For the past seven years, the University of California at Davis computer science professor has been tilting his lance against Silicon Valley heavyweights and their hunger for more foreign guest workers. Foreign national techies working in the United States on "H-1B" visas not only depress the wages of U.S.-citizen programmers and squeeze out older engineers, argues Matloff, but also are often exploited along the way. Matloff has been tireless in his crusade. He has testified before Congress, written Op-Ed pieces, spoken with numerous reporters and zapped out countless e-mails railing against what he calls industry greed and shortsightedness.

But he's losing the battle.

A bill to nearly double the number of skilled guest workers allowed annually sailed through Congress a few weeks ago. Despite the efforts of Matloff and a handful of other critics, the Senate agreed to raise the limit on H-1B visas to 195,000 by a 96-1 vote. The House passed the measure on a voice vote the same day, and on Tuesday President Clinton signed the bill into law.

It's not the first time Matloff has had to lick his wounds. Shrugging off his testimony that tech firms are picky rather than parched for programmers, Congress also expanded the H-1B program in 1998. And to add insult to injury, the president of the Information Technology Association of America calls Matloff "president of the Flat-Earth Society."

But there's a case to be made that Matloff's rants are on target and perhaps ahead of the curve. A heap of evidence -- including a recent report by Congress' own watchdog -- casts doubt on the tech labor shortage and suggests both domestic programmers and H-1B workers have been hurt through the program. What's more, Matloff's claim that companies are "shooting themselves in the foot" with their hiring practices is taken seriously by at least some Silicon Valley firms and one top business school professor.

Matloff's quest gets to the heart of some of the biggest questions facing the technology world: Is importing programmers and engineers good for the country's long-term competitiveness, or does the practice dissuade Americans from pursuing technology and perhaps even push high-tech brain work overseas more than ever? And who should have our greatest sympathies? Domestic techies, who've enjoyed a better standard of living than most Americans, or coders from poorer nations, who may never get to taste the good life or stretch their minds fully if they can't come to Silicon Valley?

Technology firms take the H-1B issue very seriously. Since 1999, the industry has coughed up $22 million to politicians, an amount double that given during 1997 and 1998. So Matloff doesn't expect to win over Congress or the entire computer industry overnight. But he's hopeful his logic eventually will prevail. And even though his long-fought battle against the likes of Sun, Oracle and Intel has earned him the label "the scourge of Silicon Valley," Matloff would like nothing more than to reach a truce with the firms on the labor front and see them prosper.

"I'm their booster," he insists. "I'm by no means a Luddite."

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