-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 9/18/09 9:42 AM, Marshall Eubanks wrote:
> "Should the contents of the Group's activities, visual or audio > presentations at the conference,or printed materials used at the > conference (which are within the control of the Client) contain > any defamation against the Government of the People's Republic > of China, or show any disrespect to the Chinese culture, or > violates any laws of the People's Republic of China or feature > any topics regarding human rights or religion without prior > approval from the Government of the People's Republic of China, > the Hotel reserves the right to terminate the event on the spot > and/or ask the person(s) who initiates or participates in any or > all of the above action to leave the hotel premises immediately. > > The Client will support and assist the Hotel with the necessary > actions to handle such situations. Should there be any financial > loss incurred to the Hotel or damage caused to the Hotel's > reputation as a result of any or all of the above acts, the Hotel > will claim compensation from the Client." > > What does this condition mean ? The problem is that we have no idea what this means, and even worse we have in principle no way of discovering what it might mean. Presumably interpretation of the rule will be up to the local authorities, and we have no way of knowing beforehand what activities might be they might construe as defamation of the local government, disrespect for the local culture, violation of the local laws, or discussion of human rights or religion. However, we can think of many statements that could be made and topics that could be discussed at an IETF meeting that might fall afoul of this rule. As a recent example, consider the session on network neutrality during the technical plenary at IETF 75, which included a freewheeling discussion about encryption as a human right (as I recall, Ted Hardie even used the word "liberty"). Given the extraordinarily vague nature of this condition, I think its effect would be chilling on the freedom of speech that is necessary to complete even our technical work, which as we know often threatens the asserted power of those who function on Layer 8. Peter - -- Peter Saint-Andre https://stpeter.im/ -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.8 (Darwin) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iEYEARECAAYFAkqzxpoACgkQNL8k5A2w/vyMYgCgt9o9NSLMcKXccpSiaWj8ECz/ b7IAnR76E++IDiQ8gQEr7bry+NXY1K7o =Zg2A -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- _______________________________________________ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
