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

2009-10-12 17:01:29
+1

Cullen is not inquiring after social policy, he's asking what the practical constraints are likely to be if there is a meeting in China. This is a sensible question, worthy of a thoughtful, well-researched response.

>> I suspect you -- and most of the rest of us -- can't give a definitive answer to >> these questions for any other venue the IETF has ever met in. As a small >> example, I doubt many of us have a meaningful clue about the detailed impact of >> the US's Patriot Act as it changed basic freedoms's for citizens, nevermind
>> non-citizens.

The question isn't whether someone on this list has a definitive answer -- or anyone, really. The request was for appropriate due diligence to be done to estimate some parameters that are right now very uncertain. One could perform a similar analysis for other venues, but in most places where the IETF has met, the level of initial uncertainty has been much lower due to the relative clarity of precedent in constitutional, legislative, and judicial terms.

(P.S.: Could we make a corollary to Godwin's Law for the PATRIOT Act?)

--Richard





Scott Lawrence wrote:
On Sun, 2009-10-11 at 15:31 -0700, Dave CROCKER wrote:
Cullen Jennings wrote:
I carefully stayed away from social policy issues
1) What is political speech in China?
...
 >> 2) Are there any special rules about publishing and broadcasting? I
...
 >> 5) When discussing what I think of as technical issues, many
 >> participants regularly treat Taiwan and PRC as two different countries
...
 >>      Could any discussions like
 >> this be viewed as political speech? What are the rules on this?


This is your version of staying away from social policy?

If it is, I suspect that what is first needed are lessons in the nature of social and political policy.

I suspect you -- and most of the rest of us -- can't give a definitive answer to these questions for any other venue the IETF has ever met in. As a small example, I doubt many of us have a meaningful clue about the detailed impact of the US's Patriot Act as it changed basic freedoms's for citizens, nevermind non-citizens.

Really, Cullen, it's difficult to overemphasize just how basic a mistake it is for us to pursue your questions.

I don't think it's helpful for you to repeatedly try to shut down
attempts to get answers to questions that many people on the list have
repeatedly said that they think are relevant and important.

I don't think that Cullen has asked for opinions from anyone on whether
the rules in China are right or wrong - that would certainly be
discussing social policy.  What he has asked for is discussion of how
they will impact the normal functioning of an IETF meeting, and I for
one agree that the answers are important in that current context.


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