To receive permission to export products that have dual uses – i.e., both commercial and military – manufacturers must supply the federal government with confidential information about the transactions. The plaintiffs in this case sought information from more than 10,000 applications under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), claiming that a significant lapse in the Export Administration Act could not be fixed by statutory language retroactively extending the date when the EAA was in effect.
The NAM filed an amicus brief in this case on July 26, 2002, urging the court to affirm a ruling that validated the FOIA exemption protecting the confidentiality of dual-use export license applications. Ultimately, the court ruled that the exemption was still valid even though the Export Administration Act had technically lapsed, since Congress intended its protections to remain in force under other authorities.