On Fri, Oct 09, 2009 at 01:44:17PM -0700, Ole Jacobsen wrote:
On Fri, 9 Oct 2009, Theodore Tso wrote:
I don't think anyone is actually saying this. What folks are in
fact saying is that out of _respect_ of Chinese local law, which
apparently makes illegal many things which normally would be
discussed at IETF metings, maybe it wouldn't be a good idea to hold
an IETF meeting in China.
I don't think that it is "apparent" that "many things which would
normally be discussed at IETF meetings" would be illegal to discuss
in China, but, yes, that is the core of the argument here.
Well, one of the big problems with China is that given that exactly
how its local laws will be applied isn't crisply defined, and a huge
amount of discretion can be applied by a mandarins (bureaucrats) or in
the case of the contract, by a hotel employee. Worse yet, its laws
are very vague (where "insulting" Chinese culture can be enough to get
a blog to get "haromonized" or "censored") --- and by the wording of
the hotel contract, enough to get us thrown out on our ear. And given
that "human rights" is a very expansive term, and that "privacy", such
sa what might be described by the Geopriv wg could very will infringe
on the verboten "human rights" restriction, it's very hard for
*anyone* to give any guarantees.
Which is why I used the word "apparently" --- not in the sense of
something being "apparent", but in the sense of "maybe, we're not
sure, and by keeping things vague the Chinese government is probably
hoping that people will self-censor themselves because of the inherent
vagueness of words such as 'show any disrespect or defamation against
the Government of the People's Republic of China'".
- Ted
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