ask that these be made a part of the record. An article from Time magazine regarding the Israeli Government's concerns about encryption policy——
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Mr. CAMPBELL. Let us pause just a moment. Mr. Chairman, I would ask that they be made part of the record.
Chairman GILMAN. Without objection, would the gentleman yield a moment?
Mr. CAMPBELL. I would be pleased to yield to the Chairman.
Chairman GILMAN. Are there other countries who prohibit the import of encryption devices?
Mr. GOODLATTE. I believe the consensus here is that France does that.
Chairman GILMAN. Are there any other countries?
Mr. GOODLATTE. I am not aware of them. I would assume that of all the countries in the world, there would be some, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman GILMAN. Do any of the other members of the panel know of other countries that prohibit?
Mr. KALLSTROM. I believe Israel and Russia.
Chairman GILMAN. Are those the only other ones that we know about?
Mr. KALLSTROM. There are many others discussing it.
Chairman GILMAN. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would also like to ask if the gentleman from California is willing to make a part of the record a document entitled ''A European Initiative in Electronic Commerce'' which is a communication of the European Parliament. And it says in part the community shall work at an international level toward the removal of trade barriers for encryption products.
Mr. CAMPBELL. Mr. Chairman, I would ask unanimous consent that so much of that report as is relevant might be made part of the record.
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Chairman GILMAN. Without objection.
Mr. CAMPBELL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. GOODLATTE. The net effect of that, Mr. Chairman, is that an industry that is dominated today by the United States, 75 percent of all software created in the world is created in this country, is going to be damaged because foreign governments recognize this as a tremendous economic opportunity. I would also like to briefly address the questions of Mr. Hamilton which were if this legislation passes, what are the national security and law enforcement implications? In my opinion they are very good. For law enforcement, they will prevent a wide array of crime that is rampant right now on the Internet in other forms of electronic commerce. Credit cards are not secure on the Internet. Medical records are not secure. Industrial trade secrets are not secure. And strong encryption will make them secure. More importantly, the New York Stock Exchange is not secure from attack by foreign terrorists or domestic terrorists. The Chicago Board of Trade is not. Our electric power grid in this country is not. Nuclear power plants are not. Because we have weak encryption. Because of the lack of incentive to develop strong encryption because of our export control laws. So this is a major crime fighting measure. And I wish that our law enforcement agencies would get behind the right side of it. Now, will they have problems with misuse of encryption? Yes, they certainly will. Because they will have them whether this bill passes or not. Encryption as Mr. Gejdenson says is widely available for those who wish to misuse it. Now, national security implications. If you require every software company in this country with every product to have a stamp placed on it so that when it is sent out of this country it says ''approved by the U.S. Government,'' the foreign competition is going to run roughshod over us and we will lose the ability that the NSA and other security agencies have today to work with an industry dominated by U.S. companies. Instead, they will be working with companies like the ones cited earlier, Elvis Plus, a Russian company creating cryptography for a U.S. company that could clearly create it themselves if they had the ability under our export control laws to do so. This is an antiquated policy. It is damaging to our national security, not helpful. It is damaging to our law enforcement efforts. And it is certainly damaging to the economy of this country. And I would urge the Committee to pass this bill. And I hope you will allow some time for Ms. Lofgren.
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Mr. CAMPBELL. Mr. Chairman.
Chairman GILMAN. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. CAMPBELL. I ask unanimous consent for two additional minutes to yield it to Ms. Lofgren, the coauthor of the bill who has not been allowed to speak yet.
Chairman GILMAN. We will give one additional minute to Ms. Lofgren.
Ms. LOFGREN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would just add that none of us want to do anything adverse to our national security or law enforcement, no matter where you are on this issue. But if we examine the technology, we will come to the conclusion that this bill, unamended, is the answer for our country.
I may wish that pigs had wings, but they do not.
The facts have marched beyond our ability to control them and I think that is why we find the somewhat unusual alliance of the Chairwoman, who spoke so eloquently, with the Ranking Member from Connecticut. Mr. Gephardt and Mr. Rohrabacher also have reached the same conclusion that the technology has moved past our ability to legislate as our current policies do. And therefore, I would urge adoption of the bill unamended. Thank you.
