From: Brian E Carpenter
Private discussions
are sometimes a necessity, as is the ability to float what might
be stupid ideas without having them quoted for years as one's
firm position.
I have trouble imagining such tender feelings in anyone who should be
allowed to participate.
That's not quite the point. Both in an ad hoc group like Adminrest,
and in the IAB and IESG, it is entirely possible that in a discussion
of the real issues, something like the following would be said:
A: The real problem here is X, who simply can't do his/her job.
...
That misses what I tried to say as well as the objections that have
been raised. All of the various state sunshine laws have exceptions
for personnell, legal, and other matters that truly must be discussed
in private.
I won't reply in more detail to Margaret's note, except to say
that if the confidentiality clauses she quotes are used *except*
for the above sort of discussion, they're being misused IMHO.
As I wrote, since the Colorado Sunshine Law was enacted decades ago,
there have been many mini-scandals in which government officials have
been accuser of lying, often justly, about what they're talking about
behind closed doors. People who want political power often also want
to be gatekeepers of any and all information that they happen to find,
as well as needing to avoid having their decisions examined.
If you are saying that deliberations involving the administrative
reorganization should as secret as people seem to be saying they were,
because they included statements like "real problem here is X, who
simply can't do his/her job," then it sounds like one of those
mini-scandals. As far as I can tell, "X" in those discussions would
have been agencies instead of people. Besides, even if some Xs were
people, one of the uncomfortable parts of jobs serving public committees
is that performance reviews and so forth do not get nearly as private
as jobs elsewhere, even governments with sunshine laws.
Truth in advertising: I drafted the confidentality clause
in the IAB charter, which was of course last-called as a BCP.
Harald borrowed it for the IESG charter.
RFC 2850 says
The IAB publishes minutes of all its meetings on the Internet, and
conducts an open meeting at every IETF meeting. It publishes all its
findings as RFCs, Internet Drafts or messages to the IETF mailing
list. 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.
Those words in RFC 2850 giving the power of participants to close doors
are wrong, if only because they are not specific enough. You cannot
rely on committees to keep themselves open; that's why there are
sunshine laws and why you put that paragraph in RFC 2850. That those
words passed a last call does not mean that they are not subject to
reconsideration. Perhaps the NonCom should examine each claimed need
for confidentiality.
Feel free to call me stupid, but I cannot relate this reorganizaing
to personnel matters. You don't re-organize because an employee is
sluffing off. There are evidently financial matters, but those
particular financial matters also seem inappropriate for confidentiality.
I don't care about bureaucratic organizing and almost certainly would
not read published minutes of whatever. I don't see any issues that
aren't better handled by people other than me. Or until the supposed
need to keep stuff secret was invoked, I assumed there were no such
issues.
Vernon Schryver vjs(_at_)rhyolite(_dot_)com
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