While it’s been general knowledge for some years that our internal security is a shambles, you don’t realize how bad it really is until you read the agenda for coping with the problem of technological espionage which has been developed by Dr. Miles Costick, president of the Institute on Strategic Trade. His recommendations are so obviously sound that failure to implement them must mean a national military/economic death wish.
The number of Soviet bloc diplomatic personnel allowed to live in the United States should be drastically reduced and their movements in America continuously monitored by the FBI. Foreign Communist agents are not entitled to any better treatment than American diplomatic personnel receive in Communist countries.
Scientific and technical exchange visits by Soviet bloc personnel to the United States should be immediately curtailed because they serve as a “cover” for the covert acquisition of U.S. technology. Business trips by personnel working for Soviet bloc-owned businesses should be strictly monitored by American counterintelligence.
Soviet bloc personnel should be denied entry to all U.S. facilities engaged in military-related work. Visits of such persons from Communist countries should be carefully monitored even if they visit commercial facilities, because most of them are KGB or GRU agents.
The number of U.S. ports open to shipping from the Soviet bloc should be substantially decreased. The shore leave of sailors from Soviet bloc countries should be closely monitored or eliminated; and similar policies should be adopted for Soviet bloc airline personnel.
Soviet bloc nationals should be prohibited from study or research in military-related fields at U.S. universities or research centers. Only those who have passed extensive security clearance checks should be allowed to engage in this kind of study or research.
The Freedom of Information Act should be amended and limited, since it requires the government to provide all kinds of sensitive information to anyone who asks, even non-citizens. This Act has practically destroyed the confidentiality of business information which has been registered with the government.
We need federal guidelines for internal procedures in businesses engaged in military-related and other sensitive technologies. Security officers in plants containing military-related and sensitive technologies should undergo intensive training and investigation.
The FBI should oversee the internal security operations of plants which contain military-related technology and run periodic announced and unannounced security checks. The top management and boards of directors of firms engaged in military-related advanced technology work should be made liable for their company’s security.
When firms are found guilty of substantial security breaches or negligence, they should be fined and denied future U.S. Government contracts. The current $1,000 maximum fine for export control violations involving military-related and sensitive technologies should be raised to a $100,000 minimum.
Corporations involved in the sale or resale of military-related and sensitive technologies should be made responsible for identifying the end user of goods or services they sell. There have been too many cases of strategic goods shipped to a friendly port for reshipment to a Soviet bloc country.
The various government agencies involved in technological espionage and export control should pool their information resources in a common data bank. We should make use of modern computer technology in intelligence work and for the prevention and detection of criminal acts.
We should demand that our European allies and Japan (who have profited so massively since World War II from gifts of our technology) adopt stricter laws about espionage and especially about industrial espionage. The United States should enact legislation that holds foreign governments responsible for ensuring that our military-related and other sensitive technologies released to them or their nationals are not directly or indirectly re-transferred to the Soviet bloc.
Technology is the one area where the United States is still clearly superior to the rest of the world. Our military and economic survival depends on keeping that edge; it is the key both to freedom and to more jobs in a more productive economy.