Chairman GILMAN. The gentleman's time has expired. Mr. Sherman.
Mr. SHERMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think as Mr. Gejdenson pointed out, the cow is out of the barn. In fact, there are cows in France, in Israel, in Russia and Germany. And the response when the cow is out of the barn sometimes is to be so frustrated that you want to burn down the barn.
And what it seems here is that the panelists before us are asking us to punish and restrain the U.S. software industry because encryption exists and powerful encryption exists.
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The fact of the matter is that encryption will be developed and strong encryption will be promoted around the world. And if not by us, then by competitors.
It was pointed out, I believe by Mr. Reinsch, that we are in negotiations and we have a special ambassador to negotiate internationally on this issue. I would like to thank our allies around the world for not laughing while our ambassador is in the room.
But we do know that they are laughing as soon as he leaves. Because they are taking one of the few industries where the United States is at the very forefront and creating a situation where they can take that industry away from us.
There is no good faith effort on behalf of many of these countries to enter into a controlled and mandatory key system. But even if there is, you are trying to draw to an inside straight.
If you get France and Russia and Israel and Germany, what about Britain? What about New Zealand? You are trying to draw to an inside straight in a game of poker where you have a 20- or 30-card hand. You miss one country and this technology is out there.
Now, I can understand why those who have fought the old crimes in the old ways would like a static world. But we have to be aware of the new crimes, the crimes committed and that I think some of my colleagues have pointed out, will be committed because we do not have encryption as widely available and as powerful. And those new crimes involve hijacking information on the super highway.
If the Administration really wants to control this technology, they ought to, I think, as one of our colleagues pointed out, come to Congress with a bill, criminalizing the domestic sale or use of 128 bit encryption. Otherwise, you are asking us to say that we are making this country safe when anybody can go to Egghead and buy powerful technology, but we are safe because it cannot be exported.
Tell me, if you had a box full of those Lotus notes in a truck driving to Tijuana, what are the chances that anyone would demand that that truck be examined? We barely examine trucks coming north. We do not examine any trucks going south. But you do not need a truck because all this technology can be exported.
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It is true that as of yet you have not had to deal with extremely widespread use by criminal elements of 128 bit technology. This is because today's crooks are not as computer literate, and we might look at our education system, but tomorrow's crooks will be.
And when Mr. Gejdenson can hold up a box and say you can buy this in any Egghead store anywhere in the country, for you to tell us, ''Oh, but if we can prevent those software companies from exploiting markets in Europe, we will control the technology,'' you will not. You will not get the cow back. You can shoot the farmer. Thank you very much.
Chairman GILMAN. The gentleman's time has expired. Mr. Manzullo.
Mr. MANZULLO. Thank you. I guess I am a little bit confused here. The piece of software is manufactured in the United States for domestic consumption and it is protected by encryption. Encryption is nothing more than a mathematical formula for protecting what somebody has put in a piece of software. Do you all agree on that definition? Mr. Goodlatte, do you agree on that?
Mr. GOODLATTE. Yes, that is basically correct.
Mr. MANZULLO. This is very simple. But we cannot take that product and ship it overseas, is that correct?
Mr. GOODLATTE. That is correct.
Mr. MANZULLO. So the issue is whether or not something that is manufactured in the United States, and readily available in the United States, can be shipped overseas. That is the issue. OK? But you can not take the encrypted software in the United States and then beam it up to a satellite and send it to India or to Israel or to Russia or any other place in Europe. And they can take that and work on the same base that is here in the United States. Mr. Goodlatte, do you agree with that?
Mr. GOODLATTE. That is correct. That would be a violation of our export control laws, but criminals can easily do that. We are not talking about a major product that has a few manufacturers where you could control its flow. You are talking about little ones and zeroes going through wires.
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And certainly any criminal bent on committing a crime who wants to have that encryption made available elsewhere can send it out of this country. But there are people who will not violate those laws. Netscape will not. Microsoft will not. Sun Microsystems will not. Novell will not. Lotus will not.
The law abiding businesses of this country will be put at a severe disadvantage unless this policy is changed. And the foreign governments recognize that.
