Feb
7
Time For Your Kid To Have An Export Compliance Program
Posted by Clif Burns at 8:50 pm on February 7, 2011
Category: General
As the Space Shuttle is headed for the mothballs, NASA wants to pass out parts of the shuttle as souvenirs. Asbestos-laden tiles as souvenirs. To school kids. ITAR? Oh, don’t bother us with petty little details.
Needless to say, the tiles are in Category XV(e) of the United States Munitions List (“USML”), and giving access to those tiles to anyone who is not a U.S. citizen or permanent resident is a rather big no-no. Not to thumb its nose completely at the ITAR, NASA lawyers have come up with a document for the teacher to sign acknowledging “that all artifacts are subject to Export Control requirements” and further acknowledging “my responsibility for these controls at time of transfer of the artifact.”
Well, I’m glad we’ve taken care of that! I’m sure that most school teachers are intimately acquainted with the ITAR and will make sure that all exchange students are banished from the classroom when the shuttle tile is brought out for show and tell. Oh, and let’s hope we don’t have any kids in the room from China or everybody is going to jail.
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Copyright © 2011 Clif Burns. All Rights Reserved.
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6 Comments:
Hey, why should grade school teachers be denied the same conviction luxuries as a certain university professor in Tennessee?
I particularly enjoyed seeing the NASA lawyers use the cop-out language hated by export compliance officers the world over: “NASA has determined that the export classification of the item(s) listed in Attachment 3 to this document is (are) either under the jurisdiction of the Export Administration Act of 1979 [], the EAR [], or the Arms Export Control Act [] and the ITAR [].”
In other words, we don’t want to be responsible for determining the jurisdiction of the item we designed and for which we have all the engineering specs, but we want to make sure you – the party with the least information in this transaction – are on the hook if anything goes South.
It’s bad enough that this is what passes for export compliance at private companies – but our Government agencies really ought to set a higher standard.
NASA has had a process to allow schools and museums to request Space Shuttle Tiles for loan for quite some time. The website you reference is a way to broadcast this effort and continue to allow our educational institutions the chance to display a true artifact for the most widely recognized NASA effort. The comment about the tiles being classified as ITAR category XV is incorrect as the Space Shuttle is classified ITAR category IV(b) and the tiles fall under this same category. Regardless of the category, the tiles are still export controlled and must not be exported without a Department of State License.
NASA may have self-classified the Space Shuttle as Category IV(b) but contractors who worked on the Shuttle program tell me that there is no CJ from DDTC confirming NASA’s self-classification as IV(b). I also understand that there is more than a little disagreement by many people with NASA’s self-classification of the Shuttle. Most people would be more likely to see the Shuttle as a “spacecraft” (Cat. XV) than as a “launch vehicle” (Cat IV).
Is there not a possible physical inspection ITAR technology export occuring when foreign students are allowed to handle or look at the tiles?
Related news item?
Florida Today: Ex-shuttle worker: Tile thefts common, 14 Feb 2011
http://www.floridatoday.com/article/20110212/NEWS01/102120314/Ex-shuttle-worker-Tile-thefts-common?odyssey=mod|mostview
Tiles are reported to have been taken out the door by technicians and sold on E-Bay…
According to the report: “Seven of them were shipped overseas to foreign buyers, in violation of the Arms Export Control Act….however, that no federal charges would be filed and that the buyers would not be charged because they didn’t know the items were stolen…”
