DIY Cruise Missile Grounded

PSaltyDS writes "The DIY Cruise Missile project from New Zealand has been previously covered on /., but the BBC now reports that Bruce Simpson has been forced to shutdown by his government. His project web site says 'The New Zealand government has moved aggressively to shut down this project -- and by using quite unscrupulous methods which appear to be in breach of the law.'"

Comments

Full, first hand story

[Michael Woodhams]

Bruce Simpson runs a daily on-line column called the "Daily Aardvark", which gave lots of details on the bankrupting in installments last week. (Normally it is commentry on New Zealand internet related stuff - see this week for a taste of what it is normally like.)

Dec 1
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I believe that Bruce appears on Slashdot as "NewtonsLaw" - I expect he'll put in an appearance.

From my understanding, it is an IRD vendetta that has bankrupted him, unrelated to the "cruise missile" project.

Re:Full, first hand story

[NewtonsLaw]

Yea, I'm the guy -- and to answer a few of the points raised here already:

No, I was not making it easy(er) for terrorists to build a cruise missile. In fact people should read the project's FAQ for more information on why this project was started.

For those who haven't read it, the original article I wrote which produced a number of "put your money where your mouth is" responses can be found here

As for the suggestion that I'm just a scummy tax-dodger, the links to the relevant editions of my daily internet column will help put that matter into perspective. Suffice to say that I have repaid the tax I owed and have been left with a "penalty" bill that I have continued to repay (having paid another $20K towards this just weeks before the government made its move).

Perhaps the most dissapointing aspect from my own personal perspective is that I went out of my way to:

• Decline a grant of $36K in taxpayer's money that was offered to assist with my jet-engine development work -- I figured that those waiting for medical treatment or expecting a decent education could use the money more than me.
• Notify the Secret Service that I'd been contacted by an Iranian Aerospace/Missile company seeking to gain access to my jet engine designs in return for an "investment" (the figure quoted was US$100K).
• Query the advice I was given by the export-licensing part of the NZ government which told me that if I wanted to export my technology to Iran there would be no problem and there was no restriction on such sales -- even though the technology had clear military applications.

No, I did not export anything to Iran and I never had any intention of doing so -- despite the governments insistance that it would be all right.

Once I became aware that the government were very serious about shutting this project down, I made sure that the missile was removed from my possession and is now elsewhere. I can also say in total honesty that I do not know where it is.

My tongue may be firmly in my cheek when I say this but -- would you turn over a missile to a government that endorses the export of military technology to Iran? If they were going to sell it in an attempt to service my tax penalties I shudder to think who they might flog it to :-)

Quite honestly, I suspect that the government thought I would not be able to build this missile and that when I made an official application to the Defense department for some space in which to perform the tests -- they suddenly realized that the whole situation could get even more embarrassing if it were proven that the damned thing worked.

Since they had openly admitted through the media that what I was doing was not illegal, their options for shutting the project down were very limited. I suspect they were all overjoyed when they found that I had not yet fully repaid my tax-penalties (although I was still regularly sending off cheques to service the debt). This, combined with the taxman's own agenda, gave them the perfect mechanism for solving what was rapidly becoming an embarrassing situation.

As you'll see in my daily column, the tax departments actions are clearly a breach of the tax laws which require the department to recover the maximum amount of any debt owed.

By bankrupting me they effectively chose to forego their right to collect the outstanding penalties and, since I had already sold most of my realizable assets (house, hobby-items, many tools, etc) to ensure my tax-repayments were kept up to date, there was no way they'd get a single penny from that bankruptcy action.

What's even worse is that in July I went to the USA and signed a heads-of-agreement with a US company who were going to commence manufacture of my X-Jet engine for use in UAVs and RPVs. This deal alone was worth a huge amount of money to the NZ taxman and wo