Former NASA employee charged with illegally exporting military technology to South Korea

2011-01-11 08:59:34 GMT+7 (ICT)

WASHINGTON, D.C. (BNO NEWS) -- An Ohio man was charged with illegally shipping infrared military technology to South Korea, the Department of Justice said Monday.

Kue Sang Chun, 66, of Avon Lake, Ohio, and a longtime employee at the NASA Glenn Research Center, between March 2000 and November 2005, exported Infra Red Focal Plane Array detectors and Infra Red camera engines - which were designated as defense articles on the U.S. Munitions List - from the U.S. to South Korea.

Chun was charged with one count of exporting defense articles on the U.S. Munitions List without first obtaining an export license or written authorization from the U.S. Department of State, and one count of knowingly making and subscribing a false U.S. individual income tax return for the year 2005, which failed to report approximately $83,399.08 of taxable income he earned during said tax year.

However, he is not accused of taking technology or related materials from the research center.

-- © BNO News All rights reserved 2011-01-11

To be fair, lots of nations have a huge overscoped list of items that companies cannot export without permission. Including, but not limited to, any decently encrypted software or communications-method. Incidentally, even the software I wrote was hosted in the same nation it was written I have broken the export laws in my home-nation and joint agreement in EU since people outside my nation [and EU] has downloaded the software too.

But in an un-free world every small revolution counts.

Look at Isreal, Russia and China. They do it all the time in our country.