I would like, if I may, to make another document part of the record. This is from MSNBC. ''German Economics Minister Guenter Rexrodt called on Monday for the removal of restrictions on encryption technology when he kicked off a 2-day conference on Internet commerce attended by 40 government ministers from the European Union, the United States, Russia, Japan and Canada.'' They all recognize reality and it is time that we did as well.
And if I might, if you would yield just once more, I would like to address Mr. Hamilton's second question which is what will be the effect of this legislation on national security and law enforcement if Mr. Gilman's amendment is passed?
And the effect will be that we will have exactly the same policy that we have right now, one that is ineffective, not working and one that almost everybody in the room agrees, including Mr. Hamilton, needs to be changed.
And the reason is that if you simply say Section 1, 2, and 3, these are the lifting of export controls that we make in this legislation, but in Section 4, the President, who is our principle opponent in this legislation, can waive all those provisions on a national security argument which is what these gentlemen are making here today, then why have the legislation?
It simply is like saying 1, 2, 3, we are doing something. No. 4, we are canceling that. That is why the amendment is going to be a perpetuation of the current policy that does——
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Mr. MANZULLO. When you look at the amendment, as I read the language, this is not the normal national security intervention tool that says: ''Here is the proposal. We are going to cut it off.'' What this amendment does, it says that the President can set up a whole bureaucratic system and shall have the authority to regulate, including through the approval or denial of licenses or other means deemed appropriate, the export of encryption items.
I mean, let us just take and dissolve the U.S. Congress and say we have nothing to do with exporting software or encryption. We are going to give all authority to the President of the United States. Then we are going to tie it up.
This reminds me. When I first came here 4 years ago Cray had sold a super computer to India and everybody in the bureaucracy went nuts. They said: ''Oh, my gosh. This is a super computer.''
Well, I did a little studying and found out that a super computer is nothing more than a regular computer which does the same functions, only a little bit faster. And while India waited for the U.S. Government to make up its mind as to whether or not this super computer was going to endanger the world, India not only canceled its order with Cray, but started manufacturing its own super computer and started selling it elsewhere.
The same thing happened with the phone switching stations in China. When the NSA testified here that my gosh, we want to be able to monitor calls in China and we can not monitor more than seven telephone lines per hour; therefore, if China is able to bundle these lines through fiberoptic cables that is terrible. It will wreak havoc on our national security.
I just think we are at a point where we have to get realistic. This entire industry invents knowledge every 5 minutes. We cannot keep up with it. To sit here and say that if I can use this encryption product in the United States to control this function, but I cannot send it to Europe because that is going to be a crime, and I close my eyes to the fact that everybody else in the world is doing the same thing. This does not make sense.
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I know it is frustrating. When I met with the DEA, did you ever get your $40 million that was promised by the President to convert from analog to digital back to analog? Did that money ever come to you?
Mr. BOCCHICHIO. I am not sure what you are referring to.
Mr. MANZULLO. Well, the DEA was promised by the President in one of the crime bills a sum of money to be able to go forward with the process of trying to——
Mr. BOCCHICHIO. Convert our radio system?
Mr. MANZULLO. Yes, convert the radio system.
Mr. BOCCHICHIO. Yes, we are in the process of doing that.
Mr. MANZULLO. Did that money finally come?
Mr. BOCCHICHIO. Yes.
Mr. MANZULLO. It was held up for years and no one knows why. Congress had voted to give you as many tools as possible, but the President held it up.
Chairman GILMAN. The gentleman's time has expired. Mr. Rothman.
Mr. ROTHMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It has been said that the cow is out of the barn. Perhaps another way of looking at it is that there was a barn full of cows. One has left the barn. The question is do we open the door so that they all go out?
For 219 years, the law enforcement people in the United States have had the ability to listen into the bad guys in the United States. Put a glass up against the door, bug the car or wiretap the phone. We live in the strongest, freest country on the planet.
Now law enforcement says they may not have the ability given the new technology to listen in on the bad guys in real time because of encryption. That is the problem.
The problem with the Administration's policy is it is ridiculous. It is over broad, but insufficient at the same time in the ways that Messrs. Berman and others have said. If we want to stop the bad guys in America, let us have a law that makes it unlawful for domestic folks to use encrypted software without a key available upon a showing of due process, proper cause, et cetera.
