SPEAKING OF THE SOVIETS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000404030010-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 22, 2010
• Sequence Number: 10
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/22 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000404030010-1
ICP SOFTWARE BU51N1;55 KhV ILW
Autumn 1982
e a 1, k"I n Of the S_ 0 le
John Norris Maguire is angr .1 he pre!ident and
chairman of the board at Soft-A are AC spent thegreater
part of seven month., helping the FRRi arrest a foreign agent
who was trying to illegally obtain the source code to
AD,4RAS, Software AG's data hase management system,
for the Soviet Government. The agent was finally arrested,
"and faced 40 years in jail.1 was ready to go down to the
Alexandria courthouse and testif; ." Maguire d,.?clarcc, "but
the CIA and the FRl plea bargained and the agent got off
wkh a five-month sentence. I was furious that the Justice
Department iet him off with just a light sentence."
Based on his experience, Maguire advocates tougher
laws to deter foreign governments from illegally obtaining
U.S. technology. The government also needs to take a more
active role in informing businessmen of export regulations,
he says. Testifying before the U.S. Senate Permanent Sub-
committee on lnvestigations, which is investigating legal
and illegal Soviet acquisition of U.S. high technology,
Maguire said, "the information currently available to
businessmen on U.S. export laws, regulations and policy is
negligible, despite the fact that businessmen are the real
key to detection and enforcement. To the average business-
man, the Export Administration Act and its concomitant
regulations are, simply speaking, a terrible hassle.
"The government should first go through trade associa-
tions and disseminate the rules of the game," he says. "It's
so hard to succeed in business that you tend to just focus on
what you need to make your bwiness go. There's very little
knowledge of export regulations in the average technologi-
cal company."
But foreign export and espionage are n.rt the only legal
protection problem software companies have. U.S.
copyright laws also need to be revised, M,:guire says. While
software is afforded some protection under the states' trade
secrets laws, that protection is "weak," Maguire explains,
because it sets tip a "Catch 22" situation. "The current
copyright laws require that you register most of the infor-
mation associated with the invention, but that violates the
trade secret:, law. YOU can't win.'.'
Maguire says he endorses a current legislative proposal
by the Association of Data Processing Service Organiza-
tion ; (AUAFSO) which details the inadcgitacies of existing
copyright laws, proposes revisions and includes a clear
definition of what computer software is. " WVe must define
software and then give it some protection," he concludes.
"Right now, the situation is very shaky."?
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/22 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000404030010-1