> "Discrimination. Racially profiled. He didn't have any business asking me what country I was from"
Actually, if it would be illegal to sell the technology to an Iranian, and you're speaking the official language of Iran, then it would make a lot of sense for them to ask you if you're an Iranian citizen. Clearly the manager misunderstood and misapplied the policy, but this is not "racial profiling". It's linguistic profiling, and it's the only reasonable way to enforce the export law.
> It's linguistic profiling, and it's the only reasonable way to enforce the export law.
BS. I'd say it's more reasonable to check a billing address. Speaking the language of a country that we have export restrictions on is not a reasonable filter.
The responsibility is to not sell merchandise in Iran, not to refuse sale of merchandise in America based on nationality. Apple isn't playing the role of an exporter here.
That's not relevant. Th U.S. export restriction does not apply to language, ethnicity, country of origin, etc. It applies to _sending_ export restricted items to (in this case) Iran.
Any sale at a brick-and-mortar store in the U.S. does not constitute export. Apple, and the store are safe from legal liability.
edit - hmm, as pointed out elsewhere, there does seem to be some cases where selling to an individual is still restricted.
Sounds like everyone who has ever sold a computer needs a new way of moving their wares if this is really a concern. ;) That or, every sales rep needs to be trained to recognize Farsi and distinguish the Iranian dialects from the other places we don't have trade restrictions on.
A guide to the distinguishing characteristics of the Spanish spoken in Cuba should also be de rigueur for sales staff as well, lest an iPad slip into the hands of the Castros. I suppose that might be problematic in parts of Miami, but I guess you have to be willing to throw these kinds of freedoms under the bus to ensure that Cuban agents have absolutely no way to get their hands on our precious technology.
Yeah, wouldn't want the commies getting an edge over us in electronics production, no siree. Hey, it's a lucky thing that Apple's American, otherwise the Chinese might be able to get their hands on this kind of advanced doohickey, and then where would we be?.
That's sort of stretching the bounds of the word "reasonable" :)
The law here seems to be over-broad. Retailers should be able to sell to anyone in their stores and not be held responsible for what someone may or may not do with it once it leaves their store.
Alternatively, I guess they could do ID and background checks, handgun-shopping style.
What they do with it once it leaves is not the concern. The mere sale of export-controlled material to a foreign person is prohibited. It doesn't matter what they would do with it, because it's the transfer of technology to them that is prohibited.
You should think of this law in the same way as the fact that you can't offer someone a job without verifying their legal work status. It's not "profiling", because it is your responsibility to ascertain that you are not breaking the law. You should positively verify this with everyone.
The problem is that the law is being applied to completely mainstream consumer items, not ballistic missile technology or something.
> The mere sale of export-controlled material to a foreign person is prohibited.
Let me get this straight.. you're saying if an Iranian, a Cuban, or a Libyan person walks into Walmart and buys a $300 Windows PC with Bitlocker on it, that Walmart has committed a Federal crime?
I can build a crude missile guidance system using PS3s. I'm not sure about iPads, but I'd wager one is looking at a similar situation. Still think this is ridiculous, however - a check of residency should have been between observing someone speaking Farsi and denying the sale.
You could do better than a "crude" guidance system with a lot of computers less sophisticated than a PS3. I'd imagine netbooks and barebones Atom PCs are way more practical in terms of running code and more than powerful enough to do the job. But either way, Iran doesn't need to buy technology from the US, considering they can just buy anything they want from China.
As a european company want to launch our satellite on a Chinese rocket. It will leave here sealed in an environmental shroud and go up on their rocket without ever leaving our sight. But because it contains made in USA components = denied export of restricted technology.
Ok so we will design and build the satellite in China allowing them full access to all the technology and giving them a leg up in the production of this kind of payload = no problem.
And Chinasat 6B is now happily broadcasting crap to the people of china
<strike>Selling to any customer at a store in Alpharetta, Georgia, USA is NOT "exporting to Iran", which is the actual prohibition, nor is it a reasonable interpretation of that.</strike>
edit: Guess I'm wrong, see post mentioning § 734.2(2)(ii) below.
yes if you speak Farsi and you are from Iran it is safe to say that you are an Iranian. I must also add that this girl probably speaks better English than Farsi. However to conclude that this person is buying this item to go to Iran is not a good assumption. that is like saying every Spanish speaking person that is from Cuba is going to go to Cuba in the next year or two.
It's linguistic profiling, and it's the only reasonable way to enforce the export law.
Only if you are being a completely stupid and bigoted bastard. Otherwise the only sane way to enforce an export law if you are a company, is to not deliver items to that country.
