Government charges woman with illegal export of autopilots to China

If you're about to deal with interested parties overseas, consider this:Maryland woman charged with illegal export of miniature aircraft controls to China

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.
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.
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!
Howard Loewen February 18, 2009 at 5:10am

UAVs and UAV autopilots are controlled by the Wassenaar Arrangement (see www.wassenaar.org) and the Missile Technology Control Regime (see www.mtcr.info). The list of countries that belong to these groups is extensive. All of the countries that belong to these groups are supposed to enforce a common set of export controls. The sites include lists of all the various military and non-military goods that the members countries control.
Noth666 February 18, 2009 at 2:39am

Happily enough this export control nonsense only concerns US and Canada. The only downside to this is that most makers of this kind of stuff are on that side making it hard for the rest of the world to "join in the fun".
Howard Loewen February 17, 2009 at 9:35pm

The circuit boards for the autopilots in question are manufactured in Canada.

While one can argue the effectiveness of export controls on UAV autopilots, it is still the law and breaking this particular law is probably a poor choice.

Howard

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