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NASA Boss Accused of Breaking Arms Trade Laws
ananyo writes "The head of NASA Ames Research Center may have fallen victim to restrictive arms regulations — just as a US government report recommends changing them to help the space industry. Simon 'Pete' Worden, who recently announced that Mars exploration would be done by private companies, has been accused of giving foreign citizens access to information that falls under the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR). ITAR has hampered U.S. firms seeking to export satellite technology. The allegations against Worden come just as the new report recommends moving oversight of many commercial satellites and related activities from the State department to the Commerce department, and some fear they could provide lawmakers with reasons to not ease export controls."
Laws written by the government don't apply to the government. This is just a simple misunderstanding (by the people caught NASA breaking the law).
is funded by the public, there for should be accessible by the U.S. public. Over seas countries should have to pay a fee for using the technology. done and done
Before you blame post-9/11 security paranoia, this law was made to cover spacecraft in good ol' 1998. Dumb government bureaucracy can happen even in peaceful, profitable times.
"NASA Boss Accused of Breaking Arms"
Das parts of NASA's loss of funds. You gots to break legs if youse wants to makes moneys.
Good. Cheap. Fast. Pick Two.
Careful reading the title: "NASA Boss Accused of Breaking Arms[...]"
ITAR serves an important purpose by stating what technologies/goods should not be given to other countries because they comprise munitions or technologies related to them. But the trick is that controlling information is a problematic thing, especially when you get into esoteric aspects of technology. It gets even worse with "dual-use" technologies. A while back, Toshiba fell afoul of similar rules when they shared technology they use in their washing machines with a company in the USSR. Unfortunately, that same technology is also used to make quieter screws (propellers, for you land-loving sorts) for ships, and thus, submarines. At one point, the 128-bit encryption-capable version of Internet Explorer was equally prohibited for export.
The rules also seem totally nuts when you see how they play out. You can discuss things with US Citizens, but only if you're in the US. Unless you're abroad, but in a place the US controls. But not if you're in the US and there's a person here on a visa nearby.
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
...from time to time, and it's a big problem. Anything "cool" is illegal for US citizens to export. Gen3 nightvision or any nightvision related accessories. Sling mounts, rifle stocks etc, all ITAR'd even if it's just a piece of bent metal. And even if china is already mass producing it.
Even if there's already (overpriced) distributors outside of US, you can't. Does it matter if "terrorists" has to spend 3000usd instead of 2500usd on a piece of kit?
I really, really hope that USA lets up for their extremely tight rules, and at least let allied countries be exempt.
ITAR is a PITA.
Those regulations hapmper everybody. The folks in the gun lobby will tell you that they are a backdoor attempt at gun control and they make a good case (if you're a firearms accessories and parts merchant, you literally can't drop a simple magazine spring in a box and mail it abroad without mounds of expensive paperwork) until you realize that it screws up *everybody*. Anything can be defined as "arms" if you're willing to stretch the term enough to server your particular agenda and, under ITAR, it's been stretched to a ridiculous degree, already. The anecdotes in the article (yes, I read it, so flog me) are just the tip of the iceberg.
It's all in the timing.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Toshiba sold four 5-axis milling machines and four 4-xis milling machines to the USSR. In its export application, Toshiba Machine falsely described the machinery as two-axis machine tools. Anything over two-axis violates COCOM.
Read that again: Toshiba didn't innocently stumble into the export of a dual-use machine that might or might not have been approved depending on bureaucratic review whims, they flat out lied in order to export machines which were explicitly and unconditionally prohibited.
working in the aerospace field, I have to deal with ITAR related issues all the time. It's is really burdensome for the industry outside the US and, in the end, mostly hurting the US Industry. Having such regulation within the NATO countries is quite silly if you ask me and it is the best incentive for those nations to develop their own industry. In the end we always get parts or expertise outside of the US if we have a choice.
But don't think the grass is greener everywhere. Other countries have similar export regulations that aren't any less a PITA. I quickly think problems we have with BAFA in Germany, although those issues are nowhere as complicated as those create by ITAR.
On many project requirements, you find on top of the list "No ITAR regulated parts/software/whatever"... and this trend is expending as people learn to work without new providers outside of the US and these providers gain the required expertise. Hell! Even some US projects now aim for systems without any ITAR regulated components! Your guess on the impact of such a trend on the US industry is just as good as mine.
I used to be a product manager for an ITAR product and regularly shipped that product (commodity hardware with very special software) via approved channels to friendly countries. Always felt, considering the potential of what I was shipping, that it was entirely reasonable. Never found it burdensome out of reason. Slow approvals yes, but why would I want to arm somone who had expressed unfriendly intentions?
Yes, it was. From TFA:
Advocates of export-control reform say that the report is the first encouraging development since 1998, when Congress placed all spacecraft and related equipment under ITAR, following revelations that two US companies had shared technical information about a launch failure with China, without seeking government approval. The move proved a blow to many US satellite firms, which lost international customers who were unwilling to deal with the licensing rules. Universities with foreign students are also subject to the rules, which cover what can be taught in classes and who can work on satellite-related student projects funded by the government.
