ROL NEWS--RCS IERT Course Deemed a "Defense Article"

I told you so.

Whatever. You're still a snake in the grass. A big ugly one.

Now that's funny. If State has made this determination, it's the correct classification unless it can be demonstrated that everything that is in the course is in the public domain (it probably can be demonstrated that is, trade secrets aside). I'm wondering how closely State reviewed the course materials and at what level of expertise in making the determination. I'm sure it didn't get staffed to JCS. It most likely was a play it safe and ask us permission call which is typical. If RCS is producing defense articles (State says this is), it means they have to register with State. That costs about $600 per year. Nice tax grab and little to do with security in this case.

Also, whoever wrote the article confuses "citizen" with "US Person" as defined in the ITAR as per 22CFR120.15. CTI U.S. is registered with State and I'm a U.S. person so Gary, can I take the the course? :-)

Anthony J. Cesaroni President/CEO Cesaroni Technology/Cesaroni Aerospace

does this also mean that John Wickman's propellant courses will also be determined at some future point in time to be a "defense article" ?

So now before anybody holds APCP propellant classes a State department determination will be required if any foreign nationals are involved?

shockie B)

I've mentioned this sort of thing before. You may need an export license to share information with non-US Persons, let alone sell physical goods or ship physical goods or information out of the US.

Maybe we need to encrypt r.m.r???

-Fred Shecter NAR 20117

According to Anthony Cesaroni :

US Department of Commerce rules ("certain export license requirements are not necessary if the material is public domain") are superseded by ITAR/Munitions legislation (if it's on the same thing).

The former are largely implemented as a way of protecting copyright/patent holders from vendors selling into countries that don't respect copyright/patent. In short: if the material is public domain, then the owner clearly doesn't care, so why should DoC?

The latter is supposed to provide national security.

For example, DoC rules suggest that shipping a copy of strong crypto software to China is legal if it's public domain.

On the contrary, ITAR/Munitions legislation supersede DoC in this area, and make it illegal (without a relevant license). Silly and pointless - and _highly_ counter-productive commerce-wise. But illegal none-the-less.

Canada's rules are a bit saner (at least insofar of technology that does _not_ originate in the US).

He wasn't stupid enough to "ask for a ruling" like Gary Rosenfield did.

Nor was he stupid enough to sell clearly controlled chemicals to the general public with a PUBLIC news release!!!

Hello? Anyone home?

Nope.

NAR does the same sort of thing. I could cite a recent example but perhaps trollville is not the place to do it.

Jerry

According to Chris Lewis :

I should also point out that something like this comes as no surprise to anyone involved in the computer security industry.

This sort of thing has been going on for decades already. Particularly noticable in crypto (encryption) circles. Up to the point of foreign nationals being removed from conferences.

Including the instructor from a course on encryption. The instructor was Russian. Can't let the Russians know what the Russians know about encryption! ;-)

...

Never ask permission, ask forgiveness.

Or when in doubt, leave it a gray area!

At least that is how the sayings go.

One thing for sure. RCS operates on the same metric as Aerotech did. Shake the tree and see what authorities from new and different agencies you can cause to wreak havok on rocketry.

So far he's doing pretty good along the alphabet.

Jerry

The skippy irvine and usr mantra!

At least for RCS posts!

Based on the posts that I usually see here, I thought it already was!!!

David Erbas-White

Just to be on the extra-safe side, I ran this message through ROT-13 two times.

Chris,

I beg to differ. How familiar are you with CGRP and the Defense Production act?

Anthony J. Cesaroni President/CEO Cesaroni Technology/Cesaroni Aerospace

Gulp, sorry Phil, as you know, I am not a Jerry apologist.

But, however, Jerry was talking about Mli stuff and defense transfer when the Dec RCS press realase came out. he was a bit active in his posts, as is his MO , however, I think he did say this:

So this was the end result ?

The link doesn't work. I believe you. Sometimes Jerry seems a little to fast on those I told yous so, since I didn't rememer him saying it, I thought I'd ask.