Pentagon Demands Defense Distributed "Go Dark" Immediately,...DefDist claims to have compl

05-09-2013 • Forbes.com

On Thursday, Defense Distributed founder Cody Wilson received a letter from the State Department Office of Defense Trade Controls Compliance demanding that he take down the online blueprints for the 3D-printable “Liberator” handgun that his group released Monday, along with nine other 3D-printable firearms components hosted on the group’s website Defcad.org, while it reviews the files for compliance with export control laws for weapons known as the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, or ITAR. By uploading the weapons files to the Internet and allowing them to be downloaded abroad, the letter implies Wilson’s high-tech gun group may have violated those export controls.

“Until the Department provides Defense Distributed with final [commodity jurisdiction] determinations, Defense Distributed should treat the above technical data as ITAR-controlled,” reads the letter, referring to a list of ten CAD files hosted on Defcad that include the 3D-printable gun, silencers, sights and other pieces. “This means that all data should be removed from public acces immediately. Defense Distributed should review the remainder of the data made public on its website to determine whether any other data may be similarly controlled and proceed according to ITAR requirements.”

2 Comments in Response to Pentagon Demands Defense Distributed "Go Dark" Immediately,...DefDist claims to have compl

Comment by Chip Saunders

Entered on: 5/10/2013 1:51:33 PM

When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, "This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know," the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives. Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind has been hoodwinked; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything — you can't conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him Robert A. Heinlein (1940)

Comment by Powell Gammill

Entered on: 5/9/2013 3:12:41 PM

They will go after it as an illegally exported munition. This is what they went after Phil Zimmermann for with his Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) encryption program which he posted online years ago. Zimmermann then published the source code for PGP in a book via MIT Publishing and said 'First Amendment.'

They will have a problem with prosecuting this too: A six shot, soon to wear out .38 caliber handgun represents no threat to national security and a judge may not see the law's applicability. Still they will wail "It can pass through metal detectors your honor!" But as many schematics as were downloaded worldwide--like PGP--the cat is out of the bag---bite me.

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