On Sun, Dec 17, 2023 at 1:17 PM S Moonesamy <sm+ietf@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hi Mark, Mirja,
At 04:32 PM 15-12-2023, Mark Nottingham wrote:
>This is an appeal to human rights impacts, not impact on the
>Internet infrastructure. While I suspect most IETF participants care
>deeply about human rights, no one comes to the IETF or IAB to get a
>read on the human rights impacts of an action. Those who are
>designing and implementing the laws you express concern about
>already have access to a variety of resources (internal and
>external) with far more expertise regarding human rights impact.
Philip raised some points about civil liberties in his reply to your
email [1]. Getting back to what Mark wrote, my primary interest in
one or more working groups is not about human rights. I doubt that,
for example, the governments of the United States or the United
Kingdom would be sending their employees to an IETF meeting to
discuss human rights. It is about the same for
commercially-sponsored employees.
Why would you make that assumption?
The United States has become the predominant global superpower on account of its soft-power strategy. It wasn't the pentagon that won the cold war, it was blue jeans, rock music and TV soaps. It was President Carter who realized the power of making human rights the core of the West's case against the Soviet Union and Ronald Reagan who doubled down on that strategy.
There are IAB participants in the countries in which those laws are
being proposed. Those participants have the ability, if I am not
mistaken, to provide input to their elected representatives if they
have any concerns in regards to their rights.
Mark mentioned internal resources. The countries mentioned in the
IAB statement would likely have in-country experts on the subject of
human rights. Those experts would likely have access to
funding. Why would the country need external help from the IAB on
human rights?
The IAB statement is pointing out that a proposed government policy runs directly counter to the technical requirements of an existing government policy.
Regards,
S. Moonesamy
1. It took me a few hours to understand the perspective from which he
was arguing.
