I don't think there is much to understand. We have been told it is impossible to follow the logically inconsistent rules. You must subject yourself or your group to the tyranny of the unelected bureaucrat.
Preventing me from talking to amateur radio buddies about amateur radio satellites with no commercial military implications for the satellite feels a lot like an abridgment of the bill of rights like free speech.
Phil Karn sued and WON his suit on the abridgment of free speech rights on something much less clear cut, the free release of DES source code.
I have to say I am personally unable to do what phil did. Strictly financial reasons. Amsat is also in this financial legal strait jacket.
It sucks would be my overall technical assessment.
Bob
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
-----Original Message----- From: Bill Ress bill@hsmicrowave.com Date: Mon, 26 Oct 2009 15:47:16 To: Samudra Haquesamudra.haque@gmail.com Cc: amsat-bb@amsat.org Subject: [amsat-bb] Re: Hopefully - Some ITAR Clarifications.
Hi Samudra,
Hey - don't worry about ruffling feathers. The more we discuss it, the better understood ITAR will be.
Regards...Bill - N6GHz
Samudra Haque wrote:
On Mon, Oct 26, 2009 at 5:24 PM, Bill Ress bill@hsmicrowave.com wrote:
But ALL US citizens and foreign permanent residents must be very careful about the more sinister part of ITAR called DEEMED EXPORTS. That's where you discuss certain ITAR controlled satellite hardware or technology issues with a foreign national, with which you do not not have a State Department technical exchange agreement, whether this foreign national is in this country or you contact them by phone, internet or other forms of communication. So while you can work on an AMSAT-NA satellite project that has aspects controlled by ITAR, because you are a legal permanent resident, you can't email your parents, if they are foreign nationals, to discuss those ITAR restricted subjects, whether they are in the US or a foreign country. If you do, it is "deemed to be exported" without ITAR approval and serious penalties can result.
Yes, I usually take care to divide my correspondence amongst the particular groups I am working with, and this is also the basis in which I recently proposed moving to (a) moderated forum (such as phpBB) or (b) sub-dividing the amsat-bb list into amsat-engineering (ITAR restricted) and amsat-user (open to all) lists. If moderation is not possible, practical or simply open to all is the order of the day, at least we can move the ITAR stuff (development centric stuff) to a closed list format and ensure what is said and done is always in compliance (i.e., track of who say what and documents are marked restricted for circulation) etc.
The AMSAT-BB is the real funny way of becoming ITAR compliant (while we are under ITAR, lets not forget we have responsibilities) so, until the day that ITAR is not applicable to us, AMSAT-BB should be restricted to open questions, user questions etc. no blanket mail concerning tech details from the US side. However, for the specific engineering stuff I suggest that whoever administers the list should consider a security protocol and a secure file area for this compliance issue, hopefully not on the same machine as amsat-bb to avoid any chance of overlap.
Sorry if I ruffle a few feathers here, this an important issue for me too !
Samudra, N3RDX
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