Ole Jacobsen wrote:
On Sat, 26 Sep 2009, Dean Willis wrote:
Because China's policy on censoring the Internet sucks, and we have
a moral and ethical responsibility to make the Internet available
despite that policy. If this requires technology changes, then that
technology is within our purview. If it requires operational
changes, then those operational changes are within our purview. If
it requires political changes, then those changes are within our
purview. Governments with policies like the PRC's are the enemy, to
be defeated by all means technical, operational, and political. This
can lead to some heated statements.
Dave beat me to it but:
"We have a moral and ethical responsibility" ? Who is "we" here. Does
it include the several hundred folks from China who regularly
participate either in our meetings or online?
The IETF, ISOC, and supporters thereof bear this responsibility. And
yes, our associates from any nation share in this responsibility if
they're participating earnestly and honestly in our work. If not, I
suggest they leave now.
Does the IETF charter require us to do this? Are we supposed to
overthrow governments as part of this? If so, do we have a ranked
list, or should we just do it alphabetically?
The IETF charter says "Mission Statement: The mission of the IETF is
(sic) make the Internet work better by producing high quality, relevant
technical documents that influence the way people design, use, and
manage the Internet."
Government interference of the sort endorsed by the PRC does not make
the Internet work better. Its impact is the opposite; it makes the
Internet work worse. This requires a technical response from the IETF to
counter. Yet these technical discussions are against the law of the PRC
because they are in direct opposition to the intent of the PRC's
government. Therefore, we should not be meeting there, or if we are
meeting there, we should be focusing on the problem at hand, which is
driven by PRC policy.
Look, I am not in any way trying to defend the policy in question as
something I agree with, but I cannot agree that we as a GROUP should
be engaged in the politcal actions you suggest. Should we take a
stance on universal health care while we're at it?
If we were the Universal Health Care Engineering Group, then that would
be in our scope. We aren't, and it isn't. So PRC's other human rights
violations, whatever they may or may not be (and I enjoy many fine
products manufactured by political prisoners putatively subjected to
slave labor in the work camps), are completely out of scope for the
IETF. However, the relationship of the policies of PRC relative to the
workings of the Internet are clearly directly within our scope and mission.
...
Regarding "agents" I have no way of evaluating that possibility and I
am not sure anyone can.
This is why we asked you.
Having some background in direct political action, I can assure you we'd
be juicy targets for agents provacateurs. Heck, I'm on the IETF's side,
and even I am tempted to take a whack at it since it's such a big, fat,
easy, obvious target that would generate relatively high political
yields for not all that much effort. We're like a cash-laden pinata
hanging from the ceiling over a hockey rink where EVERBODY has a stick.
--
Dean
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