Regulatory Basics

Defense Service

 A defense service is defined as furnishing any ITAR controlled technical data, providing training, aggregating public domain information, or furnishing assistance to a Foreign Person (in the U.S. or abroad). These services include:

• Operation or use.
• Design, development, engineering.
• Production, assembly, testing.
• Processing.
• Repair, maintenance.
• Modification.
• Demilitarization.
• Destruction.
• Training or teaching a military technique.

Be sure you understand the limits of what you may or may not discuss, demonstrate, or train a Foreign Person to do. Do not share tactics and techniques you may have learned in law enforcement, military, or IC training. Do not show a Foreign Person how to fire a weapon or how to take it apart, repair, or maintain it. Do not show a Foreign Person how to destroy, enhance, or modify any military or law enforcement equipment without express permission of Tom Wright.

It is easy to forget that some Foreign Nationals will have had their own military or law enforcement backgrounds and be very familiar with weapons, Tactics, Techniques and Procedures (TTPs) or other military/law enforcement hardware or techniques. You must not discuss these if they are outside the scope of your authorization, while it may seem you are being rude, you must find a way to explain that you are limited by U.S. export regulations as to what you can and cannot do and it has nothing to do with not "trusting" or "liking" your Foreign National counterpart. You are simply bound by U.S. law. This definition refers to a number of ITAR defined terms and is important.

The EAR notes that "technical assistance" may "take forms such as instruction, skill, training, working knowledge, consulting services." EAR Part 772.

"Exports" of technical data require DTC approval, but not every export of technical data constitutes the furnishing of a defense service that would require a TAA.

Problem to discuss:
A colleague with a German company has encountered a technical starting block in developing a defense article. He explains the problem via e-mail and telephone and asks for your help to identify four to five articles on the Internet, and in libraries to such as the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), that could be helpful. You agree. Is this most likely a "defense service?"