Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/1999/07/07/cpugate_us_citizen_issues_writ/

CPUGate: US citizen issues writ against US Commerce Dept

It's all about supercomputers, it seems and IBM, Sun and Compaq implicated

By Mike Magee

Posted in On-Prem, 7th July 1999 15:30 GMT

A private citizen has accused the US department of commerce of wilfully shipping technology secrets to foreign powers. The civil case, Charles R. Smith vs US, centres around the American government shipping supercomputer technology to Russian and Chinese military labs for nuclear weapons research. Mr Smith claims that his government did this without notifying its citizens. But Helen Fahey, a US attorney in charge of the defendant's case, issued a blanket denial. She said her government had performed due diligence with its technology. In the summons, there is a whole list of cases which Fahey denied. Those stretch back many years, back to 1994, and we have the details, which deserve much analysis, which will arrive over the next days and weeks. Currently the US is agitated over the fact that Red China seems to have all of its current nuclear technology. This case bears on that. ®