Re: [saag] [Pearg] Ten years after Snowden (2013 - 2023), is IETF keeping its promises?

[Phillip Hallam-Baker <[e-mail]>]

On Mon, Jan 9, 2023 at 6:14 AM Vittorio Bertola <vittorio.bertola=
[e-mail]> wrote:

>
>
> > Il 06/01/2023 02:19 CET Mark Nottingham <mnot=[e-mail]>
> ha scritto:
> >
> > The IETF has considerable legitimacy as not only an institution that can
> create useful technical documents, but also as a steward of the Internet
> architecture as a means to realise and maintain a global public good, even
> as we ourselves are an essentially private institution. In contrast, state
> actors are still relatively unproven in their roles as Internet regulators.
>
> Pardon me for the thought-provoking remark, but if you were to say this to
> any European Commission officer or national Internet regulator, you would
> possibly get a diplomatic version of the following question: who are you,
> the IETF or your employer to judge or question what a sovereign nation of
> 5-10-80 million people decides for themselves through democratic processes?
> Who gave you this right and this role, and how is this compatible with
> democracy?
>

Having lost my citizenship as the result of a referendum where I wasn't
even allowed to vote, I take a particular view on democratic control of
means of communication. A view which is informed by several centuries of
tradition and debate.

The question of what the state can and cannot legitimately control goes
back to Roman times, quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

I believe that the answer lies in whose interest is being protected. I do
not believe the French laws used to cover up corruption, affairs etc. of
senior politicians are legitimate, those I happily ignore. But the European
Union protections of personal privacy which are designed to protect the
interest of those who do not make themselves public figures certainly
deserve respect.

Everyone talks about freedom. In the US, the most authoritarian party
platform by some distance is that of the self styled 'Libertarian' party:
You are going to have the freedom we force upon you.

Very few people talk about what freedom means in concrete terms. As far as
technology goes, freedom means I can buy a phone from one manufacturer and
a charging cable from another and they will work and I can then go and buy
a different phone from a different manufacturer and that will work with my
existing charger.

Freedom in social media means that I can post to one social media provider
and my friends and family who use different providers can see my posts. It
also means I can talk about Mel Brook's movie 'The Producers' without being
banned for 45 days for mentioning 'Springtime for Hitler' (yes really, why
do you keep doing such things Mr Facebook?).



> (hint: there is no such thing as "a global public good" but many different
> ideas of what that would be, as the definition of "good" is highly cultural
> and subjective, the more so on a global scale; thus, defining what the
> "global public good" is, for policy purposes, is not a matter of competence
> but of representativeness, exactly like in the "old world" offline)
>

I disagree. I find the notion of nation states frankly ridiculous. What
people mistake for 'Western values' are in fact values which in most cases
have only emerged in the West during my lifetime. Many of the countries I
have visited in Europe were under a dictatorship when I first visited:
Spain, East Germany, Czechoslovakia. The United States only became a
democracy in the 70s as the civil rights movement finally ended
segregation and there are people trying hard to return to the old status
quo and of course, the people beating up cops with the poles of 'blue lives
matter' flags are yelling about 'freedom'.

What we are talking about are universal values. Freedom of speech is a
universal value, freedom of conscience is a universal value. Freedom of
religion, sexual expression etc. etc. are all universal values.

All of which is why I don't come to the IETF to be told what I am going to
be allowed to do. I come to the IETF to find other people interested in
building a particular view of the future. If the IETF were to decide that
only futures approved by the US Congress or the EU Commission could be
discussed, I would simply go somewhere else.