IAOC,

I'm trying to understand what is political speech in China. The  
Geopriv WG deals with protecting users' location privacy. The policies  
of more than one country have come up in geopriv meetings in very  
derogatory terms. There have been very derogatory comments made by  
people about the US's wiretap policy. Unless someone can point me at  
specifics of what is or is not OK, I would find this very concerning.  
We also regularly discuss issues around Taiwan/China, cryptography,  
wiretap, DNS root server location, reverse engineering, and so on.   
Clearly most the people involved with IETF would never want to break  
the laws of the country they are visiting but the question is do we  
actually understand the laws and what impact do they have on our  
technical work? To help us make informed decision about whether these  
terms are issues or not:

1) What is political speech in China? And can we explain that to IETF  
participants well enough that they know what is OK and what is not.

2) Are there any special rules about publishing and broadcasting? I  
note that the IETF, unlike most other groups having meetings,  
broadcasts the meetings live over the internet, which will be both  
publishing the material and exporting it outside of the PRC.

3) Are there any rules around discussion, publication, or export of of  
cryptography algorithms and technology? publishing weaknesses of  
national crypto algorithms?

4) Many of our participants use communications products (like jabber  
clients) that they helped develop and include strong cryptography. Do  
they need permission to use these in China?

5) When discussing what I think of as technical issues, many  
participants regularly treat Taiwan and PRC as two different countries  
and currently recognize both of them as separate countries in their  
own right. I'd actually venture a guess that there is strong IETF  
consensus they should be treated this way.  Could any discussions like  
this be viewed as political speech? What are the rules on this?

6) It is not core to IETF work but some of us do some interop of  
running code for IETF protocols under development sometimes at IETF.  
This would be about the right timing for running P2PSIP code, but that  
requires us to to run a local CA. Is any special permission needed to  
run a CA in China?

7) Would we be OK running a BOF on techniques for firewall advancement  
in general and in particular on getting around any firewalls China  
runs? [Seriously, you know someone will propose this BOF, the  
questions is could we run it or not?]

8) Given the Chairs for WG set the agendas and such, I am assuming  
that a reasonable person would consider all the presentation done by  
presenters at the front of the room to be things that are under  
control of the client. Is this the assumption the IAOC is working  
under too?

9) What is the IETF's potential liability here. If the meeting was  
canceled on Monday, everyone checked out of hotels early and paid a  
one day change fee, would the IETF be responsible for the hotel's loss  
of revenue for the Wednesday through Friday nights?

10) If the meeting is canceled, will the IETF be reimbursing the  
registration fees?

11) Given the IETF would be depending on the actions of the  
participants of the meeting to meet the contract, it would seem very  
prudent to me to make sure that each participant agreed to this. Will  
you be asking each participant to sign an agreement agreeing to these  
terms?

12) Do you all feel like you need a beer yet?

I'm trying to get to the bottom about what is legal and what is not in  
the PRC.  Ignorance is not an excuse for the law in any country and  
when I don't know if something is legal or not, I don't do it. Right  
now I am looking for input from knowledgeable people on these  
questions. I imagine the IAOC has looked into many of these and would  
appreciate understanding what you have found.

Thanks, Cullen





On Sep 18, 2009, at 9:42 AM, Marshall Eubanks wrote:

> Greetings;
>
> We have received numerous suggestions and requests for an IETF meeting
> in China and the IAOC has been working on a potential China meeting  
> for
> several years. We are now close to making a decision on a potential
> upcoming  meeting in China. However, the following issue has arisen
> and we would appreciate your feedback.
>
> The Chinese government has imposed a rule on all conferences held
> since 2008 regarding political speech. A fundamental law in China
> requires that one not criticize the government. Practically, this
> has reference to public political statements or protest marches, which
> are not the IETF's custom. The government, which is a party to the
> issue,
> requires that people who attend conferences in China (the IETF being
> but one example) not engage in political speech during their tour
> in China. We consider this to be acceptable, on the basis that the
> IETF intends to abide by the laws of whatever nations it visits and
> we don't believe that this impacts our ability to do technical work.
>
> The rule is implemented in the Hotel agreement and reads (note that
> the "Client" would be the Host, and the "Group" would be the IETF) :
>
>     "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 hotel staff would have, in theory,
> the legal right to shut down the meeting and ask the offending
> participants to leave the property immediately. While we do not
> foresee a situation where such action would take place, we feel that
> it is proper to disclose these conditions to the community.
>
> The members of the IAOC, speaking as individuals, do not like this
> condition as a matter of principle. The IAOC does believe that this
> condition would not prevent the IETF from conducting its business.
>
> We note that the Vancouver/Quebec survey conducted earlier this year
> asked for people to suggest venues in Asia; an overwhelming majority
> (94%) of those who mentioned China were in favor of having a meeting
> there.
>
> We are therefore asking for input from the community by two means - by
> commenting on the IETF discussion list, and also by completing a very
> short survey on people's intentions to travel to China, or not,
> subject to these conditions. This survey can be found here :
>
> https://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=h4DUkRUOdG_2bVLqioPcYYHw_3d_3d
>
> All responses received by October 1, 2009 at  9:00 AM EDT  (1300 UTC)
> will be considered by the IAOC in making its decision. We appreciate
> the assistance of the community in providing us with data that will
> help us to make an informed decision.
>
> Regards
> Marshall Eubanks
> (acting for the IAOC)
>
>