We do not have a leg to stand on to force anyone to do anything overseas. We do not own AMSAT-UK or AMSAT-DL and we have not been in the driver's seat in decades. We don't get the launches. Our best efforts here to get a launch for a full satellite have produced lots of heat, some excitement but no light at the end of the tunnel. So the "force them" will not work here, nor will getting on knees and begging. It is simply not in their interests to sign a TAA that conforms to the rules.
There is a kind of air of secrecy built up here. It is that way for multiple reasons but the ones that I can be kindest to are the fear of making enough noise that we begin to be looked at in a serious way for our decades of not having so much as a written policy much less compliance (other than "EFF IT"), and we do not want to say or do anything that would offend our overseas compatriots while we are trying to work out the details. There are less constructive things I might comment on but the two I have named are credible and serious.
It is hard. Period. It is not easy. But it is so important that anything that resembles giving up is contrary to the needs of the organization. For my part in this dereliction, I most sincerely apologize.
Bob
ARRL SDR Working Group Chair Member: ARRL, AMSAT, AMSAT-DL, TAPR, Packrats, NJQRP, QRP ARCI, QCWA, FRC. "Trample the slow .... Hurdle the dead"
-----Original Message----- From: John B. Stephensen [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Monday, September 08, 2008 3:25 PM To: Bob McGwier; 'Bdale Garbee' Cc: 'Bill Ress'; 'Howard Long'; 'Frank Brickle'; [email protected]; 'Daniel Schultz' Subject: Re: [eagle] Re: 2008 Symposium deadline
What led me to beleive that nothing had been done is that there is no published policy regarding ITAR and others seem to be confused about its requirements.
Ten years ago, I worked with my employer's contracts manager and an outside attorney to come up with a policy for the development of encryption software
for their products. Since they wanted to sell in the U.S. and Europe, including government customers, this ended up being complicated. A big problem is that the federal regulations are only part of the law. The rest is precidents set by rulings in federal court. Consequently, all he could tell us about some schemes to divide up development resources worldwide to comply with the law was that it was a "gray area" and untested in court. After 4-5 iterations we ended up with a written policy. We did have to force
foreign nationals in overseas subsidiaries to comply with U.S. law.
73,
John KD6OZH
----- Original Message ----- From: "Bob McGwier" [email protected] To: "'Bdale Garbee'" [email protected] Cc: "'John B. Stephensen'" [email protected]; "'Bill Ress'" [email protected]; "'Howard Long'" [email protected]; "'Frank Brickle'" [email protected]; [email protected]; "'Daniel Schultz'" [email protected] Sent: Monday, September 08, 2008 16:11 UTC Subject: RE: [eagle] Re: 2008 Symposium deadline
We paid extremely high powered lawyers in D.C. to give us advice. The chief executive worked for hours with a lawyer, who is a member of AMSAT, who put himself into the same committees and so forth as the other high powered lawyers. Detailed technical assistance agreements complying with the letter of ITAR were drawn up and rejected by AMSAT-UK and AMSAT-DL with cause. It is UTTERLY ridiculous to bind entities outside the U.S., not acting in the U.S., to obey our laws when they are not in the U.S. Strictly speaking, we are requiring them to foreswear ever even accidentally doing an exported, DEEMED EXPORT being the most aggregious example.
Following this failure, I am not aware of any other activity. We made no unofficial or official requests of anyone in a position of authority inside the U.S. government who could help us officially.
To saw we have done nothing is false. We have not been effective and knowing this was a very tough nut to crack, the board and senior-officers did not do their duty, which was to bring out a no holds barred assault on this. Some are afraid of getting ourselves above "see" level and attracting the wrong kind of attention to past activities.
I have been quite upset about the lack of progress on this for some time but I am as guilty as anyone in a position of responsibility in this organization for not doing whatever it took to work this. I understood how utterly debilitating this was. Every time I have said something about it, I have been effectively ignored or asked "what do you suggest?". In other words, we have stopped trying.
Bob
ARRL SDR Working Group Chair Member: ARRL, AMSAT, AMSAT-DL, TAPR, Packrats, NJQRP, QRP ARCI, QCWA, FRC. "Trample the slow .... Hurdle the dead"
-----Original Message----- From: Bdale Garbee [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Monday, September 08, 2008 11:53 AM To: Bob McGwier Cc: 'John B. Stephensen'; 'Bill Ress'; 'Howard Long'; 'Frank Brickle'; [email protected]; 'Daniel Schultz' Subject: Re: [eagle] Re: 2008 Symposium deadline
On Mon, 2008-09-08 at 10:31 -0400, Bob McGwier wrote:
Why do you not think we have already done this?
I've certainly had the impression that the issue was being worked on some level, but I don't recall seeing anything like a report or summary of the current situation. Did I miss it somewhere, or is this assumption simply the result of not everyone knowing what has and has not been done on the ITAR topic?
73 - Bdale, KB0G