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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
"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.
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.
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.
No it wasn't. ITAR was enacted in 1976, in the midst of the Cold War, and it's always included far more than just anything related to spacecraft. It was originally meant to restrict a lot of different technologies, and has since been expanded to even cover software and algorithms of certain sorts. It covers both technology and goods, and the list of what is covered is enough to make you want to put a gun in your mouth and "export" your brains all over the wall. It's a truly nightmarish thing to comply with in today's world, if you handle any interesting technology development whatsoever.
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
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.
Not to mention the fact that what does or doesn't fall under the ITAR umbrella is open to interpretation and changes almost daily. Shit, I remember when Xenix implementations that had the crypt() routine in libc.a were not allowed to leave the country.
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.
Apparently, satellite stands are covered by ITAR. Basically, we are talking about an aluminum table to hold up the satellite when people are working on it..
Here is an old, but good article,
http://www.economist.com/node/11965352
I used to work with avionics systems that were ITAR controlled. To comply with regulations, we had to keep the hardware locked away when we weren't using it. Then all of a sudden, one day the flight logs generated by the hardware fell under ITAR control, so we had to delete all the logs from our servers, and even some of the software we wrote to analyze the flight data. Very frustrating.
"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.
Slow approvals yes, but why would I want to arm somone who had expressed unfriendly intentions
Because when the definition of "arms" is sufficiently broad, or when the people in charge are unqualified to decide what should and should not be covered, these regulations are classic examples of government gone berserk.
As long as the bad guys can buy the same defense-rated coffee pot or whatever from China, then all we've done is shoot ourselves in the foot. (Oh, and by restricting free trade, we're also giving the bad guys every incentive in the world to develop their own independent production capacity for such items.)
Regulations like ITAR should only cover things like uranium centrifuges that literally have no legitimate civilian use. Classifying everything invented since 1983 as a munition or dual-use item is demonstrably counterproductive.
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.
you should just use the name "overly critical bonch." I love it - you guys are like a schizo with two personalities!
Ya. The work I do is (or at least was) constantly butting up against ITAR. You'd be surprised how easy it is to be in violation and the penalties are pretty effing severe if you get caught. We have training every year to fresh and remind us how to not potentially commit a company-ending mistake. Usually we come out of said training ticking off the various infractions that may have occurred in the past or even semi regularly.
You'd also be surprised what all falls under the label "arms" as our company is not involved in any way what-so-ever with the production of anything that could be used to inflict damage on another person/entity's body or property (my, maybe limited, definition of the word)
You know that centrifuges can be used to make fuel for civilian nuclear power reactors, right ?
Correct.
Have people on this site forgotten Phil Zimmerman already?
True, those were a bad example of something with "literally" no civilian applications.
But that just reinforces my point. ITAR didn't do jack shit to keep isotope-separation centrifuges out of the Iranians' hands... but a brief glance at the comments in this thread will show plenty of cases where ITAR has served to impede perfectly innocuous economic activity.
That suggests that ITAR is written and enforced by a bunch of power-hungry bureaucrats who are either out of touch with the real-world effects of their regulations, or who have intentions that are very different from most peoples' perception.
That's why it's important to fill out the forms accurately and be in touch with the people who interpret the regulations. I found that the process usually goes smoothly once the appropriate people are involved with the significance (or insignificance) of the product.
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 when you respond with a lawyer telling them to get bent.
@Mindless Drivel: 100% of Twitter posts ever Tweeted.
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.