Science and Technology

A whole host of federal offices and laboratories collect information on foreign science and technology. Scattered throughout the government, these organizations are concerned primarily with defense, intelligence, commerce, and science. Generally, the groups obtain their information from open (public) sources. In some cases--particularly in the intelligence community--they analyze it and restrict access to their analyses. No central federal agency is responsible for coordinating either the collection or the monitoring of information on foreign science and technology. Agencies with common interests, however, are trying to coordinate the collection and monitoring of relevant information. It is unclear at this point how valuable this data might be to U.S. businesses and whether firms would have much interest in obtaining the information from the government.