5 ms·
he shipped the manuals to russia through a third party to obscure his identity because he knew it was illegal. the reaction to the crime may have lacked propor
by SOMA_BOFH 5y ago
he shipped the manuals to russia through a third party to obscure his identity because he knew it was illegal.
the reaction to the crime may have lacked proportionality but there are more details to the story.
- op00to 5y agoMan what a bummer. The F16 is my favorite jet to fly in DCS. :(
- pbhjpbhj 5y agoIs there any suggestion that there was anything to learn from manuals being sold in eBay that wouldn't already be well known? Did the person selling the manuals get prosecuted? Was someone court martialed for releasing them?
- boomboomsubban 5y agoThe legality to own, sell, export, and import things can be different.
- devman0 5y agoThey were probably illegal to export under ITAR, but otherwise not classified, there are lots of items that fall in to that category.
- spython 5y agoThere are legitimate services commonly used to buy stuff from US sellers who don't want to deal with the complicated shipping to Russia and other countries. I doubt he had any intention to obscure his identity – the seller would just not sell to him directly.
- devman0 5y agoIt's only legitimate so long as it isn't used to circumvent ITAR. The seller would probably not sell to him directly because exporting flight manuals for military aircraft was paper work the seller didn't want to deal with. By obscuring his identity through a third party the buyer violated ITAR, the seller probably also did as well by not doing proper due diligence.
- spython 5y agoWould that not make the middle man service guilty, not the buyer who probably has no idea about US law?
- will4274 5y agoHe also promised (on the DCS forum) that he would not sell the material and then did so repeatedly to nationals from a variety of countries.