> In the United States, > both the FBI and NSA have at times cast votes > intended to roll back existing policies, and they > have at a minimum managed to stall licenses that > seemed to fit existing policy. This passage seems particularly disturbing. It seems that, even when some policy has changed, the FBI and the NSA refused to play along. Ern -------- From: http://www.seas.gwu.edu/seas/institutes/cpi/library/docs/cpi-1999-02.pdf GROWING DEVELOPMENT OF FOREIGN ENCRYPTION PRODUCTS IN THE FACE OF U. S. EXPORT REGULATIONS [SNIP] This is no longer the case. The Commerce Department has staffed up heavily in the encryption field, but its processes now include parallel reviews by the FBI and NSA under a 30-day deadline that can be extended further with a simple "no" vote by either agency. For whatever reason, these agencies are now taking the full 30 days -- and often 90 days. Against a backdrop of continued export liberalization over the past four years, this degradation in export control performance strikes a jarring note. The Commerce Department's performance in this area is not necessarily out of line with the performance of other countries. The German government often takes two to three months to approve a license for a new product and six weeks to approve a license for routine shipments. The difference is that German companies know with certainty that a license will be issued at the end of the process; and the German government imposes no key recovery requirement on exporters. Therefore, they can make commitments to deliver products that require a license even before they get the license. In the United States, both the FBI and NSA have at times cast votes intended to roll back existing policies, and they have at a minimum managed to stall licenses that seemed to fit existing policy. A key recovery policy, for example, has been applied sporadically to U.S. multinationals and with some inconsistency to other exports. For this reason, it is not prudent for exporters to assume that a license will be issued or to make commitments on the assumption that the license will be issued - even when existing policy makes it seem likely that a license will eventually be granted. Because an RFP by a foreign company may provide only 30 days for responsive proposals, and the proposals often must include an assurance that an export license will be obtained, some U.S. companies lose bidding opportunities simply because the U.S. government does not process licenses quickly enough. [SNIP]
