Sorry - over generalizing here - but I think fairly. Change "PRC" to "this hotel under the terms of the contract as presented in the initial contract" and add "without violating the terms of the contract to the end of the statement" and consider what I said again. A plain text reading of those terms would - I believe - ban these types of discussions. But I'll mostly stand by my original comments given that the contract terms as presented to us, were presented to the hotel by the government and are there to enforce a government requirement. If the terms were simply those imposed by this site, and we could get other terms at other locations in the country - let's do that. But those terms are imposed on the host by the hotel at the behest of the government and are apparently not negotiable regardless of which site in the country we choose. At 01:36 PM 9/20/2009, Olaf Kolkman wrote: >On Sep 20, 2009, at 7:18 PM, Michael StJohns wrote: > >> >>Some 15 years ago, the IETF had a plenary session on the NSA's >>CLIPPER chip initiative. That was a hot topic of the time and was a >>great example of open discussion. >> >>That discussion could not be had at an IETF in the PRC. >> >>We've had various discussions on P2P systems and their ability to >>evade government restrictions. >> >>That discussion could not be had at an IETF in the PRC. >> >>We've had discussions on E164 and whether or not the owner of >>E164.ARPA could allocate a country code for Taiwan. >> >>That discussion could not be had at an IETF in the PRC. > > > >Mike, > >Do you have evidence that those items could not be discussed or do you >suspect that those items could not have been discussed? > > >--Olaf > > > > > >________________________________________________________ > >Olaf M. Kolkman NLnet Labs > Science Park 140, >http://www.nlnetlabs.nl/ 1098 XG Amsterdam > > > _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf