5 September 1997
Source: http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/aces/aaces002.html

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[Congressional Record: September 4, 1997 (House)]
[Page H6909-H6914]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:cr04se97-116]


                  NATIONAL SECURITY AND DEFENSE ISSUES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 7, 1997, the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Weldon] is
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening to
discuss several defense issues, ...

[Education remarks snipped]

  Mr. Speaker, my real purpose tonight is to discuss several defense
priorities that are going to be coming up and should be on the minds of
our colleagues over the next several weeks. In fact, one issue is going
to be coming before several of our committees. It already has, in fact,
been an issue in the Committee on International Relations as well as
the Committee on the Judiciary where a bill has passed and is now
pending before the Committee on National Security, the House Permanent
Select Committee on Intelligence, and the Committee on Commerce.
  This bill, Mr. Speaker, is a very technical piece of legislation
dealing with an issue that many of us have not focused on, and that is
the whole issue of information.
  One of our greatest challenges as we approach the 21st century is how
to manage information and to make sure that we, in fact, can become
smart cities, smart regions, and further utilize information technology
to enhance the quality of the lives of our people.
  Mr. Speaker, in that process, however, we face a dilemma. At a
hearing that I chaired in March of this year as the chairman of the
Subcommittee on Research and Development, I took testimony for 6 hours
on the issue of information warfare, and I heard recommendations and
reports provided to us that an adversary in the 21st century may not
have to spend his or her dollars on sophisticated weapons systems or on
bigger bullets or larger missiles or longer range technologies, but
rather concentrate on using methods to compromise our information
systems, to bring down our banking and financial systems, our mass
transit systems.
  Mr. Speaker, the recommendation coming out of that hearing from the
Defense Science Board was that we should dramatically increase spending
for information security and control by about $3 billion a year.
  Mr. Speaker, we cannot afford to do that because that is just too
much money. We made a modest increase in this year's defense bill and
we are working to keep that modest increase in place to demonstrate new
technologies to allow us to protect our systems in this country from
the threat of an adversary taking them down.
  But there is a piece of legislation that is being pushed on a fast
track basis that would totally remove the export controls over
encryption technology. Encryption, Mr. Speaker, as we all know, is the
technology and the process used to code information so that when we
have a conversation over the Internet, no one else can intercept that
conversation.
  There are very important principles in question here relative to the
security of the people of this country having their ability to
communicate and not having the Government or anyone else be able to
have access to that.
  Encryption provides that protection and, in fact, it is available in
this country. However, the piece of legislation that is now under
consideration, H.R. 695, which a number of our colleagues have
cosponsored, would basically remove export controls and allow this
technology in its most sophisticated form to be sent overseas.
  Now, there are some in this country, and myself included, who have
some concerns about the administration's current policy over encryption
and want to see reforms that will allow our software industry to
continue to be on the cutting edge of new technologies to encrypt
information that, in fact, we will be using every day.
  However, while I do not support the current policy of this
administration, I cannot in good conscience support a total wiping out
of any export control on technology that a cartel, a drug cartel, or
an adversary nation has been using and could be using to prevent our
law enforcement, intelligence, and defense resources from protecting
the American people from the threats of drug dealing, from the threats
of intimidation, terrorist activities, or other activities of that
type.

