The Czech and Slovak Republics have both been removed from the list of CoCom proscribed countries – just before CoCom, the Co-ordinating Committee on Multilateral Exports, is due to wind itself up – following the passage of re-export legislation by the respective governments. Rodney Hough of the US embassy in the Czech Republic said, I don’t think it will make a great deal of difference on the macro level; at the micro level it may free some firms up from bureaucracy. His comments were echoed by Eduard Mika, chief executive of the large systems integrator APP Group who said The only big plus for us will be less paperwork. It also a very visible political signal, but I don’t expect it to be a major factor for the Czech computer market. CoCom is in any case set to be abolished by a March 31 deadline and the CoCom secretariat in Paris has not been overseeing the role of national governments in the application of license requirements since the beginning of the year. Some export licence regulations on a narrower range of computing and telecommunications technologies are likely to remain after abolition, however, under the auspices of a new body, codenamed ‘New Forum’. Working parties are meeting in the Hague to establish the structure of the new export licence body, but so far few details have emerged. Meanwhile, a statement from the US State Department confirmed that export licences will still be required for the export of the majority of data encryption technologies to CoCom-proscribed countries from the US, though ‘bulk’ licences may be granted in the future, meaning suppliers need not obtain individual licences for each end user.
Clipper chips
Controls on Clipper chips using the key-escrow encryption technique are being relaxed with no export controls on countries unless they are subject to US sanctions; however, the encryption technique is no protection against eavesdropping by the US government as the Commerce Department and Treasury Department both hold dycription keys and hence de-regulation poses no security risks. Defending the maintenance of export licence requirements on other technology’s White House press secretary Dee Dee Myers said in a written statement If encryption technology is made freely available worldwide, it would no doubt be used extensively by terrorists, drug dealers and other criminals to harm Americans. For this reason the administration will continue to restrict export of the most sophisticated encryption devices, both to preserve our own foreign intelligence gathering capability and because of the concerns of our allies who fear that strong encryption technology would inhibit their law enforcement capabilities.
