Vote No to Firesale of Fiber-Optic Network

(Washington, D.C.): In a letter sent today to the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Kevin J. Martin, the Center for Security Policy’s President Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. opposed the proposed transfer of a "vital national asset" – the last American-built and -owned global fiber-optic network. Adding insult to potential injury is the fact that the purchaser of this $3.4 billion telecommunications pipeline for just $130 million to a company closely tied to a not-always-friendly foreign government: India.

In his letter, Mr. Gaffney argued that:

• The would-be purchaser, VSNL is "an enterprise with long and intimate connections to the government, military and intelligence services of India."
• "The U.S. military has a burgeoning demand for secure, global high-bandwidth telecommunications]" and
• "This transaction would deny the United States reliable and secure access to a vital – and, as a practical matter, irreplaceable – world-wide telecommunications infrastructure."

The Center for Security Policy calls on not only the F.C.C. but the national security community and the Congress to reject this "fire-sale" of an asset with immeasurable significance for the Nation’s future strategic interests and economic competitiveness.

31 March 2005

Dear Mr. Chairman,

I want to take the opportunity of your public comment period to call to your attention the attached column that I wrote for the Washington Times on 22 March 2004. It concerns the proposed transfer of a true national asset (at fire-sale prices, no less): the last American-built and -owned global fiber-optic network. Especially troublesome is the prospect that the buyer is a foreign company, VSNL – an enterprise with long and intimate connections to the government, military and intelligence services of India.

In my professional view, this transaction would deny the United States reliable and secure access to a vital – and, as a practical matter, irreplaceable – world-wide telecommunications infrastructure. Under no circumstances should this transaction be permitted to go forward without the most rigorous and critical of reviews.

Such reviews should, moreover, be conducted not only by telecommunications experts but by those with responsibility for this nation’s security. And both should be subjected to the closest of scrutiny by relevant committees of the Congress before any irrevocable action is taken.

Given in particular the U.S. military’s burgeoning demand for secure, global high-bandwidth, there is much riding on this decision, for America’s strategic interests as well as its economic competitiveness in the 21st Century. Accordingly, I strongly recommend that the Commission reject the pending application. Under no circumstances, however, should FCC approval be granted in isolation from the national security and congressional analysis so clearly required by the proposed Tyco Global Network sale.

Sincerely,

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.