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So the policy is wrong. And that is why I went along and cosponsored after a fashion the Goodlatte/Lofgren bill because it really is a matter of protest to the wrong headedness of the Administration policy.
But I have thought long and hard about this and I am not really happy with opening the barn door for the rest of the cows to leave. And I think there needs to be a compromise. I think there needs to be a recognition that there has to be the ability of American law enforcement to listen to the bad guys in real time. And so the policy needs to be changed, not to let everybody in the whole world have the ability to escape detection by our law enforcement.
Again, we have had the ability for our whole national history to listen in. It has not been abused. I do not see that danger. And I believe that the Gilman amendment will buy us some time in negotiations between the committees of Congress and the Administration to accomplish a better policy.
Mr. BALLENGER. Would the gentleman yield for a question?
Mr. ROTHMAN. Certainly.
Mr. BALLENGER. Our founding fathers 200 years ago were listening in on the conversations of other people?
Mr. ROTHMAN. Absolutely.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. You probably should describe that. I thought the telephone was invented——
Mr. ROTHMAN. I said by glass against the door. Maybe you did not hear me. Or spies. Were there no spies in the Revolution, Mr. Rohrabacher? Of course, there were. So I will reclaim my time to say that I believe that we need the ability to listen in real time to the bad guys. The present Administration policy does not accomplish that.
Whether we do that by a better law or we do as Mr. Gejdenson says find in a hurry faster computers to be able to listen into perfectly encrypted software created offshore maybe that is the solution.
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As Mr. Sherman said, we may miss one country and what does that mean? We have to give up?
If you make it harder for the bad guys to accomplish their mission, that is a sufficiently good goal in my opinion. The thing that everybody says is, do not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. I believe that.
Chairman GILMAN. The gentleman's time has expired. Thank you. Mr. Davis.
Mr. DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I wanted to follow up on an earlier comment that Mr. Kallstrom made to the effect that there is availability with respect to encryption, but your experience has been limited use of that by the criminal element if I understood your testimony correctly.
Mr. KALLSTROM. That is correct.
Mr. DAVIS. I would like to ask you and the other gentlemen that are here, and perhaps the sponsors if they care to respond too. Why is it that there is such limited use of that product which would seem to benefit criminal use even though there is widespread availability? Is it a function of price or lack of sophistication?
Mr. KALLSTROM. I think for all the reasons that Mr. Reinsch talked about, the lack of an infrastructure. You and I could go out and buy some of the stuff and communicate, but these criminal groups have to communicate widely in and outside their conspiracies. And that is what we are trying to prevent. I think that is what we are all saying here.
I mean, the law enforcement entities of this country, quite frankly, could give a damn about the export business. I mean, we care in the larger picture. What we care about is the ability to save lives and protect the national security inside this country. I think the analogy of this one cow out of the barn is a good one by Mr. Rothman. There are many, many others still in the barn. And if we can bring practical well reasoned public policy to the rest of those cows, the law enforcement community would be a helluva lot better off.
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Mr. DAVIS. Let me add then, so what you are saying is there is a conscious decision by those who might choose to use the encryption not to do so because they would have to do so as part of a larger circuit that does not contain the encryption and therefore it would not be fully used.
Mr. KALLSTROM. Well, they use it, but they can only use it in a micro sense. You and I can speak. But when we have to go outside of our little group, it gets very cumbersome as we travel and we have to deal with other entities. It is not easy to use yet because it is not an infrastructure.
Mr. GEJDENSON. Would Mr. Davis yield for just one moment?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes, I will.
Mr. GEJDENSON. Thank you. You know, the other great thing about here, unlike cows, as long as that is the analogy, to reproduce it does not take a 9-month gestation period. Anybody with a computer can go into this business and make billions of copies just given enough time. And so the argument that there are other products out there does not really wash. There are enough products out there that anybody with any interest can take two laptops, download the equipment on both, download it on four laptops and talk to each other.
Mr. KALLSTROM. Mr. Gejdenson, when they passed the omnibus crime bill of 1968, many, many people talked about the fact that criminals would no longer talk on the phones because now you can wiretap. I sat in those discussions. And the reality is they still do today.
The notion that people are going to take your Lotus notes and the next thing you know the Gambino family is going to communicate in Lotus notes, it is not going to happen.
