AES Broadcast  09/25/2008          Broadcast  #  2008045

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AESDirect Program Outage September 30, 2008 for System Upgrades

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 **  This message is intended for AESDirect users only. **

Due to the new security upgrades coming to AESDirect and the 
implementation of mandatory use of the Automated Export System (AES) 
filings, the AESDirect system will be unavailable from 10:00pm EDT 
Tuesday, September 30, 2008 until 4:00am EDT Wednesday, October 1, 2008.

We strongly encourage you to file your shipments prior to this outage 
if possible. 
         
During this outage all AESDirect program filers may submit shipments 
under the AES Downtime Policy.  State Department licensable shipments 
can not be exported under the AES Downtime Policy and must be held until 
the connection is restored and an AES Internal Transaction Number (ITN) 
is received.  Once the connection is restored, all AESDirect program 
transactions for shipments that were exported under the AES Downtime 
Policy must be filed along with any new AES transactions. 

AESPcLink users are encouraged to continue creating and storing shipments
in a queue on their local computer for transmission when AESDirect
is brought back on-line.

If you utilize the AES Downtime Policy for export, please contact the 
port where you will export from. In lieu of the AES Proof of Filing 
Citation, please use the AES Downtime citation which consist of the 
phrase AESDOWN, your individual company's Filer ID, followed by the 
date. 

For example:  AESDOWN 123456789 09/28/08

Please see the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) web site for 
         further information on the AES Downtime Policy:

http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/trade/automated/aes/tech_docs/aestir/june04_intro/

 After 4:00am all AESDirect functionality will resume.

 For further information or questions, contact the U.S. Census Bureau's 
         AES Branch at 1-800-549-0595, menu option 1 or at [email protected]
         or online at www.census.gov/trade.