Subject: Re: SUMMARY: archiving of NOMCOM information

From: Donald Eastlake 3rd <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 09 Apr 2002 22:48:52 -0400 (EDT)

A lot of this discussison seems to be devoid of reality to me.

First of all, all that has ever been archived by nomcom chairs that
chose to archive stuff, which not all did, was the email on the list.
But the nomcoms I have been involved with have done most of their work
and made most of their decisions during telephone conference calls and
there has never been, as far as I know, any recordings made of these
conference calls. Vague requirements to archive "the information and
deliberations" could mean anything. Do the occasional physical nomcom
meeting need to be videotaped and who is going to pay for that?

In fact, I would expect every participating nomcom member to maintain an
email archive during their term and I find it extremely implausible that
there would ever be any problem accessing this info during the nomcom's
term.

Recommending destruction at the end of the nomcoms term is the right
thing to do and is part of nomcom confidentiality. The longer stuff is
lying around, the more likely it is to be compromised, and thus make
some people reluctant to give the nomcom candid comments, due to
accident or otherwise.

But, in reality, the theory that the nomcom email would be unreachable
if every member destroyed their archive at the end of their term seems
to me implausible. Considering how many ISP and organization email
relays and servers the nomcom mail will have flowed through, even with
more organizations having email destruction policies, I suspect that for
years a determined effort could find old backup, spooled, or deleted but
recoverable copies.

Donald

On Fri, 29 Mar 2002, John Morris wrote:

> Date: Fri, 29 Mar 2002 16:07:58 -0500
> From: John Morris <[email-masked]>
> To: James M Galvin <[email-masked]>
> Cc: [email-masked]
> Subject: Re: SUMMARY: archiving of NOMCOM information
>
> I think the "proposed consensus" language does not actually
> accomplish what is intended.  I realize that different (and perhaps
> clearer) language will be used in the actual revision to 2727, but it
> seems desirable to be clear at this stage about what consensus might
> exist.  The "proposed consensus" language is:
>
> >     PROPOSED CONSENSUS: The NOMCOM Chair and one or more NOMCOM voting
> >     members should maintain an archive of the information and
> >     deliberations of the NOMCOM for their term of service.  The archive
> >     can be used if the NOMCOM is called upon to fill a mid-term vacancy.
> >     At the end of the term of service all information is to be
> >     destroyed.
>
> The problem is with the phrase "term of service."  The current 2727
> does not clearly define the "term of service" of a NOMCOM member.
> The closest it comes to stating a term of service is in part (2) of
> Section 2, which states:
>
> >>    (2)  The annual selection and confirmation process is expected to be
> >>         completed within 3 months.
> >>
> >>       The annual selection and confirmation process is expected to be
> >>       completed one month prior to the friday of the week before the
> >>       First IETF.  It is expected to begin 4 months prior to the Friday
> >>       of the week before the First IETF.
> >>
>
> Thus suggests that the NOMCOM's "term of service" runs from about
> four months prior to the First IETF, and ends about one month prior.
> But the whole point of keeping an archive is to keep documents
> available for a period _after_ the end of the NOMCOM's normal work.
>
> There are two simple solutions to the problem:  Either the revised
> document can define "term of service" to extend beyond the normal
> work period of the NOMCOM, or the PROPOSED CONSENSUS can be revised
> to read something like:
>
>      PROPOSED CONSENSUS: The NOMCOM Chair and one or more NOMCOM voting
>      members should maintain an archive of the information and
>      deliberations of the NOMCOM UNTIL THE NEXT NOMCOM IS CREATED. The archive
>      can be used if the NOMCOM is called upon to fill AN INTERIM vacancy.
>      UPON THE CREATION OF A NEW NONCOM ANY ARCHIVES OF THE PRIOR NONCOM
>      SHALL BE DESTROYED.
>
> I think this more clearly states what has been discussed, and more
> clearly suggests the actually changes to be made to 2727.
>
> John
>
>
> --------------------------------------------------
> John Morris // CDT // http://www.cdt.org/standards
> --------------------------------------------------
>
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---

From: Theodore Tso <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2002 14:27:12 -0400

> meeting need to be videotaped and who is going to pay for that?

I don't know about past nomcom's, but this nomcom did have minutes,
which were taken, and approved by majority vote, and were published on
an nomcom-only web-site.  I believe in the previous year's nomcom,
both the e-mail archives and the nomcom-only web site were archived,
based on some comments which Bernard had made (but I may have
misinterpreted what he said; Bernard?)

So yes, we do have pretty good records of those conference calls,
although they're not audio recordings.

But, I don't think anyone is arguing that we should archive stuff for
outsiders.  It's more for the nomcom's benefit, in case nomcom gets
activitated, since it's given a **ridiculously** short time to find a
replacement.  So the question isn't about needing to archive extra
stuff, such as video taping physical nomcom meetings.  That's just
silly.  It's about making sure that people *other* that nomcom can't
get access to those archives via U.S. legal games.

> there would ever be any problem accessing this info during the nomcom's

Again, I was told that "Standard Operating Procedure" was to recommend
to nomcom members that they destroy their own personal e-mail archive,
and that backups would be provided if a IAB/IESG member needed to be
replaced mid-term.

> years a determined effort could find old backup, spooled, or deleted but

I don't know how many e-mail relays keep backups of e-mail that has
flowed through it, but in many cases it's possible to pick e-mail
addresses to use where you know that people aren't making backups with
long retention periods.  

Ultiuamtely, though, the big question is how big of a threat do we
think there is of someone trying to sue IETF or individual nomcom
members in an effort to make nomcom records available to the public as
part of a discovery process?  If we don't think it's very important,
then let's not bother with all of this.  I personally think the
downsides of having all of a particular year's nomcom records (e-mail,
web-site with short lists, minutes of meetings, etc.) available as
part of a public court record is such that spending a little bit of
time to worry about this is worthwhile, but realistically the
probabilities of this happening are (hopefully!) fairly low.

On the other hand, many of us do live in a country where you can get
millions and millions of dollars if your coffee is served too hot....

						- Ted

---

From: John Morris <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2002 16:21:50 -0400

At 2:27 PM -0400 4/10/02, Theodore Tso wrote:
><snip>

Not that this nuance is critical to our decision, but just because 
some lawsuit might be filed challenging a nomcom action does not mean 
that the confidential info would be made available to the entire 
public.  It is quite possible that confidential info would be 
disclosed to the lawsuit plaintiff(s) (and counsel) with a 
requirement that the info not be _further_ disclosed.

It does not seem that there is a huge amount of disagreement on the 
questions relating to archiving of nomcom info.  The basic decisions 
are:

1.  Should the nomcom be able to receive and create confidential 
info?  [Yes, at least no one has suggested otherwise]

2.  Should the confidential info be maintained for a period of time 
after the nomcom finishes its initial work?  [Yes, there appears to 
be consensus on this point]

3.  If "yes" to 2, then for how long?  [among the possible answers 
are (a) for x months or years, (b) until the next nomcom is convened, 
(c) for x months after the next nomcom is convened, (d) others?] 
(Personally, I'd suggest "for 3 months after the next nomcom is 
convened")

4.  If "yes" to 2, then who keeps the info?  [among the possible 
answers are (a) the Secretariat, (b) the nomcom chair, (c) the chair 
plus any other nomcom member who wants to hang onto the info, (d) 
others?]  (Personally, I'd suggest (a) or (b))

John