Qing Li, a Chinese permanent resident in the United States, was recently indicted for attempting to export piezoresistive accelerometers to China without a license from the State Department's Directorate of Defense Trade Controls ("DDTC"). Li woman never received the accelerometers, but was arrested as she was boarding a flight to China at JFK Airport.
Piezoresistive accelerometers have a number of non-military uses, including automobile crash testing, flutter testing, and biomedical motion studies. Nor are all accelerometers designated defense articles. The accelerometers in question were Endevco accelerometers. The Endevco website has a listing of available piezoresistive accelerometers and detailed specifications. Not one of the data sheets on the available accelerometers indicated that the particular accelerometer required a State Department license for export or that it was a military accelerometer. (Source: Exportlawblog.com, Oct 22, 20070.