60 lines
2.5 KiB
Plaintext
60 lines
2.5 KiB
Plaintext
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DISTRIB: *BBOARD
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EXPIRES: 06/14/82 23:36:47
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mclure@SRI-UNIX 06/07/82 23:36:47
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Date: 7 Jun 82 20:21-PDT
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From: mclure at SRI-UNIX
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To: bboard at rand-ai, bboard at mit-ai, bboard at rutgers, bboard
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at cit-20
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Subject: Belle seized
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In today's S.F. Chronicle:
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U.S. Impounds Chess Computer
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The U.S. Customs Service, intent on stopping the flow of sensitive technology
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to the Soviet Union, has seized and impounded indefinitely a machine called
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Belle, the world-champion chess computer.
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Belle won the title in 1980 at the most recent world computer chess
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championship tournament in Linz, Austria.
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The Commerce Department says the computer might be of military use to Moscow.
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The frustrated scientist who wanted to take it to a Moscow chess exhibition --
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and now isn't sure he'll even get it back -- has a different view:
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"The thing plays chess. That's all."
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Customs officials said a squad of special agents spotted Belle's computer case
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about three weeks ago at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York.
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The destination stamped on the crate: Moscow.
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Agents quickly detained the shipment and sent for instructions from Washington.
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Customs then turned to the Commerce Department, whose International Trade
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Administration decides whether a piece of equipment might be of use to the
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Russians. In this case, the answer was yes.
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The seizure of Belle is part of Operation Exodus, a major new program to halt
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what officials have called a "hemorrhage" of the nation's best technology
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to the Soviet Union and its allies.
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Customs officials are delighted with the new program, which they say has
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tripled the number of seizures of illegal exports of sensitive equipment and
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technology. They say Exodus has produced 1150 leads and 370 seizures,
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including computers, aircraft parts and communications equipment, in its
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first nine months.
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The Commerce Department would not comment on why the chess computer could
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be considered militarily sensitive, but Kenneth Thompson, the scientist at
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Bell Laboratories who was responsible for the shipment, says the only way
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it could be used militarily would be "to drop it out of an airplane.
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You might kill somebody that way."
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A spokesman at the Commerce Department said Thompson would be subject to
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a penalty for violation of the Export Control Act. The possibilities range
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from a cash fine to losing the computer altogether.
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Thompson said the parts of the machine said to be sensitive are available
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for purchase in this country. "I just don't see the point of all this,"
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he said.
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