Export Controls and Their Effect on Business Operations‪.‬

INTRODUCTION Despite his testimony that he did not intend to break the law, plasma physicist J. Reece Roth, a retired 70-year-old University of Tennessee professor, recently was convicted of exporting scientific know-how in violation of federal law. Roth had worked on U.S. Air Force contracts with a Knoxville technology company, Atmospheric Glow Technologies, to develop plasma-based guidance systems for unmanned surveillance vehicles (drones). Roth improperly shared sensitive information with his students from China and Iran and traveled overseas with electronic versions of that material on his computer. The Knoxville company and another scientist also pled guilty to related charges. Enforcement authorities have warned that there is heightened interest from China and the Middle East in obtaining this type of information from seemingly benign settings such as a university. Roth will be sentenced in early 2009 and may face more than a decade in prison (Johnson, 2008).