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Technology Stocks : LORAL -- Political Discussion
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To: jlallen who wrote (819)5/25/1999 4:55:00 PM
From: Rocket Scientist  Read Replies (2) of 880
 
<ANY harm to our security interests for the purposes of making a few $$$$, great or
small should be seriously squashed whether Loral, Hughes or anyone else.>

OK, but I suggest that the "harm" has to be analyzed in context and with some proportionality. For example, let's suppose for sake of argument that Hughes or Loral employees were part of a process that resulted in improvement to Chinese l/v reliability. If you count China as a potential hostile power and consider commercial l/v's as essentially interchangeable with ICBMs, then you would conclude they've harmed national security. That's bad...

But, what if that process involved only the transfer of information available at any US aerospace engineering college or freely available to and exportable by many other western countries? What if the process entailed substantially greater flow of detailed design information from the Chinese than of know-how/assistance from the US? What if failure to engage in that process would lead inexorably to a loss of US satellite manufacturing business, to the benefit of Euro and Japanese competitors, and the resulting loss of space technology leadership?

I suggest to you that all of the above mitigating factors apply in this case, and that the "damage" caused by Loral or Hughes (related to unclassified but licensable "technical assistance") is nothing compared to the massive leaks of secret materials from USG nuclear weapons labs.
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