From: Michael Froomkin <froomkin@law.miami.edu>
Date: Fri, 24 Nov 1995 04:50:40 +0800
To: Jeff Simmons <jsimmons@goblin.punk.net>
Subject: Re: Spam the Sign!
In-Reply-To: <199511230002.QAA01527@goblin.punk.net>
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.91.951123152756.26616C-100000@viper.law.miami.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



Actually, the application of the law tends to be far more reasonable than 
non-lawyers believe.  This is one of the hardest things to get law 
students to believe.  But it is a human process, not a mechancial one.

If you sell a product legally in the US, taking reasonable precautions to
observe the ITAR and making clear to your customers what their obligations
are, you have essentially zero risk.  How do I know this?  Many, many,
many people do exactly that every day, and none have AFAIK even been
threatened with prosecution.  This is NOT IMHO how the ITAR restricts 
intra-US trade.  The ITAR restrict intra-US trade by inducing people to 
make only exportable products so that they don't have the trouble of 
supporting two different versions, doing 2 kinds of paperwork, etc.

OTOH, if you hand software to someone to put on an FTP site, nudge, 
nudge, wink, wink let's hope it doesn't get exported, ha, ha, then you 
really are guilty of trying to end-run the ITAR, and they feds may give 
you a hard time, which after all is their job if you are breaking federal 
law.

None of this of course goes to the question of whether the ITAR is 
good/bad or un/constitutional.

A. Michael Froomkin        | +1 (305) 284-4285; +1 (305) 284-6506 (fax)
Associate Professor of Law | 
U. Miami School of Law     | froomkin@law.miami.edu
P.O. Box 248087            | http://www.law.miami.edu/~froomkin
Coral Gables, FL 33124 USA | It's warm here.