  Mr. Speaker, I urge our colleagues to carefully review the impact
that this legislation will have, first of all, on our national security
and on our intelligence-gathering capabilities. In fact, everyone in
fact in the administration concerned with defense intelligence has come
out with grave reservations about this legislation.
  Mr. Speaker, I have also received a letter from Secretary Cohen
expressing his grave reservations about this legislation.
  Mr. Speaker, on Tuesday, when the Committee on National Security
marks up this piece of legislation, I will be offering an amendment
that will enjoy the support of both the gentleman from South Carolina
[Mr. Spence], chairman of the Committee on National Security, and the
gentleman from California [Mr. Dellums], ranking Democrat on that
committee, that hopefully will pass, that will deal with one-half of
the issue and that is whether or not we should completely eliminate all
export controls and export process to review encryption technology that
would be sold overseas and marketed overseas.
  I think it is a fair compromise. It does not, in fact, satisfy all of
the industry groups who want to have no export controls, and it does
not satisfy the administration, but it does give us an ability to have
a process in place to continue to allow our Department of Defense to
monitor the kinds of technologies that we allow to be sold to rogue
nations. It is a very important amendment.
  It also closes a loophole, Mr. Speaker, in H.R. 695 that, in effect,
would allow supercomputers to be sold overseas if, in fact, they have
encryption built in.
  Now, this is kind of an ironic twist here, because many of the
cosponsors of this bill voted for an amendment that criticized the
administration for allowing Cray supercomputers to be sold to China and
Russia. Yet, Mr. Speaker, in this very provision that some of them have
unknowingly cosponsored, there is a loophole that would allow those
same supercomputers, if encryption is contained in those
supercomputers, to be sold overseas with no restrictions. I do not
think that is the intent of most of our colleagues, and the amendment
that I will be offering on Tuesday will correct that.
  Now, I would also encourage our colleagues, Mr. Speaker, to try to
get briefings from Louis Freeh, the Director of the FBI, who I had in
my office today for 1 hour, or from the National Security Agency, on
the domestic impact of a total elimination of controls over encryption.
  Again, I am not happy with the administration nor am I happy with
their proposal to establish what is called a key recovery system. But
we do need to allow the law enforcement entities in this Nation, we do
need to allow the Justice Department, to go through the established
system of our courts with court and judicial approval to gain access to
gather data that can be used; for instance, in uncovering pedophiles
who in fact have been using and continue to use our Internet to
unknowingly get the attention and to communicate with young people
through the Internet; or to get access to encrypted data that, in fact,
has been used by drug cartels; or for instance, the group that was
involved in the bombing of the World Trade Center in New York.
  Our law enforcement community has to have some ability, through a
very difficult and very well-thought-out process, to get the approval
from our courts to get access to encrypted data for very specific
purposes when the national security of this Nation and our people is at
risk.
  It is extremely important every law enforcement head in our Federal
Government has, in fact, signed a letter to every Member of Congress
stating their concern with this bill. I would also, Mr. Speaker, like
to enter that letter into the Record.

                               Office of the Attorney General,

                                    Washington, DC, July 18, 1997.
       Dear Member of Congress: Congress is considering a variety
     of legislative proposals concerning encryption. Some of these
     proposals would, in effect, make it impossible for the
     Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Drug Enforcement
     Administration (DEA), Secret Service, Customs Service, Bureau
     of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and other federal, state,
     and local law enforcement agencies to lawfully gain access to

[[Page H6911]]

