Maybe! Probably he should have known better, but that's beside the point. One can end up in jail by simply hiring nationals from sanctioned countries. This case is more clearcut in comparison. She was actually involved in exporting American technology to Iran.
Hmm. You keep forgetting the important bit. Let me help you out again.
"One can end up in jail by simply hiring nationals from sanctioned countries and then giving them access to documents pertaining to US military technology."
This doesn't just happen to any random employer or any random professor. It happens when you are working for the DoD and you do something you shouldn't. If you don't want to run afoul of such laws, be better informed or don't take government contracts.
>and then giving them access to documents pertaining to US military technology
Not true! Once a technology is deemed to fall under ITAR or EAR, the export regulations kick in. Doesn't matter if the technology belongs to the government, a large company, a startup, or a university lab. And for obvious reasons, sometimes people are not aware this fact.
Random technology does not fall under ITAR or EAR. They are specific regulations that are pertinent to a very particular industry. If you are building military defense technology, you should probably be familiar those regulations and act accordingly.
"Exporting" technology for these sorts of legal purposes can be as simple as allowing a foreign national to see a document in passing. Punishment can range from "good job admitting it promptly" to decades in prison.
The allegations surrounding Huawei are much more substantial than that - the export of equipment for building serious internet infrastructure. An example of past allegations:
> Meng isn't a stranger to issues with sanctions. In 2013, Reuters found that Meng served on the board of Skycom Tech, a company that offered to sell HP equipment to Iran in late 2010 with Huawei's apparent blessing -- 13 pages of the proposal were marked as "Huawei confidential." The deal reportedly never went through, but it could have landed at least Huawei and Skycom in trouble. It's unclear if the arrest has a connection to the 2010 sale or is based solely on separate allegations.
If a deal like that went through, that's a pretty intuitive and straightforward violation of sanctions.
