International Law

US Professor Convicted of Sharing Secrets With Chinese

By Stan

This kind of story makes for great headlines, but once you dig in to the details, it becomes quite obvious that this was not an espionage case, the professor was not selling defense secrets, etc. In fact, the more I read about the case, the more sympathetic I become. On the other hand, the law seems to be pretty clear here and, unfortunately, he tried to cover all this up after it happened.

Anyway, the facts (h/t Trade Lawyers Blog):

On July 1, 2009, 72 year old retired University of Tennessee professor John Reece Roth was sentenced to four (4) years in prison for illegal exports of military technical information which resulted from him ignoring the deemed export rule. Prof. Roth was convicted on September 3, 2008 by a jury in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee of conspiring with Atmospheric Glow Technologies, Inc. (AGT) to unlawfully exporting fifteen different ?defense articles? to a citizen of the People?s Republic of China, in violation of the Arms Export Control Act (?AECA?), 22 U.S.C. § 2778.

Under the terms of [his] contract [with AGT], Roth was prohibited from sharing sensitive data with foreign nationals. Additionally, in 2006 the University?s Export Control Officer warned Roth about his obligations to keep such data guarded. Despite this clear warning, Roth took his laptop containing project plans to China with him. While there, he also asked a colleague to send him an email with data about the project to the email account of a Chinese colleague. Upon receipt, Roth shared the contents with that Chinese colleague. Further deemed export violations arose because Roth had two foreign students work with him on the project ? Xin Dia of China and Sirous Nourgostar of Iran - without government knowledge or approval.

So he broke protocol by bringing a laptop overseas that had sensitive data, he used an outside email account while overseas, and the owner of that account had access to the information sent to that account.

OK, his bad. But the guy is 72 years old, after all. Maybe they can cut him some slack with the IT stuff.

I will admit, though, that if you are going to share sensitive data with students, choosing a Chinese and an Iranian is not the smartest move.

Good luck, professor.

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Full post as published by China Hearsay on August 01, 2009 (boomark / email).