September 3rd, 2008
Do You Really Know Who Your Professor Is?
The students at University of Tennessee thought they did. But, as it turns out, the sleepy-eyed engineering professor was secretly exporting military information to an unidentified person in China.
It’s one thing to share research between two intellectuals or even two educational institutions. It’s a whole other ball game when a professor actually sells the information and violates one of those fancy anti-terrorism laws. The Arms Export Control Act requires any U.S. citizen to have a government-issued license before exporting any defense-related materials. Makes sense, since average Joe can’t seem to determine what should be kept within the border in the interest of national security. Or, in this case, throws out common sense to the highest Chinese bidder.
In this case, Dr. J. Reece Roth decided that the plasma technology designed to be deployed on the wings of drones operating as weapons or surveillance systems was a hot commodity. Hmm, that doesn’t seem like information one would really want to be distributed among foreign nationals. But, hey, what do I know about fusion engineering? Obviously, not that much, since I didn’t take a class from Dr. Roth.
It just goes to show that you never know who is truly standing behind that lectern.