Mr. GEJDENSON. If the gentleman will yield, I agree with you. People get sloppy. People are careless. And you guys work really hard. And that is why we are pretty successful at that. But nothing in this bill changes the present reality which is if they desire and if they wanted to take the precautions, they could get all the equipment they need today to communicate in an encrypted manner. Luckily, they do not do it. And hopefully, they will never do it.
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Mr. KALLSTROM. Some do.
Mr. GEJDENSON. Right. But nothing in this bill changes that.
Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Davis, since you invited Mr. Goodlatte and I also to comment, I think, to stretch the cow analogy beyond its usefulness perhaps, we have cows tromping all over America. They are out of the barns and all over America.
And also, because we know that cows can replicate, we are not letting them out of just our barn, because they are being born all over the world. And so there is plenty of beef available.
What we need to think about is not what we would like to have available. Sure, we would love for law enforcement to have access to data in real time and the like on into the future. The fact is we cannot do that.
However, everything that is sent, almost everything, comes down to a written copy at some point which you can get. We have been told over and over the concern about laundering money through banks. You can get information that you need from the banks because they have their own records.
What we are not going to be able to get is a defeat of strong encryption. You can download it off the Internet right now. It is being used all over the world right now. It is out there and it is an electronic bit stream. We need to think about it in a different way than physical atoms. The bit stream is out there and anyone who wants to use it can get it.
Mr. HASTINGS. Mr. Chairman, can we move the agenda before we are here until the cows come home?
Chairman GILMAN. Yes, thank you. We are trying to wind up the vote on this amendment and I appreciate your support. Mr. Hamilton.
Mr. HAMILTON. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. I think we have had a good discussion here. We face a genuine dilemma. I want U.S. companies which are world leaders in communications and computers to have success in the world markets. And I think that is essential to U.S. competitiveness in the world. I want to see that those companies which are today preeminent remain preeminent.
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And I think the proponents of the Goodlatte bill have pushed the Administration in the right direction and I commend them for that. Because I think the Administration has not moved far enough in this very difficult area.
I also, however, want to protect essential tools for law enforcement and national security. I want to protect those tools.
Without the Gilman amendment, I think you leave the President of the United States with virtually no ability to control exports for national security and law enforcement purposes. I do not think any of us really want to do that. You do not want to strip a President of that kind of power.
We are not reporting here a perfect bill with or without the Gilman amendment. We may not even be reporting a satisfactory bill. And I think everybody in this room knows that this bill has to go through a lot more adjustment before it has the prospect of becoming law.
But I do believe that H.R. 695, the Goodlatte bill, goes too far in relaxing U.S. export controls on both hardware and software with encryption capabilities. I know it has some narrow national security exceptions, but I think they are too narrow.
I also take very seriously the concerns of the U.S. industry here. I take very seriously the comments that have been made by the proponents of the Goodlatte bill. And I want to work with them to find a reasonable compromise.
They know that their bill is not going to become law. They know that further changes are going to be necessary for national security and law enforcement purposes. And I think the Administration knows they have got a lot of work to do to accommodate the legitimate interests of American industry here.
Mr. Chairman, I am going to offer an amendment, if I have time, to set up the export control board if your amendment is adopted. That is part of the so-called Kerry-McCain bill and I think has the advantage of formalizing industry input into the policy process and gives us some continuity to the discussions among the key parties. I think it is an important part of an eventual bill that emerges here.
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Let me say again that at the end of the day if you do not adopt the Gilman amendment, the President has virtually no ability to control exports for national security and law enforcement purposes. And that simply goes much, much too far.
We need to give the President that authority and the Gilman amendment does it. I urge the adoption of the Gilman amendment.
Chairman GILMAN. I thank the gentleman for his supporting argument. Mr. Rohrabacher, could you please wait for 1 minute. I want to mention, gentlemen, we are about to be called to the floor for a series of votes. We have only until the 25th of this month to report out this bill. I ask you to please stand by so we can wind this up this evening. Mr. Rohrabacher.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. I find the arguments against Mr. Goodlatte's bill in favor of Mr. Gilman's amendment to be nonsensical. And it is obvious that the people overseas are going to have these things anyway. And I would suggest, well, I will yield the rest of my time to Mr. Goodlatte to be able to defend his own bill.
