Re: [Asrg] draft-irtf-asrg-bcp-blacklists-00

[der Mouse <mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>]

> The point I am making here is that any BCP that is issued should
> ensure that any blacklist following the practices described would be
> operating in compliance with existing criminal and civil law.

This - importing legal restrictions into the BCP - is not really
practical.

We, the group generating the BCP, cannot know what the legal
restrictions are.  There are so many jurisdictions around that
researching the various laws is too large a task.  And besides, even as
slow as legislative progress typically is, given the number of
jurisdictions, it's a dead cinch that someone's legal climate will
change during the BCP publication process, never mind between
publication and use.

Even if you just stick to, say, USA/Canada/EU/Australia, I think it
would be a very bad idea to enshrine the current law of any of those in
our document - especially given how fast (in legislative terms) the
legal climate is changing.

>> [..."collateral damage"...]
> I don't think you will find a legitimate analogy for this, certainly
> not the environmental one you cite where the real analogy would be
> for private parties to organize measures against customers of the
> polluters who had no part in the pollution.

And what's wrong with that?  I can organize - or more precisely try to
organize - boycotts against anyone I please for any reason I please
(with a few specific exceptions in many jurisdictions, none of which
are relevant here), from people who wear black socks to people who
can't spell to people who buy from Exxon - to (say) people who get net
connectivity through Verizon.

> The reason you will not find a legitimate analogy is that collateral
> damage is very clearly a tortious interference with contract.
> [...case law, notably MAPS...]

As you ought to know, the MAPS cases were brought in the USA, where the
merits of a case have comparatively little to do with how it ends; in
MAPS cases I heard of, it was a question of who was willing to throw
more money at lawyers.

>> A blacklist author is not injuring anyone.
> The cases against MAPS clearly show that the courts did not accept
> this argument.

As you yourself pointed out (in text I cut), the MAPS cases were
settled out of court; the court did not have a chance to accept or
reject the argument in question.

> In the US you can be vulnerable for a claim for damages for walking
> down the street.  In this case it is the claim alone that would
> result in crippling legal fees.

True.  Perhaps the BCP should say "do not run the list under USA legal
jurisdiction"; that's certainly the lesson _I_ find in your examples.

/~\ The ASCII				der Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
 X  Against HTML	       mouse@rodents.montreal.qc.ca
/ \ Email!	     7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39  4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B

_______________________________________________
Asrg mailing list
Asrg@ietf.org
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/asrg