On Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 06:48:01PM -0400, John C Klensin wrote:
--On Thursday, March 19, 2015 18:15 -0400 "Joel M. Halpern"
<jmh(_at_)joelhalpern(_dot_)com> wrote:
...
PS: While one can indeed decline the advice of attorney, one
needs to be very sure of the reasons for the advice, and the
implications of declining, before doing so.
IANAL and have no clue about local laws in any of the places
where the IETF is scheduled to meet in the next few years, but
it is my understanding from a briefing or three that
anti-harassment and similar statutes and case law in some places
can make an organization legally complicit in the bad acts if
they have a policy or procedure and are asked to enforce local
rules and don't. I'd be curious (but don't need to know) if
that is part of what the attorneys had in mind, but, if it was,
that problematic language may offer significant protection to
the IETF.
There must be better ways to draft text to obtain such protection.
Given that there are many localities whose laws might apply, we might
not be able to write a policy that achieves that universally.
There are also multiple people involved in harassment cases (by
definition) who may have different perspectives of the events in
question, and who retain legal rights, including the right to file legal
complaints as to libel and slander.
This means that there are multiple competing interests and the IETF
might not always be able to escape all kinds of liability.
Even if there are no better ways to write that text, the motivation and
reasoning behind it still need to be expounded. And even then it might
not be the best idea. We may not be lawyers, but as it is our consensus
that is sought, we should not be treated like children.
Nico
--