     criminal telephone conversations or electronically stored
     evidence possessed by terrorists, child pornographers, drug
     kingpins, spies and other criminals. Since the impact of
     these proposals would seriously jeopardize public safety and
     national security, we collectively urge you to support a
     different, balanced approach that strongly supports
     commercial and privacy interests but maintains our ability to
     investigate and prosecute serious crimes.
       We fully recognize that encryption is critical to
     communications security and privacy, and that substantial
     commercial interests are at stake. Perhaps in recognition of
     these facts, all the bills being considered allow market
     forces to shape the development of encryption products. We,
     too, place substantial reliance on market forces to promote
     electronic security and privacy, but believe that we cannot
     rely solely on market forces to protect the public safety and
     national security. Obviously, the government cannot abdicate
     its solemn responsibility to protect public safety and
     national security.
       Currently, of course, encryption is not widely used, and
     most data is stored, and transmitted, in the clear. As we
     move from a plaintext world to an encrypted one, we have a
     critical choice to make: we can either (1) choose robust,
     unbreakable encryption that protects commerce and privacy but
     gives criminals a powerful new weapon, or (2) choose robust,
     unbreakable encryption that protects commerce and privacy and
     gives law enforcement the ability to protect public safety.
     The choice should be obvious and it would be a mistake of
     historic proportions to do nothing about the dangers to
     public safety posed by encryption without adequate safeguards
     for law enforcement.
       Let there be no doubt: without encryption safeguards, all
     Americans will be endangered. No one disputes this fact; not
     industry, not encryption users, no one. We need to take
     definitive actions to protect the safety of the public and
     security of the nation. That is why law enforcement at all
     levels of government--including the Justice Department,
     Treasury Department, the National Association of Attorneys
     General, International Association of Chiefs of Police, the
     Major City Chiefs, the National Sheriffs' Association, and
     the National District Attorneys Association--are so concerned
     about this issue.
       We all agree that without adequate legislation, law
     enforcement in the United States will be severely limited in
     its ability to combat the worst criminals and terrorists.
     Further, law enforcement agrees that the widespread use of
     robust non-key recovery encryption ultimately will devastate
     our ability to fight crimes and prevent terrorism.
       Simply stated, technology is rapidly developing to the
     point where powerful encryption will become commonplace both
     for routine telephone communications and for stored computer
     data. Without legislation that accommodates public safety and
     national security concerns, society's most dangerous
     criminals will be able to communicate safely and
     electronically store data without fear of discovery. Court
     orders to conduct electronic surveillance and court-
     authorized search warrants will be ineffectual, and the
     Fourth Amendment's carefully-struck balance between ensuring
     privacy and protecting public safety will be forever altered
     by technology. Technology should not dictate public policy,
     and it should promote, rather than defeat, public safety.
       We are not suggesting the balance of the Fourth Amendment
     be tipped toward law enforcement either. To the contrary, we
     only seek the status quo, not the lessening of any legal
     standard or the expansion of any law enforcement authority.
     The Fourth Amendment protects the privacy and liberties of
     our citizens but permits law enforcement to use tightly
     controlled investigative techniques to obtain evidence of
     crimes. The result has been the freest country in the world
     with the strongest economy.
       Law enforcement has already confronted encryption in high-
     profile espionage, terrorist, and criminal cases. For
     example:
       An international terrorist was plotting to blow up 11 U.S.-
     owned commercial airliners in the Far East. His laptop
     computer, which was seized in Manila, contained encrypted
     files concerning this terrorist plot.
       A subject in a child pornography case used encryption in
     transmitting obscene and pornographic images of children over
     the Internet.
       A major international drug trafficking subject recently
     used a telephone encryption device to frustrate court-
     approved electronic surveillance.
       And this is just the top of the iceberg. Convicted spy
     Aldrich Ames, for example, was told by the Russian
     Intelligence Service to encrypt computer file information
     that was to be passed to them.
       Further, today's international drug trafficking
     organizations are the most powerful, ruthless and affluent
     criminal enterprises we have ever faced. We know from
     numerous past investigations that they have utilized their
     virtually unlimited wealth to purchase sophisticated
     electronic equipment to facilitate their illegal activities.
     This has included state of the art communication and
     encryption devices. They have used this equipment as part of
     their command and control process for their international
     criminal operations. We believe you share our concern that
     criminals will increasingly take advantage of developing
     technology to further insulate their violent and destructive
     activities.
       Requests for cryptographic support pertaining to electronic
     surveillance interceptions from FBI Field Offices and other
     law enforcement agencies have steadily risen over the past
     several years. There has been an increase in the number of
     instances where the FBI's and DEA's court-authorized
     electronic efforts were frustrated by the use of encryption
     that did not allow for law enforcement access.
       There have also been numerous other cases where law
     enforcement, through the use of electronic surveillance, has
     not only solved and successfully prosecuted serious crimes
     but has also been able to prevent life-threatening criminal
     acts. For example, terrorists in New York were plotting to
     bomb the United Nations building, the Lincoln and Holland
     Tunnels, and 26 Federal Plaza as well as conduct
     assassinations of political figures. Court-authorized
     electronic surveillance enabled the FBI to disrupt the plot
     as explosives were being mixed. Ultimately, the evident
     obtained was used to convict the conspirators. In another
     example, electronic surveillance was used to stop and then
     convict two men who intended to kidnap, molest, and kill a
     child. In all of these cases, the use of encryption might
     have seriously jeopardized public safety and resulted in the
     loss of life.
       To preserve law enforcement's abilities, and to preserve
     the balance so carefully established by the Constitution, we
     believe any encryption legislation must accomplish three
     goals in addition to promoting the widespread use of strong
     encryption. It must establish:
       A viable key management infrastructure that promotes
     electronic commerce and enjoys the confidence of encryption
     users.
       A key management infrastructure that supports a key
     recovery scheme that will allow encryption users access to
     their own data should the need arise, and that will permit
     law enforcement to obtain lawful access to the plain text of
     encrypted communications and data.
       An enforcement mechanism that criminalizes both improper
     use of encryption key recovery information and the use of
     encryption for criminal purposes.
       Only one bill. S. 909 (the McCain/Kerrey/Hollings bill),
     comes close to meeting these core public safety, law
     enforcement, and national security needs. The other bills
     being considered by Congress, as currently written, risk
     great harm to our ability to enforce the laws and protect our
     citizens. We look forward to working to improve the McCain/
     Kerrey/Hollings bill.
       In sum, while encryption is certainly a commercial interest
     of great importance to this Nation, it is not solely a
     commercial or business issue. Those of us charged with the
     protection of public safety and national security, believe
     that the misuse of encryption technology will become matter
     of life and death in many instances. That is why we urge you
     to adopt a balanced approach that accomplishes the goals
     mentioned above. Only this approach will allow police
     departments, attorneys general, district attorneys, sheriffs,
     and federal authorities to continue to use their most
     effective investigative techniques, with court approval, to
     fight crime and espionage and prevent terrorism.
           Sincerely yours,
     Janet Reno,
                                                 Attorney General.
     Louis Freeh,
                        Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation.
     Barry McCaffrey,
                 Director, Office of National Drug Control Policy.
     Thomas A. Constantine,
                        Director, Drug Enforcement Administration.
     Lewis C. Merletti,
                                    Director, U.S. Secret Service.
     Raymond W. Kelly,
      Undersecretary for Enforcement, U.S. Department of Treasury.
     George J. Weise,
                               Commissioner, U.S. Customs Service.
     John W. Magaw,
     Director, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
                                                                    ____

  Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. And finally, Mr. Speaker, I would like to
ask our colleagues to please listen to the law enforcement community.
For the last year, Members of Congress, especially those who have
cosponsored this legislation, have heard from the software industry,
the Microsofts and those companies that see dollar signs in terms of
export sales that could grow astronomically. And I want to see them
succeed, too. That is part of my ultimate goal. But we also need to
listen to law enforcement.
  Mr. Speaker, I would ask to include a letter signed by four of the
major law enforcement groups in this country, including the District
Attorney's Association, the Chiefs of Police, and others, expressing
their strong reservations about a total elimination of our ability to
deal with encryption as it relates to law enforcement.

         International Association of Chiefs of Police,
                                    Alexandria, VA, July 21, 1997.
       Dear Member of Congress: Enclosed is a letter sent to you
     by the Attorney General, the Director of National Drug
     Control Policy and all the federal law enforcement heads

[[Page H6912]]

     concerning encryption legislation being considered by
     congress. Collectively we, the undersigned, represent over
     17,000 police departments including every major city police
     department, over 3,000 sheriffs departments, nearly every
     district attorney in the United States and all of the state
     Attorneys General. We fully endorse the position taken by our
     federal counterparts in the enclosed letter. As we have
     stated many times, Congress must adopt a balanced approach to
     encryption that fully addresses public safety concerns or the
     ability of state and local law enforcement to fight crime and
     drugs will be severely damaged.
       Any encryption legislation that does not ensure that law
     enforcement can gain timely access to the plaintext of
     encrypted conversations and information by established legal
     procedures will cause grave harm to public safety. The risk
     cannot be left to the uncertainty of market forces or
     commercial interests as the current legislative proposals
     would require. Without adequate safeguards, the unbridled use
     of powerful encryption soon will deprive law enforcement of
     two of its most effective tools, court authorized electronic
     surveillance and the search and seizure of information stored
     in computers. This will substantially tip the balance in the
     fight against crime towards society's most dangerous
     criminals as the information age develops.
       We are in unanimous agreement that congress must adopt
     encryption legislation that requires the development,
     manufacture, distribution and sale of only key recovery
     products and we are opposed to the bills that do not do so.
     Only the key recovery approach will ensure that law
     enforcement can continue to gain timely access to the
     plaintext of encrypted conversations and other evidence of
     crimes when authorized by a court to do so. If we lose this
     ability--and the bills you are considering will have this
     result--it will be a substantial setback for law enforcement
     at the direct expense of public safety.
           Sincerely yours,
     Darrell L. Sanders,
         President, International Association of Chiefs of Police.
     Fred Scoralie,
                        President, National Sheriffs' Association.
     James E. Doyle,
             President, National Association of Attorneys General.
     William L. Murphy,
               President, National District Attorneys Association.

  Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, again I am not saying that
the administration's policy is a correct one nor is their policy of key
recovery one that I can support. What I am saying is that this bill
should not be rushed through. Members need to look at this very
complicated subject in detail.
  Yes, we need to protect the civil liberties of our citizens to be
able to communicate in a confidential and protected manner. But we also
need to look out for the national security implications of this
legislation, the intelligence implications of this legislation, and for
the ability for our law enforcement community, our State Police, the
FBI, the Justice Department, when necessary through an established
legal process to be able to get access to deal with those rogue
entities that are using encryption to hide the activities they are
involved in which are illegal. So I would ask our colleagues to closely
monitor this legislation as it moves through the process.
  Mr. Speaker, the second issue I would like to discuss is also a
national security and defense issue, and I want to bring this up
because it is going to be a major issue this weekend in the national
media. It deals with a concern that I have relative to the former
Soviet Union, especially now with one of the former Soviet States,
Russia, the largest one.
  Mr. Speaker, as many of our colleagues know, I spend a great deal of
time working in a positive way with Russia and its leadership on energy
issues and environmental issues. This year I focused on establishing a
middle-income housing program for the Russian people. I have
established a new Russian Duma American Congress study group, which I
cochair with the gentleman from Maryland [Mr. Hoyer] and which is
chaired on the Russian side by Deputy Speaker Shokhin.
  So I spend a lot of time trying proactively to improve our
relationships, but I have a great deal of concern with what I think,
and with my impression of the administration not being aggressive
enough in pursuing concerns that many of us have relative to Russia's
ability to control its nuclear material, its strategic weapons, and the
state of the military in Russia.
  Mr. Speaker, the problem is compounded by the fact that the
administration, especially the Commander in Chief, has repeatedly used
the bully pulpit to convey a message to America that we no longer have
to worry about a threat coming from Russia. Again, I do not want to
recreate a scenario where we depict Russia as some ``Evil Empire,''
because it is not. And I trust Boris Yeltsin for what he is trying to
do, and applaud him for his efforts, as well as his key leadership,
Chernomyrdin, Nemtsov, Chubays, and all of his people involved in
leading his country.

                              {time}  2315

  But facts are facts. And there are major problems that we cannot
sweep under the rug or put our head in the sand and ignore. And to that
extent, Mr. Speaker, I want to talk about my most recent trip to Russia
in May of this year and I have been there twice.
  The most recent trip was a part of an interparliamentary exchange
where we met with senior members of their Duma and discussed common
issues. And we found many areas where we can work together.
  Along with that, Mr. Speaker, I wanted to focus on some security
concerns that I have with Russia and the need for Russia to be more
transparent in terms of what their objectives and intents are relative
to national security issues.
  In the course of these meetings, I had the occasion to meet, along
with the entire delegation, for 2 hours with Gen. Alexander Lebed. As
we know General Lebed was a major candidate for the office of President
when Boris Yeltsin ran for that office and won successfully last year
against Mr. Zuganov, the candidate of the Communist Party.
  Many speculate that the reason why Yeltsin was so successful was
because he was able to get Lebed out of the race, partly by offering
him a position as senior defense advisor to President Yeltsin on
defense issues as a very respected retired Russian general. So the
credibility of General Lebed is not something that I can vouch for but
rather, based upon what President Yeltsin did in moving General Lebed
into this position on his confidence in General Lebed as a senior
defense advisor.
  In our meeting with General Lebed he talked to us without the press
being present and this is now in the public record and our trip report
about the status of the stability of the Russian military. He raised
some very serious concerns to us, Mr. Speaker, that we have to deal
with and understand and that this administration has got to be more
aggressive in pursuing as to whether or not they are facts or fiction.
  One of our questions to General Lebed was whether or not there was a
possibility of armed revolution inside of Russia by its own military.
General Lebed said he thought that was not possible primarily because,
as General Lebed said, former Defense Minister Pavel Grachev had
removed all the professionals from the army. General Lebed went on to
say that the trained professional soldiers and leaders are gone and are
now working with the criminal elements inside of Russia. And many of
these generals and admirals have had access in the past to very
sophisticated weapons and technologies that in fact could be sold on
the black market.
  And, in fact, we are seeing some evidence of proliferation of both
weapons, strategic materials and in some cases even the seeking of
nuclear materials. In fact, General Lebed went on to say that the army
and the military does not have sufficient control over nuclear weapons.
  In fact, he said to us that of 132 nuclear submarines being
decommissioned by Russia, only 25 have had their reactors dismantled.
In fact, two submarines nearly sank. Some reactors, he said, are in
emergency condition. We have an aggressive program through our Navy to
work with Russia to help them deal with their nuclear technology. I
have been supportive of that.
  But the problem is a very real one. Russia has severe problems with
control of their nuclear material. He went on to say something that is
even more provocative and something that is going to be the subject of
a ``60 Minutes'' speech on Sunday evening this week, which I urge our
colleagues to tune into. It is also going to be the subject of a
Washington Post story and an

[[Page H6913]]

AP story and also is going to be highlighted in a book that is going to
be released next week by two authors. That book, by the way, is the
basis, part of the basis for the Steven Speilberg movie that will be
released this month entitled ``Peacemaker,'' which is a fictional
depiction of the possible transfer of a Russian SS-18 missile out of
Russia to a rogue nation.
  General Lebed, in our meeting with six Members of Congress, said that
when he had been Boris Yeltsin's chief defense advisor, he was given
the responsibility to account for the location of 132 suitcase-sized
nuclear devices, these are nuclear bombs, each with a capacity of 1
kiloton. One kiloton is not as great as the bomb at Hiroshima because
that was approximately 15 kilotons. But 1 kiloton would cause a
significant amount of damage wherever it was used.
  Now, General Lebed said to us in a session with the bipartisan
delegation, he was given the responsibility to account for the location
of 132 suitcase-sized nuclear devices that Russia had manufactured.
During his time in the capacity of advising Boris Yeltsin, he could
only find 48. When we asked him where the rest of these devices were,
he shrugged his shoulders and could not answer us. That is troubling.
That is troubling because here was a man who Boris Yeltsin put into a
key position advising him on defense matters who, according to him, was
given the responsibility to account for these suitcase-sized nuclear
weapons. And yet he told us, in a meeting in Moscow, that he could not
in fact account for them. And I believe on ``60 Minutes'' this Sunday
night you will see General Lebed again repeat that in his own words on
that program.
  I have asked the administration, both through our intelligence
agencies as well as in a briefing that I gave to the current Secretary
of Energy, to try to get an accounting from the Russians as to the
validity of this statement.
  Mr. Speaker, this is the kind of issue that we cannot sweep under the
rug. I have the same ultimate objective that Strobe Talbott and
President Clinton have in terms of a stabilized relationship with
Russia. But that does not mean that we ignore problems that exist,
whether it is suitcase-sized nuclear devices that may be out there
available on the black market or whether it is the transfer of
accelerometers and gyroscopes that had Russian markings, that were
intercepted by the Jordanians on their way to Iraq, which is a
violation of the missile technology regime, or whether it is the
response by Russia to a Norwegian rocket weather launch that they had
been given prior notice of and that Russia is in such a paranoid state
that it put its entire strategic offensive force on alert because of
Norway's launch of a weather rocket which meant that Russia was within
60 seconds of an all-out attack in response to a Norwegian weather
rocket which they had been previously notified of.
  Now the President of Russia has acknowledged publicly that his
chegets, the devices that control the nuclear trigger, were in fact
activated as a response to that Norwegian rocket launch.
  Mr. Speaker, these are real issues, just as is the concern that many
of us have over whether or not Russia just detonated another
underground explosion, which is not in sync with the test ban treaty
the administration has been pursuing. It is the same issue that I have
over Yamantau Mountain, a major multibillion-dollar complex that has
been under construction in the Ural Mountains for 18 years that is the
size of the city of Washington, DC, where the Russians have built a
city of 65,000 people, a closed city, continuing to work on this
project when Russian military officers do not have decent housing, when
Russian retired officers have not been given back pay.

