Last week we were wondering about the origin of the name “Blue Lantern” for the pre-shipment and post-shipment verification program conducted by DDTC. Andrea Fekkes Dynes of General Dynamics, via “The Daily Bugle,” has an idea:

Last Friday’s Daily Bugle contained an article about State/DDTC’s Blue Lantern program [Daily Bugle, 26 Jan 2007, Item #10, Counsel Comment (R. Clifton Burns): “Beware My Power, Blue Lantern’s Light!”]. That article posed the question about the possible origin of the term “Blue Lantern.” One of our export compliance officials (who works in the UK) provides a possible answer: “It probably originates from the UK as, before about 1970, every police station in the UK had a blue lantern illuminated outside which signified to all the ‘strong arm of the law’.”

That seems a reasonable possibility, although I wonder whether anyone at DDTC had any familiarity with UK police stations during that period.

I’m beginning to suspect that it might actually be a reference to the comics. In an ODTC (yes, you remember the ODTC) presentation on the Blue Lantern program, there is a reference to three government wide end-use monitoring programs: Blue Lantern (ODTC), Golden Sentry (Department of Defense) and Green Lantern (Department of Commerce). The Sentry, in case you have forgotten, is a Marvel comics character whose clothing changes into the Golden Sentry suit when he undergoes the obligatory transformation from ordinary Robert Reynolds to a superhero.

The mystery thickens.

The Federation of American Scientists has received, pursuant to an FOIA request, a complete list of the unfavorable determinations from the “end-use” or “Blue Lantern” checks conducted by the State Department during FY 2002 through 2004. Under the Blue Lantern program, U.S. embassy personnel (and sometimes DDTC personnel) engage in investigations overseas to investigate suspicious export license requests and post-shipment reports of misuse or diversion.

Annual reports from DDTC have provided some information relating to unfavorable “Blue Lantern” determinations including an analysis of unfavorable determinations by region and commodity. These reports, however, did not single out individual countries. The FOIA disclosures provide data on specific countries for FY 2002 through 2004, and the results are interesting:

Additionally, the report showed one unfavorable determination for each of the following countries: Bosnia, Botswana, Chile, Colombia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Dominica. Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Macau, Monaco, Morocco, Netherlands, Nicaragua, Panama, Slovenia, Spain, Suriname, Sweden, Turkey and Uruguay.

Obviously, Malaysia and Bolivia have won awards that no country would particularly want to win. In Malaysia’s case most of the unfavorable determinations related to aircraft parts. For Bolivia, the determinations involved firearms and riot control agents. Additionally, the appearance of Hong Kong as third on the list would appear to rebut the notion, frequently expressed by BIS at least, that Hong Kong has an exemplary export control program.

Now, here’s an inquiry for our readers. I am pretty sure that during a presentation on Blue Lantern by a DDTC official I heard the origin of the term “Blue Lantern” for the program. For the life of me, I can’t remember it, nor can I find it anywhere. A blue lantern is a signal, for railroad workers, that a car is being worked on and should not be moved, but that doesn’t seem a likely candidate. Nor does the use of a blue lantern by the Confederate submarine Hunley to signal that it sank the USS Housatonic seem an appropriate reference. So, does anyone know what “Blue Lantern” signifies?