[Ground-station] Open Source Satellite Work Determined to be Free of ITAR

[John Ackermann]

Great news!  Thanks for the leadership and hard work that made it possible!

On Aug 18, 2020, 12:05 PM, at 12:05 PM, Michelle Thompson via Ground-Station <ground-station at lists.openresearch.institute> wrote:
>Open Source Satellite Work Determined to be Free of ITAR
>
>https://openresearch.institute/2020/08/18/cj-determination-open-source-satellite-work-is-free-of-itar/
>
>The United States Department of State has ruled favorably on Open
>Research
>Institute's commodity jurisdiction request, finding that specified
>“Information and Software for a Digital Microwave Broadband
>Communications
>System for Space and Terrestrial Amateur Radio Use” is definitely not
>subject to State Department jurisdiction under ITAR, the International
>Traffic in Arms Regulations. This is an important step toward reducing
>the
>burden of regulations restricting international cooperation on amateur
>satellite projects, which have impeded engineering work by amateurs in
>the
>United States for decades.
>
>Export regulations divide both technical information and actual
>hardware
>into three categories. The most heavily restricted technologies fall
>under
>ITAR, which is administered by the State Department. Technologies
>subject
>to more routine restrictions fall under EAR, the Export Administration
>Regulations, administered by the Department of Commerce. Technologies
>that
>are not subject to either set of regulations are not restricted for
>export.
>
>On 20 February 2020, Open Research Institute (ORI) filed a Commodity
>Jurisdiction (CJ) Request with the US State Department, seeking to
>establish that key technologies for amateur radio are not subject to
>State
>Department jurisdiction. “Information and Software for a Digital
>Microwave
>Broadband Communications System for Space and Terrestrial Amateur Radio
>Use” was assigned the case number CJ0003120. On 11 August 2020, the
>case
>received a successful final determination: the technology is not
>subject to
>State Department jurisdiction. This is the best possible outcome of a
>CJ
>request.
>
>The Final Determination letter can be found at
>https://openresearch.institute/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/08/CJ-0003120-Final-Determination-Letter.pdf
>.
>
>Under this determination, the technologies are subject to the EAR. The
>next
>step is to submit a classification request to the Commerce Department.
>ORI
>anticipates that the Commerce Department will find that these
>technologies
>are unrestricted under the carve-out for open source in the EAR.
>
>Open Research Institute (ORI) is a non-profit research and development
>organization which provides all of its work to the general public under
>the
>principles of Open Source and Open Access to Research.
>
>This work was accomplished by a team of dedicated and competent open
>source
>volunteers. The effort was initiated by Bruce Perens K6BP and lead by
>Michelle Thompson W5NYV.
>
>Open Research Institute developed the ideas behind the Commodity
>Jurisdiction request, hired Thomsen and Burke LLP (https://t-b.com/)
>for
>expert legal advice, organized the revisions of the document, and
>invited
>organizations and individuals with amateur satellite service interests
>to
>join or support the request.
>
>ORI thanks Libre Space Foundation and Dr. Daniel Estevez for providing
>their subject matter expertise and written testimony, and JAMSAT for
>helpful encouragement and support.
>
>The legal costs were fully reimbursed with a generous grant from
>Amateur
>Radio Digital Communications (ARDC). See
>https://www.ampr.org/grants/grant-open-research-institute/.
>
>ARDC and ORI share a vision of clearly establishing open source as the
>best
>and safest way to accomplish technical volunteer work in amateur radio.
>This final determination letter provides solid support for that vision.
>The
>determination enables the development of implementation guidelines that
>will allow free international collaboration.
>
>This clears the path for a number of interesting projects facilitating
>new
>methods for terrestrial and satellite communications, opening the door
>to
>robust global digital amateur communications.
>
>Questions and inquiries to ori at openresearch.institute
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