  The question is, what is this huge complex being built for?
  The reason why I raised these points, Mr. Speaker, is that we need
the administration to be more aggressive in pursuing transparency and
candor with Russia on these issues. I am not raising these issues for
the first time, because it is not my intent to try to put a monkey
wrench in the relationship between the United States and Russia. In
fact, I have raised the issue of Yamantau Mountain on at least 10
occasions in written form and verbally with senior Russian leaders, my
counterparts in the Russia Duma, and most recently a three-page letter
that I wrote in Russian to Boris Yeltsin asking for transparency in
terms of what is happening at Yamantau Mountain.
  For us to have a stable relationship and if we follow the logic of
this administration, a relationship with Russia based on bilateral
treaties, then we must make sure that not just the United States but
also Russia is abiding by those treaties, whether it is ABM, MTCR, the
chemical weapons treaty, the nuclear test ban treaty or whatever that
treaty happens to be. My feeling is that we have not done that, and I
could take time to go through and cite specific examples at least seven
times where the administration has not imposed sanctions on violations
of the missile technology control regime that we know took place.
  So I hope that what is going to unfold over the next several days,
this weekend on ``60 Minutes,'' and into next week, as this new
publication is released, will alert our colleagues that we must begin
to focus on the problems of instability in Russia, not to create
hostility between our two nations but, rather, to say we must be
candid, we must be transparent, and we must work together to resolve
the instability that currently exists and in the control of Russia's
nuclear and conventional and strategic arsenal. It is of the highest
importance for both nations and an issue that I am going to continue to
pursue throughout the rest of this session of Congress.
  Mr. Speaker, my final point tonight is one that is a personal item
that I would like to spend a few moments discussing. It also has
security implications but it also is a very emotional human interest
story that I would like to relate to my colleagues and pay appropriate
thanks.
  Mr. Speaker, as you know, we are always looking for new technology in
the defense arena that can assist us in civilian applications. Shortly,
this fall, we are going to be announcing the use of cold war technology
that was used to at one point in time to detect rocket launchers around
the world that we have been working on for the last year that is now
going to be used to tell us when a wild land or forest fire first
begins, instant imaging to give us that information so that we can have
our emergency responders be there on the scene quickly to prevent the
kind of conflagrations we have seen in the West, the Midwest, and the
Northwest over the past decades. So it is using cold war technology for
a very valuable function to assist us.
  I saw evidence of a similar technology, Mr. Speaker, that we have now
developed for commercial use called side scan sonar. I want to talk
about the individual case because it involves a constituent family from
Pennsylvania.
  Back in February of this year, a young 19-year-old from Chester
County, a neighboring county to my home county, the eldest of six
children and the only son of the Swymer family was doing a co-op
program at Penn State up at the Finger Lakes in New York.
  During the course of his stay, right adjacent to Lake Owasco on a
Saturday afternoon, where the temperature rose to the mid-60s, he
ventured out into this very deep lake in a rowboat. A storm came up
very quickly. And the individual evidently, for one reason or the
other, because of the winds and the extreme nature of the storm, was
tossed out of the boat.
  The boat was found 2 days later on the opposite side of the lake,
which is about a mile wide, along with the oar and the life preserver
and no sign of this young 19-year-old, 6-foot tall, strapping, very
successful student and solid athlete.
  The State police in New York did a very commendable job in trying to
locate the young man's body. They searched the entire lake perimeter.
They tried to do dives and they just could not find this individual.
  The family, through State representative Bob Flick, called my office
in March and asked if I could provide any kind of technical assistance.
Using the resources that we have developed primarily for the military
and for ocean research as well as for disaster recovery, I called my
friends in the oceangraphic community and my friends in the emergency
response community. We were able to get the same technology that was
developed for the military called side scanning sonar

[[Page H6914]]

that was used to help us recover the remains of the TWA 800 crash off
of Long Island in New York.
  We were able to get that technology through the generosity of the New
York Police Commissioner, Howard Safir, to have it sent up to the lake
to look to see whether or not we could in fact locate this boy's body.
A couple of suspected sightings were made, but we could not complete a
dive to determine whether or not it was a positive find. They came back
and were unsuccessful.
  In June, I followed up with the Woods Hole Laboratory in
Massachusetts and asked them to assist, and we identified perhaps the
top national experts on deep dives relative to drownings.
  We assembled a team that in the last week of August was able to
travel to Auburn, NY, to put together on the water a team consisting of
four boats, all volunteers during their time, to try to locate this
young man's body.

