Rob Smith’s Pennsylvania company, Acutec Precision Machining, makes inch-long fasteners that are used in the wings of airplanes. In 2006 he tried selling them abroad for the first time. The deal with an English company was worth a total of $897, and it could have landed him in jail. It turned out that unbeknownst to Smith, the buyer planned to sell the fasteners to the Romanian air force. By not reporting that to the U.S. government, Smith violated the 1976 Arms Export Control Act, which strictly controls sales of even the tiniest parts used in military equipment. Two years and $10,000 in legal fees later, Smith finally convinced officials that Acutec had meant no harm. “It was a stunner,” he says. “The U.S. government is treating the simplest nuts and brackets as if they were space-age software.” (…)
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