President Bill Clinton yesterday eased restrictions on computer exports, allowing the sale of more powerful computers abroad without a licence.
The US computer industry had lobbied for the change because the old controls, established in 1996 to restrict the availability of advanced technology, have failed to keep up with advances in commercially-available computers.
US companies could forfeit more than $4 billion (€3.91 billion) in lost sales if they were required to keep up with these regulations, the administration said. Under the new rules, high-end lap top computers, business servers and Sony's newest game player will no longer fall into regulated categories.
"Maintaining these controls would hurt US exports without benefiting our national security," Mr Clinton said. Very powerful machines do not automatically represent security risks, said Mr John Hamre, US deputy secretary of defence.
Mr Hamre said the defence department opposed an automatic system for determining which computers are too common to be controlled effectively. But he said the new revisions did not put the US in danger, and advocated frequent reviews in the future.
"Every one of our concerns was accommodated and we are satisfied that we will be able to protect the country," Mr Hamre said. But Mr Hamre said there was still a need to regulate the fastest computers as they could be used for nuclear simulations and other sensitive functions. The new rules specify what kinds of computers and computer chips can be sold without a licence to countries in three categories. Tier 1 countries are US allies, with the fewest restrictions, Tier 2 countries are those judged to be at low-risk for nuclear proliferation while Tier 3 countries are potential nuclear proliferators, and include countries such as China, Israel and India. For those countries, the US has tried to distinguish between military and non-military users.
Industry representatives have been pressing Congress for higher limits to prevent processing bottlenecks as new products enter the market. The new rules are expected to ease some of the pressure, but the industry is likely to continue lobbying Congress to further relax the system. Many of the machines in question are neither highly specialised nor custom-built, said Mr Bill Calder, a spokesman for Intel, the world's largest chip producer. If countries do not purchase these computers from US manufacturers, they will buy them from foreign makers and deprive US companies of revenue with no gain to US security, he said.
Some of the new rules will go into effect as soon as the Bureau of Export Administration draws them up, a Commerce Department spokesperson said. The rest are subject to a six-month waiting period, during which Congress can respond to any of the proposals.
