I have some small issues with the wording abstracted below. Hopefully it is
clearer
(or at least less ambiguous) generally, than it is to me.
In the (green) text below, it is ambiguous as to what "prohibited by applicable
law"
applies to - the definition, or the harassment it defines. Intuitively, I
suspect that
it is meant to apply to the harassment.
But it is not impossible for some applicable law(s) to explicitly limit the
definition of
harassment, and this might be used by malicious individuals to excuse behavior
that
might clearly be considered harassment in almost any other context.
I don't know (for certain) about the legal issues with the precise wording, but
I'm
reasonably sure this could be worded more clearly. For example:
"Any form of harassment defined as prohibited by applicable law can be subject
to this set of procedures."
As for why this may have been suggested in the first place, it is blatantly
obvious
that any organization that allows harassment (however it may be defined) is also
likely to be held accountable for it as the person (or persons) who perpetrate
the
harassment itself.
For that reason, I suspect that this was suggested in order to provide a degree
of
protection for the IETF, by indicating that an individual that feels they are
being
harassed (again by any definition with any applicable legal basis) can avail
them-
selves of the procedures being defined.
This does not seem unreasonable to me.
--
Eric
From: ietf [mailto:ietf-bounces(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org] On Behalf Of Pete Resnick
Sent: Thursday, March 19, 2015 5:32 PM
To: Michael StJohns
Cc: ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
Subject: Re: I-D.farrresnickel-harassment - timebomb
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.
pr
--
Pete Resnick
<http://www.qualcomm.com/~presnick/><http://www.qualcomm.com/~presnick/>
Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. - +1 (858)651-4478