Arms Trafficking

byAndy Wilson, editor
[email protected]

Every year, the United States Treasury sends me a document—spanning more than 80 pages—entitled 1040 Forms and Instructions, which contains details of how to fill in a two-page tax form. This booklet is so comprehensive that even the estimated time to read the booklet and fill out the required 1040 tax form are described in detail. Being a resident alien and not wishing to lose my green card, I dutifully fill in the form and return it with a big fat check made payable to the Treasury. While I am not in a position to moan, many people residing in this country complain that the current tax forms are too long and complex.

These US residents are obviously not involved in the development of machine-vision systems! Indeed, today’s system integrators can choose from numerous off-the-shelf products when specifying their machine-vision designs. To build such systems, however, requires hours of research, well-documented electrical and mechanical drawings, user interfaces, and operator’s manuals. While many of these designs can be accomplished using images captured in the visible spectrum, others may require infrared and ultraviolet cameras to be used.

Furthermore, those considering deploying such technologies should be aware that some of these products, technologies, and services come under the auspices of the United States Government’s International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR).

Pity then the very large manufacturer of consumer products whose engineers have spent months developing a system based on a shortwave infrared (SWIR) camera. After designing a successful prototype, purchase orders for the numerous SWIR cameras, computers, lighting, and frame grabbers are sent to the company’s purchasing agent. Unaware of this legislation and that the systems are bound for manufacturing facilities in China, the parts are ordered and the systems configured.

At the point of shipment, however, the United States Government steps in, citing Section 38 of the Arms Export Control Act—legislation that authorizes the President to control the export and import of defense articles and services. Without licenses and other approvals from the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls, the systems must be returned and dismantled. Needless to say, the management of the Fortune 500 company is not exactly pleased with either the engineering department or the purchasing manager.

Those engineers and engineering managers who think that filling in a 1040 tax form is tedious should read the documentation that accompanies ITAR on the US Government’s web site (http://bit.ly/a6trOd). Like the government’s tax form, ITAR regulations are replete with their own special language that defines exactly what types of products are determined to be “defense articles.”

To quote from this documentation, an article or service may be designated or determined in the future to be a defense article if it (a) is specifically designed, developed, configured, adapted, or modified for a military applications; (b) does not have a performance equivalent to those of an article or service used for civil applications or it is specifically designed, developed, configured, adapted, or modified for a military applications and has significant military or intelligence applicability. Needless to say, such wording leaves the document open for much interpretation.

What is worse is that the intended use of the article or service after its export (i.e., for a military or civilian purpose) is not relevant. As if you didn’t know, export—as defined in the documentation—means sending or taking a defense article out of the United States in any manner except by mere travel outside of the United States by a person whose personal knowledge includes technical data! Funnily enough, “a launch vehicle or payload shall not by reason of its launching be considered an export.”

The US is not alone in having these types of export regulations. So, wherever you reside, if you haven’t enough work to do when developing your next generation of machine-vision systems, make sure that you check whether such regulations apply to the products you are purchasing. Otherwise, you may not be too popular with your management, your engineering team, or your customers.