Hi Ole,
I'm afraid that results of the survey will *not* prove informative. The one
pertinent question in the survey assumes that we have a meeting in China, then
asks if the respondent, as an individual, would prefer to attend it. This is
very different from asking if we, as a community, should hold such a meeting
given that we, as a community, are required to sign away our right to free
speech.
For your reference, the question is: You may have other reasons for not
attending the meeting, but would this contract provision by itself prevent you
from attending the meeting?
Thanks,
Yaron
Date: Fri, 18 Sep 2009 19:17:10 -0700 (PDT)
From: Ole Jacobsen <ole(_at_)cisco(_dot_)com>
Subject: Re: Request for community guidance on issue concerning a
future meeting of the IETF
To: Theodore Tso <tytso(_at_)mit(_dot_)edu>
Cc: iaoc(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org, ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org, Robert Elz
<kre(_at_)munnari(_dot_)OZ(_dot_)AU>
Message-ID:
<Pine(_dot_)GSO(_dot_)4(_dot_)63(_dot_)0909181905390(_dot_)25806(_at_)pita(_dot_)cisco(_dot_)com>
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
On Fri, 18 Sep 2009, Theodore Tso wrote:
OTOH, if there is a legal agreement which must be signed which clearly
impacts the free speach rights of IETF attendees, past a certain
level, I think it is valid for us as a community to decide that maybe
using such a venue might not be the path of wisdom.
Which is why we asked you :-)
Whether or not the situation "on the ground" in Beijing is likely to
rise to that level, I am not sure. Maybe people are right in that
the authorities understand that if they were to be unreasonable,
it's highly likely that it would be widely publicized and it would
be a major black eye for them. On the other hand, having heard
stories (admittedly many years ago), about someone on an
international assignment in China who called his wife and talked to
her in Portugese (since that was her native language), only to have
a heavily Chinese-accented voice break into the line to demand,
"speak in English", I'd be feeling rather cautious about going to
China and would probably feel that I would want to be very careful
about how I spoke and behaved while in that country, far more than
most other civilized parts of the world --- which wouldn't make it
to be a terribly pleasant place to visit.
I think that if you would ask the thousands of businessmen who visit
China every day you would not hear such stories in 2009. Having just
come from a meeting in Beijing (APNIC 28), I can certainly attest to
the fact that nobody worries about what they say in public or private
and there isn't an army of listeners ready to jump on you (at least as
far as I could tell). Of course, if you wander down to a certain
square and unroll a banner, it would probably get you arrested before
anyone had a chance to read it. Since that's not typically something
we do in the IETF, the IAOC does not feel it would impact our ability
to have a good meeting.
The result of the survey will be informative, I am sure.
Ole
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