Summary: Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on federal agencies that collect information on, monitor, or track foreign dual-use technologies.
GAO found that: (1) the Departments of Commerce, Defense, Energy, and State, the National Science Foundation, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration had a total of over 25 offices or divisions with activities that tracked foreign dual-use technologies; (2) those agencies used the information to assess U.S. competitiveness, formulate domestic and trade policy, and evaluate national security issues; (3) no central source existed for identifying all federal activities involved in the collection of information about foreign dual-use technologies; (4) formal coordination of tracking activities among the agencies was very limited; and (5) several agency divisions belonged to CENDI, a cooperative interagency organization which issued publications containing information on foreign technology and worked toward improving federal research and development productivity and management systems.