Mr. GOODLATTE. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I would like to point out that the amendment that Mr. Hamilton makes reference to allows that all nine members of that board be appointed by the President of the United States. It is not similar to the Burns legislation in the Senate where the appointment is diffuse.
I would also point out to Mr. Hamilton that I applaud his efforts——
Mr. HAMILTON. Would the gentleman yield there?
Mr. GOODLATTE. Yes.
Mr. HAMILTON. You are correct. But four of the nine individuals would be from the private industry sector. I understand that five would be from the government. What is important in that amendment, however, is to try to improve the consultative process between the government and the private sector which I think has been not working very well.
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Mr. GOODLATTE. I thank the gentleman. I would like to address the gentleman's main concern which I certainly respect and that is to try and see some change in Administration policy.
But what I would suggest to the Members of the Committee is that if we put into this bill the ability of the President of the United States to revert to current policy, you are gutting the bill and the leverage that we have as a Congress to negotiate with the White House on this issue as it moves through the Congress will be lost.
So I would hope that we would preserve this bill in its current form and continue our negotiations with the Administration.
In addition, I would point out again that using export control laws to force domestic key recovery systems which is clearly what has come out here today is nothing less than industrial extortion. If they want domestic controls, they should just admit that and proceed with that type of legislation. Do not hold American industry hostage. Do not hold American citizens' right to protect their privacy hostage. Do not hold up the fight against crime by making the Internet and other forms of electronic communications more secure. And I thank the gentleman for yielding.
Chairman GILMAN. The gentleman's time has expired. On the Gilman amendment, the amendment will ensure that this bill provides the authorities to the President that he needs to control exports or re-exports of encryptic items if he determines that they would adversely affect our national security. This allows us to work with such key countries as France, Britain and Japan to develop an international consensus on the key recovery approach to strong encryption.
With the proliferation of digital technology, strong encryption has the potential to deny police and law enforcement authorities with the access they now enjoy. The adoption of this amendment will help to balance the competing demands of electronic privacy, law enforcement and international trade.
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Enactment of the Gilman amendment will help to move the encryption debate back to where it belongs squarely centered and the concerns of our national security agencies and the efforts of our FBI to apprehend and prosecute spies. Terrorist threats to our communication and transportation systems are no less real and no less threatening to our citizens.
Furthermore, the Goodlatte bill, if unchanged by my amendment, requires that any computer, including high performance computers, be exported license-free so long as it contains encrypted software or hardware. It would effectively decontrol the export of super computers currently restricted to end users and users of concern in such countries as China and Russia.
If you are concerned about the impact of the export of these computers, then vote yes on the Gilman amendment.
And I would like to close with this note from Attorney General Janet Reno, and I quote, ''In sum, while encryption is certainly a commercial interest of great importance to our nation, it is not solely a commercial or business issue. Those of us charged with the protection of public safety and national security believe that the misuse of encryption technology will become a matter of life and death in many instances.
''And that is why we urge you to adopt a balanced approach that accomplishes the goals mentioned. Only this approach will allow police departments, attorneys general, district attorneys, sheriffs and Federal authorities to continue to use their most effective investigative techniques with court approval to fight crime and espionage and prevent terrorism.''
That is from Janet Reno, our Attorney General. I am going to ask unanimous consent that we include in the record letters from the Secretary of Defense which you have before you, the Attorney General, the Director of the FBI and others as well as International Association of the Chief of Police, the National Association of Attorneys General, the National District Attorneys Association and the National Sheriff's Association. Without objection, they will be made part of the record. Mr. Bereuter.
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Mr. BEREUTER. Mr. Chairman, I was hoping to move this along. Move the previous question.
Chairman GILMAN. Without objection, the previous question is ordered. All in favor signify in the usual manner.
[Chorus of ayes.]
Chairman GILMAN. Those opposed.
[Chorus of noes.]
Chairman GILMAN. On the measure, we will have a roll call on the Gilman amendment. The clerk will call the roll.
Ms. BLOOMER. Mr. Gilman?
Chairman GILMAN. Aye.
Ms. BLOOMER. Mr. Gilman votes aye.
