GAO Reports on Export of Communication-Disrupting Technology to Iran
The Government Accountability Office has issued a report on procedures, such as an interim rule, that the U.S. government is establishing to implement a procurement ban against firms that export communication-disrupting technology to Iran. While the ban is part of the 2010 Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act (CISADA), as of June 24, 2011, the government had identified no entities subject to the ban and GAO did not identify any firms that export technologies to the Iranian government for monitoring, filtering, and disrupting information and communications flows.
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GAO concludes that there are several possible reasons for the difficulty in identifying any such firms, including the lack of a clear distinction between technology exported to Iran to disrupt the free flow of information versus technology exported to Iran to support necessary and acceptable filtering and monitoring of communication. The GAO did not make any recommendations in this report.