Everything outside that is up to governmental customs and border control and no court would enforce not selling IPads to Americans who are born in Iran and speak Farsi. Otherwise it is nothing less than apartheid.
The policy quoted states:
the exportation, sale or supply from the U.S. to Iran of any Apple goods is strictly prohibited without authorization by the U.S. government.
It does not say you are not allowed to sell them to people who speak Farsi, even if they were born in Iran. It just says that Apple is not allowed to send them out of the country. You could possibly also claim that you are not allowed to sell directly to current Iranian citizens, as they could be said to represent Iran, although this would still be reasonably open to question, especially if they have a green card, which are available to current Iranian citizens.
Selling something to someone in a shop who can speak in a language other than english and who was born somewhere else doesn't qualify as suspicion of violating an export restriction, unless you have such appallingly lousy pattern recognition that you really shouldn't be working in a shop in the first place, or in extreme cases, even be allowed out without supervision just in case you get run over while talking to a tree because you thought it was the local dentist as the leaves were the same shade of green as his favourite hat.
[edit] also, ipads, while shiny, are not of the same export class as 'nucular wessels'. I think this might be that pattern recognition problem we've been talking about. Have you been remembering to take your pills at the right time?
Um from the article The iPad was to be a gift for her cousin who lives in Iran
In other words they were actually going to break export restrictions. Perhaps they accidentally mentioned this to the Apple associate, but not to the reporter? Because "I'm getting this for my cousin in Iran" may sound innocent but would actually force the associate to not sell the item.
She said she was buying it for her Iranian friend - that's enough to reasonably suspect.
ps. The state dept doesn't do reasonable - check the small print you need to agree to before downloading something as potentially lethal as a Dell mouse driver.
She said she was buying it for her Iranian friend - that's
enough to reasonably suspect.
No, that's reason to inform them that they are not allowed to do that. Tell them they would be breaking the law if they did that and could go to jail. If they insist on buying the item, it is out of your hands. If they still explicitly acknowledge they are intent on breaking the law, you may be required to inform the feds, but that's it.
I would reasonably suspect that the person might need a phone while they are studying here. Your view of the law seems to be that it is something dictated over you, rather than something we all make up, mostly in court.
Racial profiling is wrong even if it is effective. That is the opinion of many who are opposed to it. Just because something is effective doesn’t mean it should be done (e.g. killing every criminal is extremely effective in pushing the relapse rate all the way down).
That’s what those who respond with “But it’s effective!” to racial profiling just do not get.
To clarify: racial profiling means using someone's race in place of legitimate evidence. In the case of this export rule, though, speaking the official language of an embargoed country sure sounds like legitimate reason to take further action.
Most Farsi speakers are from Iran. Most people from Iran speak Farsi. It's completely legitimate to assume that someone speaking Farsi is at least from Iran, and may reasonably be a visiting Iranian national.
The mistake in this situation was that the manager applied the rule to anybody from Iran, and ignored the person's US residence and citizenship.
It is at least very similar. Also, from the point of view of those who are opposed to it, racial profiling would still be wrong if it were effective (i.e. if race could actually provide evidence).
There's a number of reasons why racial profiling is considered wrong. Two of the biggest ones are that a) race is something that cannot be controlled, it is not a choice, and discrimination based on innate characteristics is wrong; and b) it's not effective.
However, language is a choice. Language is something that can be controlled. If you're being discriminated against because your language is a very strong indicator that you are a foreign national from an embargoed country, then it's really hard to say that linguistic profiling is wrong, because the two biggest objections to racial profiling don't apply.
Language is very much not a choice. I would love to be able to speak English without making it obvious that English is not my native language – but I can’t. It’s very, very hard to be able to do that. People will always know that I didn’t grow up with English. People will always suspect that I wasn’t born in any English-speaking country.
Other characteristics that serve for racial profiling might be harder to change (some might not be changeable at all) but they are still in principle the same. (Someone wearing clothing that is more typical elsewhere could much easier change his or her clothing than I can get rid of my accent. That doesn’t, however, exclude the possibility of racial profiling based on clothing.)
Nobody's talking about discrimination based on whether it sounds like you're a native speaker. The important factor was the specific language you're speaking, not the fluency in it. If you speak English poorly, well, millions of other people in this country do too, so who cares. But if you're speaking Farsi, then it's perfectly reasonable to suspect that you're an Iranian citizen.
Actually, if it would be illegal to sell the technology to an Iranian, and you're speaking the official language of Iran, then it would make a lot of sense for them to ask you if you're an Iranian citizen. Clearly the manager misunderstood and misapplied the policy, but this is not "racial profiling". It's linguistic profiling, and it's the only reasonable way to enforce the export law.