At 05:31 PM 3/19/2015, Pete Resnick wrote:
On 3/19/15 2:54 PM, Michael StJohns wrote:
Version -06 of draft-farresnickel-harassment has this small phrase that was
added in this version:
Any definition of
harassment prohibited by an applicable law can be
subject to this set of
procedures.
This was added at the behest of the attorneys that did the legal review.
I find "prohibited by an applicable law" to be somewhat problematic and
overreaching.
This should be removed. If something is a violation of applicable law, then
the folks responsible for that law should deal with it, not us. We should be
dealing with harassment that impinges on the IETFs creation of standards and
not with harassment that has little or no nexus with the IETF.
You have misread the sentence (for which I don't blame you; see below). It is
not talking about dealing with acts that are violations of local law. What it
says is that the procedures in this document *can* be applied to an act that
falls under the definition of harassment that appears in a local law. That is,
if a local law says that harassment includes commenting on the stripe pattern
of someone's shoes, a person *may* bring a complaint of harassment to the
Ombudsteam and ask that these procedures be used.
I did not think that the wording was particularly clear, but it is the wording
that the attorneys felt would be legally useful.
No - I read the sentence in black and white. What it says that the definition
of harassment in an "applicable" law can be used as the definition of
harassment for the IETF process.
An applicable law includes: local law, law affecting the corporation (e.g. I
think Delaware for the IETF or various other corporations), and other laws
where legal entity claims personal jurisdiction over the participants -
specifically the complainer/responder.
E.g. consider two IETF participants who are citizens of country A. One
participant lives in country A, the second is a dual national of Country A and
Country B. The laws of country A say that is harassment for any citizen to
question any other citizen about their beliefs with respect to the might and
grandeur of Country A. And Country A asserts personal jurisdiction for this
law on each and every citizen no matter where located.
What exactly does these two participants arguing about Country A politics have
to do with IETF standards creation?
This is not an example chosen at random - and feel free to substitute religious
arguments for politics to get an equally viable situation.
My specific problem with the cited language is that it has NOTHING to do with
actually getting standards created and there is no reason for the IETF to
involve itself in purely legalistic issues.
Mike
pr
--
Pete Resnick <http://www.qualcomm.com/~presnick/>
Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. - +1 (858)651-4478