On Fri, Oct 09, 2009 at 01:44:17PM -0700, Ole Jacobsen wrote: > On Fri, 9 Oct 2009, Theodore Tso wrote: > > > > > I don't think anyone is actually saying this. What folks are in > > fact saying is that out of _respect_ of Chinese local law, which > > apparently makes illegal many things which normally would be > > discussed at IETF metings, maybe it wouldn't be a good idea to hold > > an IETF meeting in China. > > I don't think that it is "apparent" that "many things which would > normally be discussed at IETF meetings" would be illegal to discuss > in China, but, yes, that is the core of the argument here. Well, one of the big problems with China is that given that exactly how its local laws will be applied isn't crisply defined, and a huge amount of discretion can be applied by a mandarins (bureaucrats) or in the case of the contract, by a hotel employee. Worse yet, its laws are very vague (where "insulting" Chinese culture can be enough to get a blog to get "haromonized" or "censored") --- and by the wording of the hotel contract, enough to get us thrown out on our ear. And given that "human rights" is a very expansive term, and that "privacy", such sa what might be described by the Geopriv wg could very will infringe on the verboten "human rights" restriction, it's very hard for *anyone* to give any guarantees. Which is why I used the word "apparently" --- not in the sense of something being "apparent", but in the sense of "maybe, we're not sure, and by keeping things vague the Chinese government is probably hoping that people will self-censor themselves because of the inherent vagueness of words such as 'show any disrespect or defamation against the Government of the People's Republic of China'". - Ted _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf