An excellent article in the current Business Week underlines the indefensibility of current export controls imposed by BIS on commodities which are listed in the “Crime Control” category.

But another striking form of tech commerce with China is taking place below the radar of the U.S. public: Major American manufacturers are rushing to supply China’s police with the latest information technology.

Oracle Corp. (ORCL) has sold software to the Chinese Ministry of Public Security, which oversees both criminal and ideological investigations. The ministry uses the software to manage digital identity cards that are replacing the paper ID that Chinese citizens must carry. Meanwhile, regional Chinese police departments are modernizing their computer networks with routers and switches purchased from Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO ) And Motorola Inc. (MOT ) has sold the Chinese authorities handheld devices that will allow street cops to tap into the sorts of sophisticated data repositories that EMC Corp. (EMC ) markets to the Ministry of Public Security.

Because of concerns of persistent human rights violations in China, BIS limits exports of equipment in the Crime Control (CC) category to China. The problem is that the BIS’s concept of crime control hasn’t made it much past the Keystone Kops era. Sophisticated information systems and equipment, even when specially designed for use by police forces, are not controlled under the CC category. Rather the CC controls cover such low-tech items as thumbcuffs, shackles, handcuffs, polygraphs, and fingerprint inks and dyes.

The controls on the export of polygraph equipment have always struck me as ironic. Polygraph equipment is considered so unreliable that polygraph evidence is not admissible in federal courts. Polygraphs are, frankly, not much better at detecting lies than Magic 8-Balls so one must wonder if BIS will announce controls on them as well.

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