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Feb

7

Time For Your Kid To Have An Export Compliance Program

Posted by at 8:50 pm on February 7, 2011
Category: General

Shuttle TileAs 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.
(No republication, syndication or use permitted without my consent.)
Feb

2

DDTC Changes Requirements for Certain Electronic Agreement Filings

Posted by at 9:16 pm on February 2, 2011
Category: DDTC

State DepartmentOne of the jobs of this blog is to inform our faithful readers about changes that DDTC makes in its rules and guidelines but, for whatever reason, decides that it should keep secret. Currently Section 13.2(a)(3) of the Guidelines for Preparing Electronic Agreements (7 Oct 2009), requires applicants to attach to proviso reconsideration requests a separate scanned pdf copy of the DSP-5 Agreement approval. It also requires that the 9-digit DSP-5 number be referenced in blocks A and C of the continuation to Block 8.

Notwithstanding Section 13.2(a)(3), DDTC has not been requiring scanned copies of the approved DSP-5 be submitted with the proviso request, presumably because the 9-digit DSP-5 number permits licensing officers to access the agreement approvals in the D-Trade system itself. In a recent email to an exporter, the DDTC recently confirmed that the scanned copy is no longer necessary in proviso reconsideration requests. It also noted that amendment requests did not require the inclusion of a scanned copy of the license approving the agreement in question. Apparently, this change in processing requirements will be made public when DDTC gets around to issuing a new version of these guidelines.

The change of procedure with respect to agreement amendments poses a bit of a problem, which the DDTC email acknowledged. Under the guidelines, if the last amendment/basic agreement was submitted electronically, the exporter must use the 9-digit DSP-5 number to identify the case. Otherwise, the exporter must use the 6-digit DA/MA/TA number to identify previous paper cases. But if the DA/MA/TA number is used, the people at the Defense Technology Security Administration (“DTSA”), which uses the electronic U.S. Export System, can’t get access to those prior agreements. Whether this has slowed down DTSA’s approval of these requests is not known.

The U.S. Export System is supposed to become the unified electronic filing and processing system for all exports. Whether the new guideline permitting the exporter to omit a scanned copy of the license will survive when and if the unified system goes into place is also not known.

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Copyright © 2011 Clif Burns. All Rights Reserved.
(No republication, syndication or use permitted without my consent.)
Jan

31

Khartoum Calls for U.S. to End Sanctions

Posted by at 9:13 pm on January 31, 2011
Category: Sudan

Sudan ReferendumYesterday provisional results were announced in the referendum on whether southern Sudan should be allowed to secede from Sudan and become an independent nation. The provisional results indicate that the vote was nearly unanimous in favor of secession, which means, more likely than not, that Southern Sudan will become an independent nation on July 9 of this year.

The current government in Khartoum was quick to make the most of these results and called for the U.S. to lift its sanctions on Sudan, noting that the U.S. had declared the peaceful conduct of the secession referendum as an important priority. The United States, however, declined this invitation noting its lingering concerns about continuing violence in Darfur. Other issues relative to the secession vote also remain to be resolved including the division of oil revenues between the two countries after independence and the ownership of the Abeyi region.

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Copyright © 2011 Clif Burns. All Rights Reserved.
(No republication, syndication or use permitted without my consent.)
Jan

26

Wanna Bomb a Taliban? There’s an App for That!

Posted by at 7:16 pm on January 26, 2011
Category: ITAR

Tactical Nav appYou may think that the only really military application for your iPhone involves using a slingshot to launch some irritated birds at shelters harboring egg-stealing pigs, but you’d be wrong. Army Captain Jonathan Springer used $26,000 of his own funds to develop Tactical Nav, an iPhone app designed to assist soldiers on the field of battle to determine and relay accurate coordinates to other soldiers, whether for the purpose of accurately targeting a nest of Taliban fighters or in order to send medical aid to wounded U.S. forces.

Explaining Tactical Nav’s functions, Springer said it allows soldiers to map, plot and photograph navigational points on a battleground and coordinate efforts with supporting units. Another feature includes a night mode, which turns the screen to red for easier visibility.

Springer tested each of these features for accuracy, using a combination of military vehicles, remote observation posts and harsh combat conditions.

Pleased with the outcome of his efforts, Springer said, “We took it from paper to what it is now … we’re very blessed and fortunate that is seems a good asset.”

Springer expects the app to be in the iTunes store for sale in February.

So here’s the question. Will Apple get a visit from the folks at DDTC if someone who is not a U.S. citizen or permanent resident or who is not in the United States downloads this app? After all, it was specifically designed for battlefield use and was tested with battlefield equipment.

I haven’t fully thought through this issue, but my initial view is that the software may not be an ITAR-controlled item. Obviously, being designed or modified military use is not alone sufficient for an item to be on the United States Munitions List. The item must still be in a category set forth in the USML. Section 120.10 of the ITAR defines “technical data” to include software but only if “directly related to defense articles.” The iPhone itself isn’t a defense article. The only other time I see software called out specifically in the USML is category XIII for military cryptography, also not relevant to this app.

I haven’t fully analyzed this, so I could be wrong. Share your thoughts in the comments section.

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Copyright © 2011 Clif Burns. All Rights Reserved.
(No republication, syndication or use permitted without my consent.)
Jan

25

U.S. Implemented India Export Reforms Today

Posted by at 8:28 pm on January 25, 2011
Category: BIS • India

Love FestA Federal Register notice issued today implemented expected reforms which loosen certain controls on U.S. exports to India. The notice removed some, but not all, Indian companies and organizations on the Entity List, a list maintained by the Bureau of Industry and Security (“BIS”). All U.S. exports to countries on the Entity List require a license from BIS.

Today’s action removes nine organizations from the Entity List: Bharat Dynamics, Ltd., four subsidiaries of India’s Defense Research and Development Organization (“DRDO”) and four subsidiaries of the Indian Space Research Organization (“ISRO”). The Department of Atomic Energy entities that were on the list remain on the list. The major effect of the removal is that EAR99 items will no longer require licenses to the nine removed entities. Items with ECCNs that would otherwise require licenses to these entities will still require licenses for exports to these companies.

India was also removed from country groups D:2, D:3 and D:4 and added to country group A:2. This will, among other things, make certain license exceptions available for India such as License Exception APR for additional permissive re-exports as well as unaccompanied baggage under License Exception BAG.

Not surprisingly, Pakistan is irritated by all this and threatens to add to its nuclear arsenal to protect itself from a what it sees as a newly emboldened India that will result from these new export rules.

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Copyright © 2011 Clif Burns. All Rights Reserved.
(No republication, syndication or use permitted without my consent.)

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