Mr. Leach?
Mr. LEACH. Aye.
Ms. BLOOMER. Mr. Leach votes aye.
Mr. Hyde.
[No response.]
Ms. BLOOMER. Mr. Bereuter.
Mr. BEREUTER. Aye.
Ms. BLOOMER. Mr. Bereuter votes aye.
Mr. Smith.
Mr. SMITH. No.
Ms. BLOOMER. Mr. Smith votes no.
Mr. Burton.
[No Response.]
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Ms. BLOOMER. Mr. Gallegly.
Mr. GALLEGLY. Aye.
Ms. BLOOMER. Mr. Gallegly votes aye.
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen.
Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. No.
Ms. BLOOMER. Ms. Ros-Lehtinen votes no.
Mr. Ballenger.
Mr. BALLENGER. No.
Ms. BLOOMER. Mr. Ballenger votes no.
Mr. Rohrabacher.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. No.
Ms. BLOOMER. Mr. Rohrabacher votes no.
Mr. Manzullo.
Mr. MANZULLO. No.
Ms. BLOOMER. Mr. Manzullo votes no.
Mr. Royce.
[No Response.]
Ms. BLOOMER. Mr. King.
Mr. KING. No.
Ms. BLOOMER. Mr. King votes no.
Mr. Kim.
[No Response.]
Ms. BLOOMER. Mr. Chabot.
Mr. CHABOT. No.
Ms. BLOOMER. Mr. Chabot votes no.
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Mr. Sanford.
Mr. SANFORD. No.
Ms. BLOOMER. Mr. Sanford votes no.
Mr. Salmon.
[No Response.]
Ms. BLOOMER. Mr. Houghton.
Mr. HOUGHTON. No.
Ms. BLOOMER. Mr. Houghton votes no.
Mr. Campbell.
Mr. CAMPBELL. No.
Ms. BLOOMER. Mr. Campbell votes no.
Mr. Fox.
[No Response.]
Ms. BLOOMER. Mr. McHugh.
[No Response.]
Ms. BLOOMER. Mr. Graham.
[No Response.]
Ms. BLOOMER. Mr. Blunt.
Mr. BLUNT. No.
Ms. BLOOMER. Mr. Blunt votes no.
Mr. Moran.
Mr. MORAN. No.
Ms. BLOOMER. Mr. Moran votes no.
Mr. Brady.
Mr. BRADY. No.
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Ms. BLOOMER. Mr. Brady votes no.
Mr. Hamilton.
Mr. HAMILTON. Aye.
Ms. BLOOMER. Mr. Hamilton votes yes.
Mr. Gejdenson.
Mr. GEJDENSON. No.
Ms. BLOOMER. Mr. Gejdenson votes no.
Mr. Lantos.
[No Response.]
Ms. BLOOMER. Mr. Berman.
Mr. BERMAN. Aye.
Ms. BLOOMER. Mr. Berman votes yes.
Mr. Ackerman.
Mr. ACKERMAN. No.
Ms. BLOOMER. Mr. Ackerman votes no.
Mr. Faleomavaega.
[No Response.]
Ms. BLOOMER. Mr. Martinez.
[No Response.]
Ms. BLOOMER. Mr. Payne.
[No Response.]
Ms. BLOOMER. Mr. Andrews.
[No Response.]
Ms. BLOOMER. Mr. Menendez.
Mr. MENENDEZ. Aye.
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Ms. BLOOMER. Mr. Menendez votes yes.
Mr. Brown.
Mr. BROWN. Yes.
Ms. BLOOMER. Mr. Brown votes yes.
Ms. McKinney.
[No Response.]
Ms. BLOOMER. Mr. Hastings.
Mr. HASTINGS. No.
Ms. BLOOMER. Mr. Hastings votes no.
Ms. Danner.
Ms. DANNER. Yes.
Ms. BLOOMER. Ms. Danner votes yes.
Mr. Hilliard.
Mr. HILLIARD. No.
Ms. BLOOMER. Mr. Hilliard votes no.
Mr. Capps.
Mr. CAPPS. No.
Ms. BLOOMER. Mr. Capps votes no.
Mr. Sherman.
Mr. SHERMAN. No.
