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Re: Request for community guidance on issue concerning a future meeting of the IETF

2009-09-23 13:34:26
At Wed, 23 Sep 2009 10:15:05 -0700 (PDT),
Ole Jacobsen wrote:


On Wed, 23 Sep 2009, Eric Rescorla wrote:

I'm sorry, I don't see the difference between (a) and (c). Either our
activities violate the language of the contract or they don't. You say
that you don't agree that our activities violate the language. If so,
that's good news, but it would help if you shared your analysis so
that people who are concerned can come to the same conclusion as you.

A litte bit of context is always helpful. Notice that the first 
sentence in the clause says "...defamation against the Government 
of the People's Republic of China..."

Discussing encryption and its uses, for example, is not defamation fo 
any government unless you set it up as laundry list of "what's wrong
with this country" (for any value of country) which isn't something
you typically do at the IETF.

Uh, that clause is ORed with other clauses:

   "Should the contents of the Group's activities, visual or audio
   presentations at the conference,or printed materials used at the
   conference (which are within the control of the Client) contain
   any defamation against the Government of the People's Republic
   of China, or show any disrespect to the Chinese culture, or
             ^^                                             ^^
   violates any laws of the People's Republic of China or feature
                                                       ^^ 
   any topics regarding human rights or religion without prior
   approval from the Government of the People's Republic of China,
   the Hotel reserves the right to terminate the event on the spot
   and/or ask the person(s) who initiates or participates in any or
   all of the above action to leave the hotel premises immediately.

So, this isn't really that useful context for the rest of the
paragraph. To take the example of encryption, Ithink people
were arguing that it was a topic "regarding human rights".

With that said, it's not clear to me that saying "China's policy
of censoring the Internet sucks" isn't defamation. 


a) Not discuss our usual topics
b) Stage a political rally

The offending hotel clause, simply put, is a reminder of b.

Now I'm really confused, because *this* sounds like my alternative
(b) above. 

Perhaps what you're saying here is that (1) the contract doesn't 
prohibit these activities and (2) even if if did, our counterparties 
can be trusted not to interpret it in a way we would find 
objectionable. If so, I have to say I don't find this particularly 
comforting: as I've seen no analysis to support (1) [and several 
analysis which suggest the contrary], and (2) relying on intentions 
rather than contract language seems like an extraordinarily unsafe 
practice given the costs to us of having a meeting cancelled (even 
if we're not on the hook for paying the hotel a bunch of money).

Any language in any law or contract in any context is subject to 
interpretation and judgement.

Sure.

I'll rephrase my question then:
Is your claim that you believe that the contract would not be
found in a court of law to cover the described activities?

-Ekr


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