It's Not Just A Bad Idea, It's The Law

Rand

What you are illustrating is the difference between a lawfirm that makes money from ITAR and a lawyer that works for a space company.

Good point. I'm sure that Pam loves ITAR--it's a gold mine for her.

I wonder what Gold will say at the Space and Telecom Law Conference at the University of Nebraska? He's on an ITAR discussion there tomorrow.

law.unl.edu/c/document_library/get_file?folderId=37106&name=DLFE-1519.pdf

ITAR is expensive, but so is the cost of leaking the wrong information to where it should not go. We complain about the rate of sensitive information leakage (and material) from Russia into the hands of those who should not have it, yet we admire their lack of security when ours inconveniently gets in our way.

Face it, the cost of protecting sensitive information is high and always will be. The United States happens to have a lot of sensitive information to protected (consider that a good historical position to be in). Countries like, I don't know, New Zealand, don't have as many secrets as compared to the United States. I imagine their processes flow a little more smoothly (and cheaply) because of the that.

If you want project costs to go down, and business opportunities to go up, here in the United States then we should stop having so much sensitive information to protect. You could also move to New Zealand, but then you would have a hard time collaborating with various strategic suppliers here in the United States. No, you can't win but then the cost of maintaining control over information is high. (This is why, for instance, many Open Source Software jockeys simply want all "information to be free." The cost and the bother of information control is simply too high compared to the cost of the work they are doing, for free.)

I was at the Maker Faire yesterday.

Chris Anderson was showing off a guidance device built from a LEGO toolkit. It runs on his DIY UAVs that cost just a few hundred dollars.

The device is technically export restricted. But it's friggin LEGOs! The laws are ridiculous and need to adjust for the democratization of technology.

Nicole:

While there is obviously a need to keep some information classified, the question is whether the current ITAR structure is:

1. Successful; and
2. At a reasonable cost

When a set of regulations are either directly prohibiting, or being interpreted as prohibiting, sharing information with allies in collaborative ventures, I would suggest that there's something terribly wrong w/ the regulations.

Our own allies, such as the Brits and the Aussies, have made it clear that JSF collaboration is being retarded by ITAR regulations.

It's also been suggested that our own allies are developing a larger satellite industry, precisely in order to circumvent ITAR regulations---something which will likely hurt us in the longer run.

Nor is it clear the extent to which we need the level of ITAR regulations to limit Chinese ability to access our space information.

I don't think those suggesting an overhaul of ITAR are proposing eliminating export controls, regulations and restrictions entirely. I think they're asking for some greater care and rationality in the process.

Don' t forget one of the major reasons for the space export control clamp down. In the 1990's US manufacturers were far to lax in technology transfer, particularly to China. For business reasons, both Loral and Hughes provided info to China that helped improve the reliability of their boosters. Why? Cheap launches on the Long March and hopes of future Chinese business. There may have also a connection to Loral CEO Bernard Schwartz and the China - Clinton fundraising scandal that has never been fully probed.

The problem is that they also helped improve the reliability of the boosters currently sitting in Chinese silos targeted to cities near those same contractors facilities in San Jose and El Segundo. Chinese rockets blowing up on the launch pad was in our national interest, something these corporate titans couldn't quite comprehend.

ITAR needs reform, but don't forget why it is there.

Fair point, Jeff, but as with most government policies, it has been enacted well after the horses have left the barn.

Chinese technology is way ahead of where it was in the 1990s. China has done an industrial modernization nearly as impressive as Japan in the early 20th Century, and we are thus rapidly reaching a point of diminishing returns for ITAR.

At this point, I believe we are approching an effect like the mid-19th century British laws against exporting industrial technology to America--all it did was force American society to develop its own native industrial base, and one that rapidly overtook the UK.

It's similar to the effect of tariffs and import duties -- great for certain, selected big businesses, horrible for overall trade and the economy. The restrictor suffers more than the restrictee.

Speaking as an employee of a Big Aerospace Corporation (Lockheed Space Systems), I'll point out that none of us like ITAR either. While we can pay the extra money, it's not as though we want to take dozens of millions of taxpayer dollars and spend them on useless, meaningless bureaucratic shit.

The people who really like ITAR are domestic US suppliers. People like ATK, who almost have a monopoly on US composite-structure production. People like L3, who have quietly bought almost every RF-hardware production shop in the nation. Everyone points to Microsoft and Wal-Mart as being these big horrible market-owning monopolies, but they don't realize that 95% of US satellites are BUILT BY ONLY ONE COMPANY.