Re: Sunshine Law

Hi Brian,

At 2:23 PM +0200 10/23/04, Brian E Carpenter wrote:
> This is, I believe, one reason why our process includes a recall procedure.
> It's interesting that this has never been exercised, but I think its
> existence already puts the IESG and IAB on notice. However, it's always
> going to be a judgement call which decisions are purely operational and
> get made quickly by the I*, and which ones deserve debate in the sunshine.
There are several important things that your response glosses over...

Secrecy and closed meetings are not simply a matter of expedience in 
the IETF, they are supported by our prevailing culture and documented 
rules.  We currently, and quite explicitly, expect our leadership to 
use their judgement in deciding what the community should and should 
not be told.
It is a fact that the IAB and IESG regularly hold meetings, hold 
mailing list discussions, make decisions and/or receive information 
that is not shared with the rest of the community.  This is a 
perfectly valid way to run an organization (most commercial 
corporations are run this way, for example), but it is not (at least 
in California!) considered to be a reasonable way to run a 
government.   And, I personally do not think that this is the way we 
should be running the IETF.
To illustrate the fact that the IETF is not organized or run in 
accordance with the "Sunshine Law" today, let me give some examples:
RFC 3710 (the IESG charter) says:

   The IESG also has private group discussions, using any means of its
   choice, including email.  Records of those discussions are not
   required to be made public.  This is believed to be vital in
   permitting a frank exchange of viewpoints and worries, allowing
   people to speak out freely on topics known to be controversial, and
   permitting people to change their minds based on presented arguments.
   Decisions and their justification are a matter of public record.

What this paragraph says is that our IESG deliberations are allowed 
to be secret.  Only our decisions and their justifications are 
recorded and accessible to the community.  And, in fact, we make many 
decisions that are not recorded, and others that are recorded without 
enough detail to understand their justifications.
RFC 3710 then goes on to offer even more reasons why the IESG, in 
particular, might decide to hold a discussion of which the community 
is not informed:
   However, discussion of personnel matters and possibly legal and
   financial matters may sometimes be required to be kept confidential,
   and the chair may, with the consent of the full members, exclude
   liaison and ex officio members whose presence is seen as
   inappropriate for the particular discussion.

Although RFC 2850 (the IAB charter) does not empower the IAB to have 
any "private group discussions" that are not minuted, it does say 
basically the same things about personnel, financial or legal matters:
   However, discussion of personnel matters and possibly legal and
   financial matters may sometimes be required to be kept confidential,
   and the chair may, with the consent of the full members, exclude
   liaison and ex officio members from such discussions.

The passive voice in these sections is a bit ambiguous, but it is 
clear that the IETF Chair and IAB Chair believe that they can jointly 
require that the IAB and IESG keep information regarding legal or 
financial matters confidential.  They apparently also believe that it 
is appropriate for the Chairs to keep some information confidential 
from the IESG or IAB.
The IETF Chair and the IAB Chair have, on several occasions chosen to 
hold substantive discussions or make decisions in small groups that 
exclude most of the IAB and IESG.  These groups are sometimes 
justified based on prevailing thinking regarding directorates which 
allows the leadership (at least IESG members) to hand-pick small 
groups of people for advice, etc.
Brian, I believe that you and John Klensin were both members of one 
such group -- the IAB Advisory Committee that did the initial 
AdminRest work.  As far as I know, your meetings were not minuted and 
your mailing lists archives were not open, although you did produce a 
public report in RFC 3716.  Is it your belief that the public report 
includes all of the substantive information that you received, and 
all of the substantive issues that you discussed as members of that 
advisory team?  Or did the team make some decisions regarding what 
the community did or did not need to know?  Is there any reason why 
your mailing list archives were not made publicly accessible?  What 
it even considered?
I do not believe that, today, we can recall our leaders for using 
their judgement in accordance with our prevailing culture and 
documented rules.  So, if we want the IETF to be more open and 
transparent, I think that we need to change those rules or pass a new 
rule that overrides them.
We, the IETF community, need to decide how we want the IETF to be 
run.  I personally believe that we should make substantial changes to 
our culture and rules by adopting our own version of the Sunshine Law 
and holding ourselves to that standard, but I am not of the opinion 
that this would be a small change or that it would be easy to affect 
this change quickly.
The community may very well decide that our current culture and rules 
are appropriate and that we don't want to change them, but let's not 
kid ourselves into believing that our current organization is run in 
a truly open and transparent manner.
Margaret





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