The GOP-led Congress thought it had the answer. Responding with indignant outrage to alleged technology transfers from U.S. satellite firms to China and Russia in recent years, Republicans passed legislation that shifted high-tech export oversight from the Commerce Department back to the State Department in March 1999.
To show they, too, were serious about high-tech security, the Justice Department and State Department got tough with Loral Corp., Hughes Electronics Co., Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp. about their overseas business dealings.
At one point, Iridium also (before being cleared) was accused of lax tech security in attaching its satellites to foreign rockets. The feds don’t have Iridium to kick around anymore.
The Clinton Commerce Department has long been a target of Republicans, who see the agency as a Democratic fund-raising machine that is bullish on trade at the expense of national security.
Some tried to zero out Commerce, but to no avail. So Republicans went after Bill Richardson’s Energy Department in hopes of shutting off the spigot that gushes with American high-tech secrets.
But how wrong the Republicans were!
Turns out neither campaign contributions nor high-level political maneuvering are needed to access U.S. high-tech intelligence. On the contrary, anonymity seems to work just fine, thank you.
Ask Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. She’s up to her eyes in controversy over a laptop computer with highly classified data that has been missing since Jan. 20. Before that, a Russian spy was detected loitering in Foggy Bottom.
And what about the eavesdropping bug that was comfortably ensconced in the wall molding of a conference room at State?
Best of all is the visitor who helped himself to a bevy of classified materials on a desk down the hall from Albright’s office in 1998.
It’s an open house at Albright’s place. Our secrets are your secrets.
Speaking of diplomacy and security, how about those Japanese government officials and the awful things they’re saying. First, it was Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara associating illegal immigrants with “atrocious” crimes.
More recently, Japan’s Home Affairs Minister Kosuke Hori warned that illegal immigrants might use prepaid phones for drug trafficking and other crimes because user identification is not required.
Was Hori confused or just being xenophobic? Or both? You see, kidnappers of a 7-year-old boy (who was rescued last Tuesday) used prepaid phones to make ransom calls to the boy’s father. The kidnapping suspects turned out to be Japanese, not illegal immigrants.
Kosuke Hori, meet John Rocker.
