Ole Jacobsen wrote: > On Sat, 26 Sep 2009, Dean Willis wrote: >> Because China's policy on censoring the Internet sucks, and we have >> a moral and ethical responsibility to make the Internet available >> despite that policy. If this requires technology changes, then that >> technology is within our purview. If it requires operational >> changes, then those operational changes are within our purview. If >> it requires political changes, then those changes are within our >> purview. Governments with policies like the PRC's are the enemy, to >> be defeated by all means technical, operational, and political. This >> can lead to some heated statements. > > Dave beat me to it but: > > "We have a moral and ethical responsibility" ? Who is "we" here. Does > it include the several hundred folks from China who regularly > participate either in our meetings or online? The IETF, ISOC, and supporters thereof bear this responsibility. And yes, our associates from any nation share in this responsibility if they're participating earnestly and honestly in our work. If not, I suggest they leave now. > > Does the IETF charter require us to do this? Are we supposed to > overthrow governments as part of this? If so, do we have a ranked > list, or should we just do it alphabetically? The IETF charter says "Mission Statement: The mission of the IETF is (sic) make the Internet work better by producing high quality, relevant technical documents that influence the way people design, use, and manage the Internet." Government interference of the sort endorsed by the PRC does not make the Internet work better. Its impact is the opposite; it makes the Internet work worse. This requires a technical response from the IETF to counter. Yet these technical discussions are against the law of the PRC because they are in direct opposition to the intent of the PRC's government. Therefore, we should not be meeting there, or if we are meeting there, we should be focusing on the problem at hand, which is driven by PRC policy. > > Look, I am not in any way trying to defend the policy in question as > something I agree with, but I cannot agree that we as a GROUP should > be engaged in the politcal actions you suggest. Should we take a > stance on universal health care while we're at it? If we were the Universal Health Care Engineering Group, then that would be in our scope. We aren't, and it isn't. So PRC's other human rights violations, whatever they may or may not be (and I enjoy many fine products manufactured by political prisoners putatively subjected to slave labor in the work camps), are completely out of scope for the IETF. However, the relationship of the policies of PRC relative to the workings of the Internet are clearly directly within our scope and mission. ... > Regarding "agents" I have no way of evaluating that possibility and I > am not sure anyone can. > > This is why we asked you. Having some background in direct political action, I can assure you we'd be juicy targets for agents provacateurs. Heck, I'm on the IETF's side, and even I am tempted to take a whack at it since it's such a big, fat, easy, obvious target that would generate relatively high political yields for not all that much effort. We're like a cash-laden pinata hanging from the ceiling over a hockey rink where EVERBODY has a stick. -- Dean _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf