Mike,
I tend to agree with you about the bottom line effect. However, having gone through the export licensing of data a few times, there may be more here than yellow journalism.
Whenever a company applies for export license for data, the request is circulated among the various interested government agencies, each of which adds its own comments and recommendations. Seldom are the different agencies/offices in agreement. Eventually, the pile gets to the decision maker, who then must decide. Whichever way he goes, someone will be unhappy. When export is approved, it is not uncommon for an opposing party to "leak" his/her position to the media, along with dire warnings of threats to national security.
My own view is that secrecy tends to be overdone, and that far more harm is done to our own country by overambitious data secrecy than is done to the foreign countries who are denied legal channels of access to data. Limitations on export of encryption software is an example.
There are people who strongly hold the opposing view, and who feel impelled to take action to expose what they believe to be an inappropriate release of data. Of course, there are also people with less noble motives who would do the same thing.
It isn't always easy to tell who is right.
On a less philosophical level, I would be extremely surprised if Loral has released data to China, or anyone else, for which they did not have a valid export license. I worked for Loral when they were a defense contractor with significant foreign sales programs, and company policy required us to have an export license for all data furnished to our foreign customers.
Of course, the stink will be that the export license approval was improperly influenced by political influence, contributions, etc. That, in my opinion, becomes a pissing contest that nobody will win, and the stink will eventually die down, unless evidence of illegal influence does come to light.
Worst case outcome (in my opinion), even if a Loral employee did pass on unlicensed data, the individual(s) responsible might be punished, but the company will survive, and the financial effect, if any, will be temporary.
Reagan |