Ms. BLOOMER. Mr. Sherman votes no.
Mr. Wexler.
Mr. WEXLER. No.
Ms. BLOOMER. Mr. Wexler votes no.
Mr. Rothman.
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Mr. ROTHMAN. Yes.
Ms. BLOOMER. Mr. Rothman votes yes.
Mr. Clement.
Mr. CLEMENT. Aye.
Ms. BLOOMER. Mr. Clement votes yes.
Mr. Luther.
Mr. LUTHER. No.
Ms. BLOOMER. Mr. Luther votes no.
Mr. Davis.
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Ms. BLOOMER. Mr. Davis votes yes.
Chairman GILMAN. The clerk will call the absentees.
Ms. BLOOMER. Mr. Goodling.
[No Response.]
Ms. BLOOMER. Mr. Hyde.
[No Response.]
Ms. BLOOMER. Mr. Burton.
[No Response.]
Ms. BLOOMER. Mr. Royce.
Mr. ROYCE. No.
Ms. BLOOMER. Mr. Royce votes no.
Mr. Kim.
[No Response.]
Ms. BLOOMER. Mr. Salmon.
[No Response.]
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Ms. BLOOMER. Mr. Fox.
Mr. FOX. Yes.
Ms. BLOOMER. Mr. Fox votes yes.
Mr. McHugh.
[No Response.]
Ms. BLOOMER. Mr. Graham.
[No Response.]
Ms. BLOOMER. Mr. Lantos.
[No Response.]
Ms. BLOOMER. Mr. Faleomavaega.
[No Response.]
Ms. BLOOMER. Mr. Martinez.
[No Response.]
Ms. BLOOMER. Mr. Payne.
[No Response.]
Ms. BLOOMER. Mr. Andrews.
[No Response.]
Ms. BLOOMER. Ms. McKinney.
[No Response.]
Chairman GILMAN. The clerk will report the vote.
Ms. BLOOMER. On this vote, there were 13 ayes and 22 noes.
Chairman GILMAN. The noes do have it. The amendment is not agreed to. Mr. Smith. Are there any further amendments? If not, Mr. Smith.
Mr. SMITH. Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee report the bill H.R. 695 as amended with the recommendation that the bill as amended do pass.
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Chairman GILMAN. All in favor signify in the usual manner.
[Chorus of ayes.]
Chairman GILMAN. Opposed.
[Chorus of noes.]
Chairman GILMAN. The ayes have it and the motion is agreed to. The question is now we will proceed to a brief item relative to the conference on 1757. I am asking the Members if they would kindly stay in the room. I ask unanimous consent the Chairman be authorized to make motions under Rule 20 relative to H.R. 1757.
Mr. HAMILTON. I reserve the right to object, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman GILMAN. Mr. Hamilton.
Mr. HAMILTON. I do not intend to object. I think the Chairman should have this power. I just want to say I am not sure what the situation is going to be on the floor. So while I will not object at this point, I want to have flexibility for whatever may arise with respect to the floor. But I support the gentleman's motion.
Chairman GILMAN. The gentleman's rights will be protected. Without objection, so ordered.
Mr. BEREUTER. Mr. Chairman.
Chairman GILMAN. Mr. Bereuter.
Mr. BEREUTER. May I be recognized for an announcement?
Chairman GILMAN. Mr. Bereuter is recognized for an announcement.
Mr. BEREUTER. I would like to say to the Members of the Asia Pacific Subcommittee that we have prepared a bipartisan resolution related to the coup in Cambodia. I have asked Mr. Berman if he would agree not to object to waiving the 5-day rule for consideration of the Subcommittee so we could bring it to the House floor next week.
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Additionally, since we are meeting in that fashion, I would like to bring a non-controversial amendment by the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Hastings, on South Korea. I would also like to bring one which relates to the anniversary of independence for Pakistan and India to which I think we have solved some initial concerns. I wanted to make that announcement. If there are strong objections from Members of the Asia and Pacific Subcommittee for some reason for one or all of those bills, I would certainly listen to it. But I would like to make that announcement and we will expect to have it Thursday afternoon at some date.
Chairman GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Bereuter, for your announcement. Are there any other announcements? If not, the Committee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 6:15 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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