logoalt Hacker News

naturalmovementtoday at 4:07 AM2 repliesview on HN

Export control is not illegal where are you coming up with this stuff?

Claiming ignorance is a good way to pay tens of millions of $ in fines or do prison time.

Here's one from TWO DAYS AGO:

https://www.justice.gov/usao-edny/pr/manager-us-freight-forw...

She will be doing 18 months in federal lockup.

The people in charge of enforcing US export law are worse than city building inspectors and the penalties are orders of magnitude more severe. They're not people you want to mess with, ignore, or pretend you didn't know the rules.


Replies

sethammonstoday at 8:11 AM

> As described in court filings, from at least December 2022 through December 2024, Mazulina conspired with Russian freight forwarding companies and others to unlawfully ship controlled items, including industrial oil and gas equipment, from the United States to Russia, through intermediary countries. At one point, in June 2023, Mazulina told colleagues that her clients were paying through bank accounts in third party countries because “[m]ost of [her] clients [were] currently sanctioned with USA.” Mazulina attempted to conceal the unlawful scheme by submitting and causing the submission of false export documents to the U.S. government, which omitted the information that the goods were destined for Russia.

That feels materially different than a software program released in the open domestic market.

And while it feels different, the government would apparently disagree: https://exportcontrol.lbl.gov/training/export-control-overvi...

Distribution of software to a foreign national within the US is an explicit proviso of the law. That is a wild law and I am surprised it stands.

show 1 reply
itopaloglu83today at 11:07 AM

I think it’s a general misconception with folks that export controls only apply to weapons, forgetting that it applies to many high-end manufacturing and technology.

I’m surprised about some of the reactions, but again anyone who has a security clearance wouldn’t touch any of this discussion with a ten-foot pole also.