Re: [hrpc] Censorship

[Bill Woodcock <[e-mail]>]

> On Mar 11, 2022, at 7:41 PM, Paul Wouters <[e-mail]> wrote:
> Punishing citizens for their government actions by crippling infrastructure is always wrong.

Exactly.  Collective punishment is anathema.

> On Mar 11, 2022, at 13:17, Vittorio Bertola <vittorio.bertola=[e-mail]> wrote:
> As far as I know, almost no one at ICANN or at RIPE has argued in favour of removing TLDs from the root, invalidating certificates or deleting IP space.  So how is that "the status quo"?


How does that have anything to do with anything?

The European Commission has been clear in its directive, European governments are telling network operators that the directive is binding and doesn’t require individual governmental action, and operators in Europe have already begun implementing the European sanctions, which affect all of Russia, civilians as well as military.

In the United States, the wind is seen as blowing in that direction as well, and some of the world’s largest network operators have already announced that they are implementing as-yet-unrequired sanctions, in anticipation that the sanctions will exist before March bills come due on May 1.

No government has yet provided any carve-outs for Russian civilians, to the best of my knowledge.

Thus, the status quo is sanctions which affect all of Russia.  That’s what’s been required thus far (in Europe), the direction implementation has gone thus far, and what’s anticipated of the US and other governments which are still in process of formulating their policy.  And operators have to anticipate sixty days in advance.

> Personally, my motivation for supporting your proposal would actually be the opposite - enabling limited but focused sanctions as an alternative to doing nothing.

Well, “doing nothing” isn’t a legal option in Europe, and probably shortly won’t be an option in the US, either, where many of the networks are legally headquartered.  So, again, that’s a hypothetical situation, and not one which applies in the current situation, but for the future, yes, exactly.  The moral compass of the Internet community may hold more sway if it’s able to take action when necessary, without fear of humanitarian mis-effects.

> On Mar 11, 2022, at 9:29 PM, Mallory Knodel <[e-mail]> wrote:
> I don't think it's a particularly effective approach that the PCH letter takes.

C’mon now, that’s just trolling.  If you’re going to try to insinuate that it wasn’t a multistakeholder document by discounting the other 86 authors, you’d do better to call it a European Parliament document, or an ICANN document, since they’re both more heavily represented among the signatories.  PCH isn’t even a signatory to the letter.  The only organizational signatory is the Internet Archive.  The only reason it’s available on the PCH web site as well as the Archive is because the Archive’s spam filter was acting up when it was time to upload the final version for the press, and it was the middle of the night in California.

> The political risks are tremendous

Please enumerate the ones you see?

                                -Bill