Re: privacy and IETF meetings in US

[JORDI PALET MARTINEZ <[e-mail]>]

Hi John,


El 7/6/19 18:15, "ietf en nombre de John C Klensin" <[e-mail] en nombre de [e-mail]> escribió:

    
    
    --On Friday, June 7, 2019 17:00 +0200 JORDI PALET MARTINEZ
    <jordi.palet=[e-mail]> wrote:
    
    > Hi,
    > 
    > If I got it correctly, the new US regulation will force to
    > provide information about social media accounts by those
    > requesting a VISA. Not sure if this will apply also for the
    > ESTA.
    > 
    > If this is correct, and considering that we have planned
    > IETF111, July 2021, in San Francisco, despite how much
    > personally I like that city, should we cancel that meeting and
    > start looking for an alternative venue?
    > 
    > Or we don't care about IETF participants privacy rights at all
    > and how much subjective the immigration authorities judgment
    > of our activity in social networks may become?
    
    Jordi,
    
    While I'm sympathetic to your concern, two observations may be
    relevant:
    
    (1) Many of us believe it is reasonable to hope that the US
    elections in November 2020 will result in changes in the US
    policy on these matters [1].  While I hope that the Secretariat
    and the IETF LLC will have contingency plans for possible
    reactions to events that might interfere with any planned
    meeting (including, e.g., the possibility of the political
    situation in Thailand exploding in the months before IETF 106, I
    can't see it as being in the IETF's interest or that of its
    participants to start canceling meetings now on the basis of
    policies that might (or might not) be in effect significantly
    over two year's hence.

I think having a plan is a must, no necessarily cancelling the meeting at this time. However, we know how difficult is to find a venue for IETF in a short time.

At least the LLC must provide a report about what is the real actual situation regarding the actual regulation and possible expected changes.

    
    (2) I see a huge difference between the question of how we react
    to a possible policy of some government's regulations about visa
    applicants and "we don't care about IETF participants privacy
    rights at all".  Trying to present that as a binary choice is, I
    believe, a type of hyperbole that does not help us have careful
    and nuanced discussions.

Well, I may have worded it in the wrong way or actually mixed two topics.

What I'm suggesting is that regardless of our decision on the meetings in US, we as IETF consider this as something acceptable?

What US IETF participants will think if the EU setup an equivalent regulation and they are forced to disclose their social networks, emails, etc., when coming to Europe for an IETF meeting?
    
    best,
        john
    
    [1] I haven't read (or even seen) the actual regulations and
    requirements, only the same news-article reports that you have
    presumably seen.  I am not even sure that final regulations or
    policies have been issued, noting that the
    normally-authoritative information at
    https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/tourism-visit/visitor.html
    does not appear to have been updated.  We have no way to know
    how the State Department, other parts of the Administration, or
    the Congress start reacting to this particular idea once, e.g.,
    the UA tourist industry notices the effect of this new plan in
    both the context of reducing visa applications and that of
    further slowdowns in visa application processing at consulates.
    That is especially important given the number of policies this
    Administration has announced and then changed its mind about (or
    claimed it never announced) within a relatively short period.
    IANAL, much less a US Immigration Lawyer and I assume you are
    not either.  Let's not overreact, go off half-cocked, and start
    canceling meetings, if only because doing so plays into the
    hands of those who appear to prefer that no foreigner ever come
    to the US and US Citizens never travel abroad.
    
    
    
    
    



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