Re: privacy and IETF meetings in US

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

--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.

(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.

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.