One of my first reactions when the new fee schedule came out was to wonder if the $250/license would be necessary if every American company who makes a defense article was aware of their need to register. How many of them don’t even know about the ITAR until it’s too late?

Justice is actively trying to reduce the scienter requirement for criminal convictions by judicial decision rather than legislation, not just in the jury instructions but in the way they word indictments, purposely departing from the language of the statutes, which makes it easier to get indictments out of a grand jury and a conviction out of a jury.

They’re also pushing the theory that a post-complaint agency certification as to jurisdiction or classification can’t be challenged because they assert it is a non-reviewable “political question”. The latter is particular B.S. because CIT does HTS classifications all the time, even though the HTS is a product of an international convention, yet the Supreme Court in U.S. v Mead held that HTS classifications by CBP are not entitled to Chevron deference. The Court relied on Mead in Oregon v. Gonzales, so its not just limited to Customs law.

DDTC needs to put some of the money from its unconstitutional export tax (the per license portion of the mislabeled registration fee) into education and outreach for small business, rather than rely on the always oversubscribed and expensive SIA.