Re: [802SEC] FW: [802-11WG] Confidentiality Notices
I absolutely support
this with respect to confidentiality statements. While the text in 4.1.1.5 does
appear to be specific to the SB and its committees, our rules also state a
principle of openness. The point made in 4.1.1.5 that confidentiality statements
are not compatible with the requirement for openness is equally valid for us. It
would be reasonable to make the rule about confidentiality statements
explicit.
With regard to
copyright statements, I don't think an absolute prohibition is workable. At
times we need to present material from standards of other organizations (or even
our own standards and drafts) which have copyright statements. We need to be
able to use and discuss these documents. A copyright release that makes the
material available to suit the requirements of openness should make the material
allowable for presentation.
Regards,
Pat
Geoff -
I had an offline
conversation with Dave Ringle in which he asserted that the 4.1.1.5 text you
quoted was intended to apply only to the SB and its committees (RevCom,
NesCom, etc). So just to make things crystal clear, I believe that we should
explicitly include that (or closely similar) text in our P&P. I would be
happy to propose a P&P change to that effect. I believe it should also be
worded to cover the non-inclusion of copyright statements in materials
presented at meetings.
Regards,
Tony
At 17:07 04/04/2005,
Geoff Thompson wrote:
Mat-
I believe that we
absolutely should get a read from IEEE legal counsel on this one. Especially
since there is a new person in that seat.
I am strongly suspicious of
any assertion by a company that such a notice is "a requirement being
imposed
to ensure compliance with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of
2002."
Rather, as Tony Jeffree asserts in his note, it is an effort
to "place the onus on the recipient to make a determination of what they can
legitimately do with the message."
I do not doubt that company
lawyers would like to duck the responsibility for taking ownership of what
their company's employees send out to the world. But it is not appropriate
for them to do so, nor is it appropriate to place that burden on our
volunteer officers.
(This issue actually arose many years ago because
a volunteer's company lawyer specifically required that the volunteer not
accept the burden.)
It is equally inappropriate for us, as officers,
to:
1)
Ignore a legal notice, either individually or
systematically.
2)
Make a determination of what some company, who is not our employer, holds
confidential
TIA handles it differently, they require a cover sheet
on all "submissions" that specifically disclaims confidentiality and further
states that if the submitter alters the standard disclaimer the disclaimer
reverts to the text in their P&P. The result is that (effectively) TIA
participants can't say anything of substance in the body of an
e-mail.
While I believe that we should get a new read from IEEE legal
on the policy, it has been vetted in the past and the text is in the current
version of the SASB Operations Manual. The requirement is that:
- 4.1.1.5 Confidentiality Statements and Copyright Notices on
Communications
- The IEEE-SA Standards Board and its committees operate in an open
manner. To that end, no material submitted to the IEEE-SA Standards Board
or its committees will be accepted or considered if it contains any
statement that places any burden on the recipient(s) with respect to
confidentiality or copyright. Any communication, including electronic
mail, containing language with such restrictive wording will not be
accepted or considered.
We believe that this requirement
trickles down to ALL of the routine business of our Working Groups and
sub-groups and should thus apply to all reflectors owned and/or managed by
those groups. That should be sufficient to provide the final word on the
debate in 802.11.
Geoff
At 10:04 AM 4/4/2005
-0400, Sherman, Matthew J. (US SSA) wrote:
Folks,
This is a lively
debate that is ongoing with the 802.11 reflector.
There seems to be an
implication that confidentiality disclaimer are
becoming legally
required on corporate e-mail. Yet, many of our
reflectors
currently forbid such disclaimers. Should we get a read from
IEEE
legal support as to what our position should / could be on
this
stuff?
Thanks,
Mat
Matthew Sherman,
Ph.D.
Senior Member Technical Staff
BAE SYSTEMS, CNIR
Office: +1
973.633.6344
email: matthew.sherman@baesystems.com
-----Original
Message-----
From: Michael Foegelle [mailto:Michael.Foegelle@ets-lindgren.com]
Sent:
Monday, April 04, 2005 9:37 AM
To: Sherman, Matthew J. (US SSA);
STDS-802-11@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG
Subject: RE: [802-11WG] Confidentiality
Notices
I just thought I'd point out that this type of notice
(which I just had
to delete from my signature below myself) is a
requirement being imposed
to ensure compliance with the Sarbanes-Oxley
Act of 2002. (You can
thank Enron et. al. for another piece of
corporate headache that we all
have to deal with.) I suspect that
more and more companies will be
requiring such a message on e-mails in
the future, and currently I'm
breaking company policy by deleting said
notice. There's even
discussion in our company of increasing the
penalties for not putting
the notice on messages (i.e. it could become
a dismissible offense). I
try to remember to remove the message
before posting (since it's
automatically added), but I don't always
remember to do so.
And before anyone suggests that I go get a
private e-mail account to
work on the reflectors, the reality is that
even though we're all IEEE
members as individuals, I do this work as
part of my job and my company
foots the bill for all of the IEEE
activities I'm involved in. The same
is likely true for most
everyone else on these reflectors. If I can't
use my company
e-mail address to carry on this work, then it's just
not
practical. I'm sure I'm not the only one to feel that
way.
So, given that this problem is only going to get worse, I
think we need
to take a more corporate friendly approach to resolving
this issue.
