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.
No - I read the sentence in black and white. What it says that the definition of harassment in an "applicable" law can be used as the definition of harassment for the IETF process.
An applicable law includes: local law, law affecting the corporation (e.g. I think Delaware for the IETF or various other corporations), and other laws where legal entity claims personal jurisdiction over the participants - specifically the complainer/responder.
E.g. consider two IETF participants who are citizens of country A. One participant lives in country A, the second is a dual national of Country A and Country B. The laws of country A say that is harassment for any citizen to question any other citizen about their beliefs with respect to the might and grandeur of Country A. And Country A asserts personal jurisdiction for this law on each and every citizen no matter where located.
What exactly does these two participants arguing about Country A politics have to do with IETF standards creation?
This is not an example chosen at random - and feel free to substitute religious arguments for politics to get an equally viable situation.
My specific problem with the cited language is that it has NOTHING to do with actually getting standards created and there is no reason for the IETF to involve itself in purely legalistic issues.
Mike
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-- Pete Resnick < http://www.qualcomm.com/~presnick/ > Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. - +1 (858)651-4478