The existing system of controls for regulating the flow of militarily sensitive technology out of the West has few defenders. Many observers find the controls-executed or under study by 44 Government groups in at least 10 different departments to be confusing and cumbersome. Sporadic enforcement of the controls has aggravated the confusion: even the U.S. Department of Defense concedes that in the past "spasms of control" have too often taken the place of "consistent, sensible procedures." business millions of dollars a year in export licensing delays-even though the vast majority of all high technology exports are to allies. Furthermore, when controls are applied to technical information as well as products, they can inhibit researchers from publishing papers and conversing with foreigners, stifling the scientific freedoms that help maintain Western leadership in high technology. Information controls may stifle public debate over socio technical problems and conceal official misdoings.

A variety of Government bodies are now working to modify the current system of controls and to draft a policy on technology transfer (see "Needed: a Government-wide policy," p. 62). While this work proceeds and arguments about controls continue to rage, engineers may today encounter these controls in their work and be subject to one or more of the following restraints.

I. Classification authority
Classification is a judgment call, and the call may be challenged. Anyone may request that any classified document be reviewed for possible declassification. Last year about 85 percent of all such reviews resulted in declassification.

In an executive order that became effective in August 1982, President Ronald Reagan made significant changes in the Government's powers of classification. Previously, in deciding whether to declassify a document, the Government had to weigh not only the impact on national security but also potential benefits to economic trade, scientific research, and the public's right to know. Now the Government does not legally have to take those latter benefits into account.

In addition, President Reagan's executive order permits documents to be classified for an indefinite length of time, and it mandates that when there is doubt whether a document should be classified, the document should be safeguarded as if classified until a decision is made (which must occur within 30 days).

The executive order also states that agency heads are now allowed to reclassify information that has been declassified, provided it is done in the interest of national security and the "information may reasonably be recovered." The American Association of University Professors and similar organizations have objected to the executive order, claiming that it will lead to an excess of classification and stifle exchanges among researchers.

In March 1983, the President issued another executive order, which would require that perhaps 125,000 Government employees with access to classified information agree to prepublication review of their manuscripts. The Congress has acted to delay this provision of the executive order until April 1984.

II. Exports of dual-use technology
U.S. companies wishing to export sophisticated commercial products-computers, magnetic tapes, lasers, instruments containing microprocessors, or the like-need export licenses from the U.S. Department of Commerce. The Export Administration Act authorizes the Department to control the export of products and technology that could aid the military advancement of potential U.S. enemies and thus endanger national security. In simple terms, the Commerce Department controls dual-use (that is commercial and military) products and technologies; the Department of State controls arms, munitions, and related technologies.

III. Controls on dual-use information
To violate the Export Administration Act and face up to 10 years in prison or a $250,000 fine, engineers need not cart a computer across a national border: they can simply walk up to a podium at an IEEE conference at which certain foreign nationals are present and begin to speak.

The IEEE, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and other professional organizations are concerned that the use of export laws to control scientific exchange has a chilling effect on research, particularly because the export laws are vague about what is and is not allowed. Will some engineers, faced with ambiguous laws, choose simply to avoid certain areas of research or to stop speaking at conferences?

IV. Controls on militray goods and technology
The Commerce Department is not the only body authorized to control high-technology exports. Under the Arms Export Control Act, the State Department is authorized to control the export of arms, munitions, and military technologies, and it does so through the rules known as the International Traffic in Arms Regulations.

Like the Commerce Department, the State Department controls the export of information as well as equipment. "Export" can mean speaking at international conferences, talking with foreign scholars, or conversing with overseas colleagues. Regulations apply to exchanges with all foreigners, not just members of communist countries,and responsibility for knowing when to seek a license rests with the person releasing information.

V. Controls on Defense Department contracts
The DOD is now developing new procedures regarding contracts, conferences, and other information controls under a steering group headed by the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Advanced Technology, Edith Martin. In fact, the DOD issued a new policy for university research contracts last fall. The policy stated that before a university signs a contract, the DOD technical sponsors must decide whether the fruits of the research are apt to fall into the limited area of truly sensitive information. If not, the contract will state that researchers must send papers to the DOD for review at the same time they submit them to a journal or conference organizers. If the research is apt to be militarily sensitive and is 6.1 research, the contract will require that a review copy be sent to the DOD 60 days in advance of submission. After reading the review copy, the DOD can advise-but not insist-that the investigator refrain from publication.

VI. Controlling nuclear information
Last April the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) proposed regulations that would create a new category of controlled information, called Unclassified-Controlled Nuclear information (UCNI). All information that the department designated as UCNI could be shown only to people-such as Government workers, Government contractors, or in some cases people who have received special permission from the DOE-with an established "need to know" to perform their official duties.

What information could be marked UCNI? Documents, correspondence, presentations, telephone conversations, or reports containing "operational information concerning the production, processing, and utilization of nuclear materials," as well as information concerning the design, manufacture, use, or safe-guard of nuclear weapons or components of nuclear weapons could receive the UNCI designation. This might include many thousands of documents now in the open literature; moreover, the proposed regulations appear to give the secretary of energy a free hand in designating any other unclassified nuclear information as UCNI if he so desired.

The DOE received so many objections to the proposed rule that it held three hearings on the topic in the fall and has stated it may redraft the regulations.

VII. Controlling inventions
When George Davida, professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, filed a patent application in 1977 for an encryption device for computer security that he and a graduate student had invented, he received in the mail not a patent but a secrecy order. The order informed Dr. Davida that he should not discuss or publish any information about his device, or he could face up to two years in prison and a $10,000 fine. Dr. Davida had developed his invention under National Science Foundation funding and without any access to classified material.

Inventors who want their orders rescinded can request reconsideration from the agencies that issued them. If still dissatisfied, the inventor can appeal to the Secretary of Commerce. Inventors may also sue for damages caused by secrecy orders. Litigation can be drawn out, however; only a handful of claims have been settled in the last 40 years. David Pelton Moore, one of the early inventors of a solid rocket propellant, received a secrecy order in 1956. In 1977, a court ruled in his favor on the issue of abandonment and/or forfeiture of his invention. A further suit-claiming unauthorized Government use of his inventiondid not reach trial until 1980. Mr. Moore was then 102 years old.

VIII. Restricting foreign visitors
William Schneider, the under secretary of state for security assistance, science and technology, announced last May that the State Department had begun carefully reviewing visa applications so it could deny entry to foreigners who appeared to be planning to visit the United States to gain strategic technology illegally. In some cases, as an alternative to outright denial of a visa, a foreigner may be allowed to enter the United States if he agrees to restrictions on his activities, such as foregoing visits to certain laboratories, research facilities, or industrial sites. Although the State Department says the new policy is aimed primarily at foreigners intending to visit industrial sites, some academicians are concerned that it will be used to control the visits of scholars.

IX. Voluntary controls
There is no doubt that new visa policies, executive orders, and contractual controls will have a great impact on technical exchanges, but possibly greater still may be the inhibitory effect of the Government's campaigns to publicize the dangers of technology transfer. A Government-wide public-education drive on the technology-transfer problem is in full swing. The Department of Defense is developing a briefing for industry leaders on Soviet acquisition of U.S. Technology. The U.S. Department of Justice has advised all U.S. Attorneys to prosecute vigorously all export-law violators and to seek news-media coverage of the prosecutions to strengthen the program's deterrent effect. The net effect of these efforts is that many companies and engineers are voluntarily controlling the transfer of technology-sometimes in excess of the controls required by law.

Critics of the recent technologycontrol policies-including both academic researchers like Stephen Unger and corporate executives like Robert Schmidt of Control Data Corp., contend that the best way for the United States to counter any Soviet Technological inroads is to encourage a vigorous and open scientific enterprise-that is, to "out-innovate" the USSR.

To probe further for an influential and comprehensive look at U.S. information controls and recommendations for improving them, see "Scientific Communication and National Security," a 1982 report by the Panel on Scientific Communication and National Security, formed by a joint committee of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine.

Information controls of importance to computer and electrical engineers are summarized and recommendations are made in a February 1983 Interim Report of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Committee on the Changing Nature of Information.

IEEE Spectrum has published articles on industrial and academic views of information controls ("Technology transfer at issue: the academic viewpoint" and "Technology transfer at issue: the industry viewpoint," May 1982, pp. 64 and 69, respectively) and an industry-Government round table on the technology transfer ("The dilemma of technology transfer," September 1982, p. 66). Science has covered these issues thoroughly, including Colin Norman's "The administration Grapples with Export Controls," June 3, 1983, and a June 17, 1983, article entitled "Musical Chairs at OSTP."

Among the professional groups now working on information-control issues are the IEEE Committee on Technology Transfer, the Committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure of the American Association of University Professors, and the Committee on Scientific Freedom and Responsibility of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The last-named committee has recently embarked on a project on openness in scientific communication, which will include a series of seminars to be held around the country in 1983.

Contributing editor IEEE Spectrum. The unabridged article appeared in the February 1984 issue of IEEE Spectrum pp 58-65, and is reprinted here with permission of The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.