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Technology Stocks : Loral Space & Communications -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Timothy R. Tierney who wrote (8120)	7/19/2000 9:50:47 AM
From: Rocket Scientist	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 10852

The allegation against Loral boils down to the claim that it "provided a defense service without a license" an infraction punishable by fines or, in rare cases, disbarment from export activities. That Loral did not have a license to "provide defense services" is undisputed as far as a I know. But what is a "defense service?" In essence, in this case, it is providing "technical data" about a defense article. A rocket is a defense article, communication satellites (at the time of the alleged infraction) are not. What is "technical data?" Ahhhh, therein lies the rub, because, apparently, the government can claim "technical data" is anything it likes, even if that information is already in the public domain or systems engineering motherhood. According to the Cox report, the closest thing to "technical data" provided were recommendations like: "improve quality control" and "conduct tests to prove or disprove all hypothesized failure mechanisms." Baaaaad Loral! An additional irony is that Loral knows very little about rockets; it buys them and flys on them...it neither builds nor designs them. The Cox report itself conceded that the technical section of the report was written by a non-Loral employee (from the UK to boot)! This recommendation was provided more than four years ago, and a disclosure to the USG made shortly therafter. More than a year passed before an investigation started, and that investigation has been going on for more than three years. It's been so long and the underlying "sin" so minor that the Pentagon apparently forgot about it until yesterday.