Bonch wasn't saying the law was created in 1998. He said it was expanded to cover spacecraft in 1998.
"Sufferin' succotash."
"allegations surfaced that a NASA director may have broken the rules when he gave foreign nationals access to an agency research facility."
My guess as to what happened.
So there was no actual *item* being exported.
My guess, it was some foreign researchers coming over to do research, most likely, and most likely of a usual and unclassified nature and it was an ordinary approval.
So now, "unnamed whistleblowers" make allegations that somewhere the foreigners may have picked up some information which happens to be covered by ITAR in some way. ITAR is vague.
It's completely different from actual classified information which, as the name says, is properly classified as to who may and may not receive it, and every bit of it is clearly marked and everybody who works with it knows what they can and cannot discuss with foreigners. This ITAR could be anything random.
If foreigners had received actual classified information illegally then it would have been a problem, but nobody's saying that they did. NASA respects that seriously.
I have a wholly unsubstantiated hypothesis that this event is actually nothing but sabotage by incumbent and expensive Traditional Government Contractors (or possibly government workers at Marshall) who are upset at NASA's direction to actually go free-market and buy from smaller innovative companies like SpaceX and Orbital Sciences.
did anybody else read the title this way as well? shoudl have read "accused of beaking arms-control." that's what the hyphen is for.
Although wasn't as high up in the 'food chain' has a center administrator, I also recently lost my job with Caltech, because I allegedly violated their policy on the release of data under export compliance rules. A rather harsh punishment for what I still feel was a casual release of trivial material.
My own transgression was posting my own technical notes on a website, which made this available to anyone who did a specific search. This posting was after I had left Caltech, (NASA budget cutbacks, which released me from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory). I had since rejoined Caltech, to work at a non-NASA facility, after over two years. I was honest & forthcoming when HR started asking questions about my site, I was proud of my work, & wanted to show it off to anyone interested.
After six weeks I was given notice of termination, not for the release of the information, but for violation of Caltech's policy for export control of information.
Whatever the ITAR & export compliance rules are, I thought that my participation in various projects for NASA was way too trivial for any information that I had, to be important enough to be of concern, I was wrong, no matter how trivial the infraction of violating policy was enough for Caltech to terminate my employment. It didn't matter to them that my current position had nothing to do with JPL or NASA.
Why not, laws don't mean shit anymore.
Statists don't want a new frontier they want war.
War means an excuse to control.
If people made it to Mars, they'd be 2 years away from the statist governments on Earth.
That's further away timewise than the new world colonies were from Europe.
Also, does anybody think the people that control the metal mines here on Earth are any happier about the idea of asteroid mining than the Koch brothers (control global coal) are about space based solar energy?
These people are the enemies of progress and should be identified and treated as such.
I have a (UK) project involving a certain chip manufactured by Rockwell. There is an exceptionally terse datasheet available online. I asked for a a little more, and Rockwell, while courteous, basically declined to help me, citing ITAR. The chip is a CCD (sensitive to the infra-red), but otherwise nearly obsolete, and the datasheet I wanted was something similar to the common documentation for the 555 timer chip. The idea that I might build a guided missile out of this thing is laughable.
That's awesome.
DanO': Fuck that shit! This mother ... is a dead mother. And my US Government Issue Service Firearm with teflon coated rounds and a laser sniper scope, Magnum .357 class, will do a big nasty on the face and body of this nigger for the good of the US Government.
I used to work for a large satellite operator that, at one time, was an NGO. As a non-US company, ITAR didn't apply, and because of the nature of the work, it attracted talent from all over the world.
Then it went to private ownership, and the division I worked for here in the US suddenly became subject to ITAR. We had some time to prepare before the transition, but we had to start jumping through all sorts of hoops to ensure compliance. There were cases where people (mainly subsystems engineers) could not perform their basic job functions because that would violate ITAR, so TAA's had to be drawn up for every such individual. Fortunately I wasn't part of that paperwork.
However...the COO of the company was one of those non-US persons, and the committee in charge of ITAR compliance decided that his job functions wouldn't be impaired by not having a TAA in place for him. So he was not allowed to be present in the flight operations center during launch missions or major orbital maneuvers...y'know, things that as the COO, he had a vested interest in witnessing.
We can believe in you for 3 minutes, but beyond that, even the King of All Cosmos can't be expected to wait.
In their last report to Congress last month, the DOD very specifically detailed how they wished to *relax* the ITAR constraints: see
http://www.defense.gov/releases/release.aspx?releaseid=15198
who just points the report itself.
From the exec. summary:
"In summary, the Departments agree that maintaining non-critical satellites and related components on the USML and monitoring low-risk launch activities provide limited national security benefits. Moreover, this practice places the U.S. space industrial base at a distinct competitive disadvantage when bidding against companies from other advanced satellite-exporting countries that have less stringent export control policies and practices. Transferring select items from the USML to the CCL would allow for controls consistent with other technologies and would help enhance the competitiveness of the U.S. space industrial base, while continuing to protect U.S. national security needs."
Herve S.