Re: IETF subpoena processes update and a request

[John C Klensin <[e-mail]>]

--On Saturday, 25 March, 2017 15:42 -0500 Pete Resnick
<[e-mail]> wrote:

> Thanks Jari. I was absolutely contributing to missing the
> forest for the trees. Sorry for that. My apparent vehemence
> notwithstanding, it's not the particular mechanism I care
> about; it's that we end up with a structure where the IETF
> maintains control over its own affairs, and decides for itself
> what is (or is not) important to it. You are exactly right
> that we need to figure out what's important first, and figure
> out mechanism to make that happen second.

Pete,
One quick observation.  While this certainly won't be applicable
to all situations, responding to a judge who has said, or
authorized someone to say "do X" by "well, our rules or bylaws
don't allow us to do X so we are either going to just interpret
your order as 'do Y' or we will do nothing until you tell us to
do Y" is not likely to have an attractive outcome.   Of course,
"unattractive" doesn't necessarily mean "undesirable" -- that
depends on what one is trying to accomplish.  It seems to me
that some of what you have suggested is quite analogous to civil
disobedience -- entirely justified and appropriate if one feels
strongly enough about an issue to make that type of public
statement, but something that one should do only if one is
willing to accept the possibility of hostile attacks and/or jail
time.  As you know, those are not just metaphors.

    john