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Government charges woman with illegal export of autopilots to China

Posted by James Ross on February 17, 2009 at 4:25pm
If you're about to deal with interested parties overseas, consider this:Maryland woman charged with illegal export of miniature aircraft controls to Chinatext_link.gif
WASHINGTON (AP) — A Maryland woman was charged Friday with exporting miniature controls for small unmanned aircraft to China.The government says the controls are the world's smallest and involve a technology that cannot be shared with China because of national security concerns. The devices can be used to fly small military reconnaissance planes.Yaming Nina Qi Hanson of Silver Spring, Md., is accused of taking the controls to China last August without a required export license. If convicted, she faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and a $1 million fine (emphasis mine -J).Qi Hanson and her husband, Harold Hanson, arranged over e-mail to buy the controls from a Canadian company, MicroPilot of Manitoba, according to the criminal complaint. Company officials told the couple they could ship the controls to the United States but the couple would have to get an export permit to send the controls to another country.
Read the full articleIt doesn't really help anyone here to have the government use this incident as an excuse to crack down on amateur unmanned aerial vehicles. So please don't do anything stupid like this.
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Comments

  • Patrick Egan February 18, 2009 at 8:50pm
    No worries here, no one cares what this crowd is doing.
  • Moderator
    Sgt Ric February 18, 2009 at 10:54am
    I doubt they could have gotten an export permit that easily, since China is on the sensitive list and autopilot tech is definitely a restricted item.

    True the technology is public domain now, but a fully assembled autopilot is dificult to obtain from the US, even here in Canada, as we saw during the AUVSI competition a few years ago in Calgary, where several teams had their equipt confiscated at the border.
  • T3
    Rory Paul February 18, 2009 at 10:43am
    Old Harold's wife is actually in the pay of the Chinese government.......you may leave China but you are just Chinese overseas...
  • Jack Crossfire February 18, 2009 at 10:29am
    If the Hansons did the required paperwork, they would have gotten government approval to export their autopilots. Either they didn't have a clue or they really were supporting terrorists. Since Harold worked in a government job (who doesn't these days) he probably has no clue about the export laws, or anything else for that matter.
  • Noth666 February 18, 2009 at 10:08am
    *Joining in the shoethrowing* :-)
    I just wish these retarded politicians would wake up and smell the coffee for once. Or just be kicked out into the street.
    What is the point of limiting the export of something like this, anyone with sufficient funds can have one made anywhere in the world more or less.
  • Moderator
    Gary Mortimer February 18, 2009 at 10:02am
    http://www.djacobsonlaw.com/2009/02/maryland-woman-accused-of-expor...

    Now if you work for or with the US military and your wife does something like that, all by herself of course???

    He probably has set back things a little, now where are my shoes so I can chuck them.
  • Howard Loewen February 18, 2009 at 7:22am
    I believe that Nina Ki-Hanson has been charged and that her husband (who works at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center) has not been charged.
  • george February 18, 2009 at 6:59am
    Read the full story guys--
    A spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office said Hanson, who works at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in the patient safety office, had not yet been charged in the case.

    So what is it? Has she been charged or not?
  • george February 18, 2009 at 6:54am
    @Paul Marsh -- The turning of you into a criminal requires nothing more then then the stroke of a bureaucrats pen.
  • Paul Marsh February 18, 2009 at 6:19am
    @Jack -- I take your point, but while I am not a guided missile expert, I am a professional who is quite literally cleaning toilets at night to help make ends meet while looking for work in my field. The last thing that would occur to me is selling secrets to China, or doing anything illegal. There are a few honest folks left!
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