Re: Adi Shamir denied entry to the US

[Eliot Lear <[e-mail]>]

[&TL;DR- Keep your powder dry.]

Dear colleagues,

As a reminder, we spent a fair amount of time developing criteria to provide to the IAOC and now the LLC for venue selection, and we came to consensus on a number of criteria.  These are broken out in draft-ietf-mtgvenue-iaoc-venue-selection-process-16.txt <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-mtgvenue-iaoc-venue-selection-process/>.  We as a community address the sorts of problems that Adi Shamir ran into in two places in that document.  First, in the introductory material, we state as a part of a core value:

      Every country has limits on who it will permit within its borders.
      However the IETF seeks to:

      1.  Minimize situations in which onerous entry regulations
          inhibit, discourage, or prevent participants from attending
          meetings, or failing that to distribute meeting locations such
          that onerous entry regulations are not always experienced by
          the same attendees; […]


Later, we lay out mandatory criteria, important criteria, and other considerations.  The policy that implements the goal is found in important criteria:

   o  Travel barriers to entry, including visa requirements, are likely
      to be such that an overwhelming majority of participants who wish
      to do so can attend.  The term "travel barriers" is to be read
      broadly by the IASA in the context of whether a successful meeting
      can be had.

[emphasis added]

It is possible for the IASA to book a locale that does not meet important criterion.  If they do so, they must explain this to the community at the time a contract is made.  Members of the community have expressed concern about the U.S. in particular about the United States.  As someone who sits on the venue review committee as a community representative, I have reflected those concerns, and I will continue to reflect the community view until my term expires later this year.

However…

This criterion can and has come into conflict with other criteria, such as ease of travel to the locale, cost, and even safety and health issues.  Michael is correct that we could lose a credit for the moved meeting, and Richard is correct that Canada has refused entry to people as well.  Indeed a dear colleague on the IAB from China was refused entry at one point. In addition, it is often hard for some immigrants who leave a country to reenter.  The IASA has to take all of this into account.

As to community fears and concerns, if we don’t go to the U.S. at all, then we will have no data on just how we are affected.  While there are other conferences from whose experience we can and do benefit, the demographic of each community is slightly different.  It’s important to know how many people were denied access to a country.  I encourage the community to reflect on the numbers as and when they become available from the 2021 San Francisco meeting, not to mention all the other meetings in other countries in between.  And yes, a lot can and will change between now and 2021.

Eliot

> On 7 Mar 2019, at 05:30, Richard Barnes <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
> If we're going to be making decisions on this basis, I hope we're keeping track of visa denials for other candidate countries (see, e.g., [1]).
> 
> --Richard
> 
> [1] https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/12/canada-denied-visas-dozens-africans-big-artificial-intelligence-conference <https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/12/canada-denied-visas-dozens-africans-big-artificial-intelligence-conference>
> 
> On Wed, Mar 6, 2019 at 9:00 PM Christopher Morrow <[e-mail] <mailto:[e-mail]>> wrote:
> 
> 
> On Wed, Mar 6, 2019 at 8:30 PM Michael Richardson <[e-mail] <mailto:[e-mail]>> wrote:
> 
> but, in the end, will the RSA Conference move?
> 
> 
> does it matter a whit to any of the people which are making the decisions that end with this angst that ietf/rsa/etc come/go to US venues?
> no, it does not.
> 
> easiest action for all involved: "have conferences elsewhere"