The little tiny part of the big company that I work for was in the process of being divested.

Our products have many civilian applications, however, they also have military, nuclear and missile technology applications. They are among what is commonly called dual-use technology. However, the big company's executives neglected to take the export status of our product line into account when they accepted a bid to sell our company to some folks from India.

I drafted, as Wesley Dabney would put it, "A flaming bag of shit" that my boss sent to corporate counsel putting them on notice that it might not be a good idea to transfer export controlled technology to foreign nationals hailing from a country which is actively pursuing the development of bigger nukes and longer range missiles.

My boss struck an even bigger blow when he rolled the dice on his own career by putting federales, from all applicable alphabet soup agencies, on notice of this impending transaction.

Sorry for the lack of details, but mostly I just want this placeholder post to serve as a marker of what happened, should anyone in the future doubt my involvement in this mess. Also, I want to blog about the excellent response from the federales, to what could have been a technological disaster.

Want more info, check out some units of the U.S. government that work to protect us against wrongful technology transfer.

• The Exon-Florio Provision and the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFISU)
• Bureau of Industy and Security's Export Enforcement [Also see their "redflags for suspicious transactions".)

# posted by The Comedian @ 8:57 PM 0 comments

Charges to be dropped in Kmart raid case

Acting Houston Police Chief Timothy Oettmeier [Acting because the regular chief is under indictment for perjury] recommended Mayor Lee Brown dismiss trespass charges against 273 people arrested in two controversial parking lot raids because of a lack of legal sufficiency to prove charges.

Oettmeier also recommended the dismissal of curfew charges filed in the August raids, at a westside James Coney Island and Kmart, in the interest of justice.

Oettmeier said the department is continuing to investigate the raid by talking with those involved and said the police department has taken statements from 89 officers and 203 citizens. He said 18 investigators worked 13 to 14 hour days to help him reach his recommendation.

"This is a massive investigation, the largest of its kind in the history of the department," Oettmeier said, explaining his recommendation to Brown was necessary to retain the public's trust and confidence.

The City Attorney's Office said prosecutors will move to dismiss the charges and will contact those who have already pleaded guilty and move to dismiss those charges at the time of a new trial.

# posted by The Comedian @ 10:47 PM 0 comments

The International Institute for Strategic Studies reports that

"War, sanctions and inspections have reversed and retarded, but not eliminated, Iraq's nuclear, biological and chemical weapons and long-range missile capacity, nor removed Baghdad's enduring interest in developing these capabilities," said the institute's director John Chipman.

Left unhindered, it "seems likely that the current Iraqi regime will eventually achieve its objectives," the report said.

The report, compiled by a range of experts, focused particular concern on Iraq's efforts to develop nuclear weapons. It expressed concern that a nuclear weapon, if developed, could fall into the hands of terrorists.

Although Baghdad appears several years away, at least, from making its own nuclear or fissile material for a bomb, it could get the material from a foreign source and construct a weapon quickly, the report said.

"If, somehow, Iraq were able to acquire sufficient nuclear material from foreign sources, it could probably produce nuclear weapons on short order, probably in a matter of months," the report said.

# posted by The Comedian @ 3:05 PM 0 comments