Rather than installing a filter to remove any message that
might contain
a problem restriction notice, why not add a filter
capable of removing a
footer that starts with a standardized message
footer that we could all
attempt to incorporate. Thus, if the
notice started with something like
"-------------Legal
Notice------------", a filter could automatically
remove it. That
may not be the best solution for everyone, but I think
it would resolve
my issue here and give us a standardized place to start
as other
companies begin requiring these notices.
Thank you for your
consideration.
Sincerely,
Dr. Michael D.
Foegelle
---------------------------------------------------------
Dr.
Michael D. Foegelle
| 1301 Arrow Point Drive
Senior Principal Design Engineer | Cedar
Park, TX 78758
ETS-Lindgren,
L.P.
| (512) 531-6444
-----Original Message-----
From: Sherman,
Matthew J. (US SSA)
[mailto:matthew.sherman@BAESYSTEMS.COM]
Sent:
Monday, April 04, 2005 8:02 AM
To:
STDS-802-11@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG
Subject: Re: [802-11WG] Confidentiality
Notices
--- This message came from the IEEE 802.11 Working
Group Reflector ---
Ivan,
I like the concept, but I think we
will need a more complex filter. The
word confidential is
sometimes used in our dialogues, and I'm not sure
it always occurs in
the footers of concern.
Mat
Matthew Sherman, Ph.D.
Senior
Member Technical Staff
BAE SYSTEMS, CNIR
Office: +1
973.633.6344
email: matthew.sherman@baesystems.com
-----Original
Message-----
From: ***** IEEE stds-802-11 List *****
[mailto:STDS-802-11@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG] On Behalf Of
Ivan Reede
Sent: Monday, April 04, 2005 8:52 AM
To:
STDS-802-11@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG
Subject: Re: [802-11WG] Confidentiality
Notices
--- This message came from the IEEE 802.11 Working Group
Reflector ---
I hope this will be a constructive
suggestion...
I suggest that the IEEE listserv admins place the
word "confidential"
into
their spam detector...
That waym we will
not have to lose all this time and effort in the
futur..
after all,
it's a banned word for standards that are open.
Any such message in
the futur would simply get canned by the spam filter
and those messages
would never get relayed.
Ivan
Reede
==============================
----- Original Message
-----
From: "Tony Jeffree" <tony@JEFFREE.CO.UK>
To:
<STDS-802-11@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG>
Sent: Monday, April 04, 2005 5:45
AM
Subject: Re: [802-11WG] Confidentiality Notices
> ---
This message came from the IEEE 802.11 Working Group Reflector
---
>
> Mike -
>
> I think that you are missing
the point here. Confidentiality notices
> attempt to place the onus
on the recipient, rather than the sender, for
> correcting the
sender's mistakes, and also place the onus on the recipient
> to
make a determination of what they can legitimately do with the
message.
> Regardless of how valid or otherwise these kinds of
notices might be if
> tested in law (and I suspect they would
actually fail on a number of
> grounds, even when not used in
private communications - but lets not go
> down the armchair lawyer
rat-hole here), they have no place in an open
> communication forum
such as this.
>
> And actually, the "please disregard..." etc.
statement in the message that
> sparked off this thread is IMHO of
very dubious relevance, as it cannot be
> clear to the recipient as
to whether the sender had the authority to make
> such a statement
on behalf of his employer, so I believe that the only
> valid
treatment of that message (and other similar messages) is to
delete
> it from the email archive and disregard its content until
such a time as
> the sender re-sends it without any attached
disclaimer.
>
> Regards,
> Tony
>
> At 09:16
04/04/2005, Mike Moreton wrote:
> >--- This message came from the
IEEE 802.11 Working Group Reflector
---
> >
>
>Clint,
> >
> >Maybe the IEEE should pay for a legal
opinion on this one. Seems to me
> >that if you
intentionally send an email to a public list with an open
>
>archive, then the "intended recipients" could plausibly be argued to
be
> >the entire world.
> >
> >Surely this
clause would only kick in if you clearly sent something by
>
>accident (such as internal company plans), in which case it would give
you
> >a good justification for asking for it to be removed from
the archive.
> >
> >Or to put it another way, this
clause would only be applicable if a
> >recipient of an email
could be reasonably expected to determine that that
> >email was
sent by accident. Clearly this wouldn't apply to email
exploder
> >programs.
> >
> >Mike.
>
>
> >P.S. I have to use an external email address because my
IT department
> >manages to mess me up in a completely different
way...
> >
> >
> >
> >-----Original
Message-----
> >From: ***** IEEE stds-802-11-tgn List
*****
> >[mailto:STDS-802-11-TGN@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG] On Behalf
Of Clint Chaplin
> >Sent: Saturday, April 02, 2005 8:42
AM
> >To: STDS-802-11-TGN@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG
> >Subject:
Re: [802-11TGN] Reasons for No Vote on TGn Sync Proposal
>
>
> >
> >--- This message came from the IEEE 802.11
Task Group N Technical
> >Reflector ---
> >
>
>If you cannot straighten out your IT staff, may I suggest getting
a
> >gmail account and using it for your IEEE work? That's
what I am
> >using, and I like it very much. If you want, I
can extend you an
> >invitation.
>
>
>
>_______________________________________________________________________
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>
>
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>
Regards,
>
Tony
>
>
________________________________________________________________________
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>
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Regards,
Tony
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