Lets say I wanted to make a company like Lockhead Martin where I develop weapons and tools for the government. Beyond the obvious need for capital and materials, what would stop me from making that company? Do I need government sanctions? Do I need certain certifications?
Assuming the company is in the US, the answer is most certainly yes in one form or another. Otherwise you could make no law against private individuals owning such weapons, seeing as how a private individual can always declare him or herself to be a company and do things as such.
However, WHAT kind of sanctions and permits you have to get is a tough question and depends on what you want to make. I would start by filling out ATF Form 7 to apply for a Type 10 Federal Firearms License allowing one to make ‘destructive devices’. US Department of Commerce (I think) regulates export of generally “No-no” things like guidance systems and such.
I hope other dopers can add to this.
I assume to actually be able to bid on Government DoD contracts, you and your employees are going to have to pass a security clearance background check.
Your corporate security manager is going to need to get trained and certified in the relevent government security regulations, and you will need to conduct training (and refresher training, as required) in these security regulations for your employees.
Your going to have to implement physical security infrastructure and policies on your property. (Safe’s for classified documents, government approved shredders, some form of accountability system to track use and disposition of documents classified as secret and above.)
I think there’s a Stranger around here that can answer this but he’s seems to be tied up on some train.
It depends on exactly what you are producting. If you’re doing anything with explosives or ordnance, then you have to have the requisite certifications for handling and storage of whatever hazard class of material. If you plan on doing work that has a security classification, then you have to meet those requirements (See NISPOM, links at the bottom). If you’re doing something with encryption and communications, you’ll have to meet Federal encryption controls and ITAR. (Encyption technology is considered a “munition” by the federal government and thus regulated.) Similarly, all weapon systems, and anything that can be used as or as part of anything with a greater area of effect than a small arm may be subjected to ITAR regulations, including technical information which is only tangentially related to weapons or weapon systems. You also have to be careful about who you hire; depending on what you are working on, you may not be able to have foreign nationals, or even naturalized (but not American-born) citizens, depending on what kind of work you’re doing.
If you’re doing anything with nuclear weapons or materials, the level of circumspection becomes considerably tighter. Now you have to deal with the Department of Energy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. I don’t know if this is still true, but during the time of Project Orion, only government labs (Los Alamos National Laboratory and Lawrence Livermore National Laborator) were permitted to work on actual nuclear fission device designs, which required some creative loopholing to allow Ted Taylor and other physicists working on the propulsion system to continue work on Orion Whether this restriction is still in place I do not know, but you’d certainly need to have some approval and oversight by a government customer (most likely the DOE) to perform work pertaiing to nukes.
In short, nothing “stops” you from making a weapons company, and many are incorporated every year, mostly competing for subcontract work from the major prime contractors. But there are a bunch of hoops you have to jump through in order to do that work.
Stranger
I am not doubting that statement, but I would be interested in seeing a cite for a case where naturalized vs. natural-born matters for work or security related matters other than being the president.
I don’t know of any NISP requirements that would prevent this, but the prime contract requirements may be written such that it limits certain information only to someone born in the US. This weirded me out too, because I worked on one program in which a former boss (who holds a TS clearance but was born in another country) could not be privy to certain areas of information. I don’t have a cite and don’t know how common this is–heck, a large portion of the people working on the Manhattan Project were of German or Eastern European descent–but it does occur. I do know that there are some positions (probably analysis) in intelligence agencies (CIA, NSA, NRO) which require U.S. birth, presumably because of the difficulty validating background information for someone born or raised in another country.
Stranger
Oh, and you’re going to need mad PowerPoint skillz. I’m always amazed at how impressed people are about the bells and whistles of a presentation than they are about the actual information contained therein.
Stranger
So that’s why our marketing sometimes goes all out and creates 5 minute videos with a powerful soundtrack to convey half a sentence!
Thanks Stranger!