U.S. Rules Due Soon on Foreign Nationals, Sensitive Hi-Tech Technology Leadership, Security at Stake

US State Department, The following article by US Under Secretary of Commerce David McCormick originally appeared in the December 13 edition of The Financial Times and is in the public domain. 
 
Technology Leadership is Key to Security 
By David McCormick 
Under Secretary, U.S. Department of Commerce  
 
The contest for U.S. national security and prosperity is increasingly being waged on the battleground of technology leadership. Critical to our success is the question of how America's businesses and universities can retain access to the world's best brains while ensuring that sensitive knowledge gained by foreign visitors is not used against us. 
 
This is a difficult balance to strike. Some argue that maintaining America's technological leadership requires minimizing controls on the transfer of sensitive knowledge to foreign researchers. Others believe it is critical to restrict further foreign access to U.S. technological breakthroughs. The way we answer such questions will have a profound effect on our future. 
 
Controls on the export of sensitive technologies have been viewed as a trade-off between commerce and security. However, whether it is a question of exporting technology or transferring knowledge, this is a false choice. Consider the high-tech know-how behind advanced composites, night vision or avionics. Few would dispute the importance of leadership in these areas to U.S. security. Unless carefully crafted, however, policies intended to “protect” such technologies could reduce U.S. production of them, thereby eroding the leadership we seek to preserve. 
 
Technology leadership is the key to prosperity and security, and America remains the world's technology leader. But, as highlighted by a recent report from the National Academies, the U.S. lead in science and technology is not guaranteed — the nation must “prepare with great urgency to preserve its strategic and economic security”. 
 
Whether measured by the number of science and engineering degrees, the growth in patent applications or the authorship of journal articles, the gap is closing. Asian universities produce 47 per cent of engineering graduates worldwide and foreign-born inventors account for nearly half of U.S. patents. 
 
President George W. Bush understands that “science and technology have never been more essential to the defense of the nation and the health of our economy”. Over the past five years, Mr. Bush has worked with Congress to increase federal education funding by 33 per cent, with a special emphasis on the next generation of innovators. During the same period, federal research and development funding has increased by almost half to Dollars 132bn (Euros 110bn). 
 
Yet, even with this investment in the future, the U.S. must be able to draw on the world's best minds. America's research capabilities benefit from the talents of foreign citizens. In 2001, foreign-born scholars held nearly 57 per cent of science and engineering postdoctoral positions at U.S. universities, while 38 per cent of doctoral-level employees in technical firms are foreign-born. 
 
While such openness is an asset, it also poses grave and growing risks that sensitive technology will be obtained by nations or terrorists who would do us harm. As the 2005 national counter-intelligence strategy reports: “More than 90 countries target sensitive U.S. technologies. Many employ collection techniques that . . . include tasking visiting businessmen, scientists, foreign students, trade shows and debriefing visitors upon their return home.” 
 
The administration has developed an approach that reconciles the critical need for foreign nationals in scientific progress with the requirement for vigilance against the risks posed by the uncontrolled release of technology. 
 
The commerce department will soon publish a policy basing controls on access to sensitive technology on a foreign national's most recent country of citizenship or permanent residency, not country of birth. We believe that by acquiring permanent residency or citizenship in another country, foreign nationals have demonstrated strong ties to their adopted country and are subject to rigorous screening processes by our closest allies. The U.S. will continue to deny the transfer of sensitive technology to foreign nationals who could pose risks to national security. 
 
Successfully implementing this solution — and addressing similar critical issues in the future — will require new levels of collaboration. Old ways of thinking no longer apply. Protecting national security, while continuing to be the world's research and development powerhouse, must become the priority of industry and academia, as well as government. 
 
The end of this debate is in sight, but the ongoing struggle for technology leadership looms large. We must find ways to keep our doors open to the world's best talent while protecting against real threats to our homeland.