                              {time}  2330

  The head technologist for this whole operation was Butch Hendrick,
the president of Lifeguard Systems, Inc. of Hurley, NY, who is an
expert in locating people in these kinds of situations and dealing with
drownings. We also had an expert in terms of reading side scan sonar,
Brett Phaneuf, from Marine Sonic Technology who also donated his time.
  I spent the first 3 of the 5 days on the lake with this team, along
with the very courageous volunteer firefighters from the Owasco Fire
Department. Five of them spent the entire week away from their jobs
volunteering the entire day each day to help us go back and forth
across the 1,000-by-2,000 foot area of this lake and the lake was 1
mile wide and 14 miles long, trying to use this technology to determine
whether or not we could find this young 19-year-old. I had to leave New
York on Wednesday. On Thursday, three specific sightings were made, the
markers were identified, and on Friday we brought in a dive team from
Buffalo, NY, the Buffalo Industrial Diving Co. headed up by Mark Judd,
four divers prepared to go down 150 feet. We had a decompression
chamber on standby, a helicopter to take the divers if they should have
problems. On the first dive, they recovered the body of 19-year-old
Nathan Swymer and brought him back up and were able to reunite him so
that his family could have a proper, decent burial.
  Mr. Speaker, this story would not have been a success were it not for
the cooperation of a number of very unselfish people, people who
volunteered their time and their expertise to see if we could use a
military technology to assist us in a very emotional situation
involving the loss of someone's loved one.
  The importance here, Mr. Speaker, is not that we just were able to
locate Nathan Swymer 7 months after he fell off that row boat in Lake
Owasco, but the technology that can be used across this country, in
lakes, in rivers to assist us in similar types of operations and to
avoid, where possible, the exposure to losing additional lives to send
down to recover people who in fact have been drowned.
  In fact, Mr. Speaker, over the past several years, it is my
understanding that we have begun to lose more and more people in the
rescue efforts to bring people who have drowned back than we should,
and that is partly because we have not used appropriate technology to
assist us in that process.
  It will be my hope over the next several months to put together a
congressional hearing where we can showcase this technology, where we
can make the case that these kinds of technologies should be made
available and that we should assist in that technology transfer process
to departments across this Nation who have similar situations with deep
lakes and with rivers so that we do not have to jeopardize additional
lives in going down to recover our loved ones.
  I particularly want to thank the gentleman from New York [Mr. Walsh]
whose district Auburn and Lake Owasco is in. He has been very
cooperative throughout this entire process and he was very supportive
of our effort the last week of August.
  I also want to thank Bill Andahazy, who is a consultant from Woods
Hole who donated his time, Capt. Don Swain from the New York State
Police and his team and all of those other individuals, the volunteer
firefighters, the divers, the technologists who assisted us in closing
this very difficult chapter in the lives of the Swymer family from
Chester County, PA.
  I want to encourage our colleagues, Mr. Speaker, to work with me, to
see where we can find not just this kind of technology to use for
commercial purposes but to see where we can take similar initiatives
and assist us in solving day-to-day problems that face the people of
this great Nation.
  For the record, Mr. Speaker, I include the list of the Owasco Lake
search team and thank them for their tireless efforts in this
operation. A number of companies and individuals in the Philadelphia
area donated over $10,000 along with the Chester County Chamber of
Commerce to help us defray the costs of transporting the equipment to
that lake. All of the individuals that were there donated their time.
The money that we raised was used to defray the costs of the
transportation of that equipment to the site to allow us to complete
the rescue mission.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank all of the staff who stayed this late hour for
this special order.

                        Owasco Lake Search Team

       Rep. Curt Weldon, Member, US House of Representatives
       Rep. Robert J. Flick, Pennsylvania House of Representatives
       W.J. (Bill) Andahazy, Independent Consultant
       Capt. Donald Swain, Zone 2 HQ, New York State Police
       Trooper David Hartz, Troop E, NY State Police
       Trooper Karl Bloom, Troop E, NY State Police
       Walter (Butch) Hendrick, President, Lifeguard Systems Inc.,
     Hurley, NY
       Andrea Zaferes, Lifeguard Systems
       Craig Nelson, Lifeguard Systems
       Lt. David Holland, Inst. of Environmental Medicine,
     Canadian Navy
       Brett Phaneuf, Marine Sonic Technology, White Marsh, VA
       Mark C. Judd, Buffalo Industrial Diving Company, Buffalo,
     NY
       Andy Anderson, Buffalo Industrial Diving
       Brad McCullum, Buffalo Industrial Diving
       Brad Knight, Buffalo Industrial Diving
       Tom Burns, Chief, Owasco Vol. Fire Co.
       Joe Head, Assist. Chief, Owasco Vol. Fire Dept.
       Tom Morgan, Assist. Chief, Owasco Vol. Fire Dept.
       Tim Burns, Owasco Vol. Fire Dept.
       Angelo Massina, Owasco Vol. Fire Dept.
       Peter Pinckney, Sheriff, Cayuga County
       Jim Tabor, Under Sheriff, Cayuga County
       Gene Stiver, Dep. Chief of Navigation, Office of the
     Sheriff, Cayuga County
       Chris Petrus, Navigation Deputy, Office of Sheriff, Cayuga
     County
       Rev. and Mrs. (Dick and Pat) Streeter, Clergy and friends
     of Mr. and Mrs. Swymer.
       Members of the Chester County Chamber Business and Industry
     Council.
       Note that many other individuals also helped and offered
     services such as Alice Hamill of Mayflower Movers, King of
     Prussia, PA (although their services were not needed). The
     Holiday Inn Hotel, Auburn, NY staff worked with us on local
     arrangements as well as the Lake residents who let us use
     phones, water, etc. This operation was a community coming
     together that generated a successful conclusion to this
     tragedy.

                          ____________________
