RE: [oasis-board-comment] Fwd: [emergency] Objections toDHS-DictatedMaterial in the IPAWS Profile Draft

["Peter F Brown" <peter@pensive.eu>]

Hi:
As an OASIS Board member, I've obviously been following this with interest and concern, along with fellow members.

Could you clarify one statement for me please: "Regrettably the current TC process offers no safeguards against such conflicts." Could you qualify/explain this and why you feel that the current contractual and process arrangement are, in your view, insufficient? Would you have any suggestions to change/mitigate that?

Regards,

Peter

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Peter F Brown
Managing Director
Pensive S.A.
"Supporting the Information-Driven Enterprise"
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-----Original Message-----
From: Art Botterell [mailto:abott@so.cccounty.us] 
Sent: Tuesday, February 17, 2009 2:25 AM
To: Eduardo.Gutentag@Sun.COM
Cc: oasis-board-comment@lists.oasis-open.org; renato@nicta.com.au; rexb@starbourne.com
Subject: Re: [oasis-board-comment] Fwd: [emergency] Objections toDHS-DictatedMaterial in the IPAWS Profile Draft

Thank you for your attention to this, Eduardo... although I'm not sure
why you take such pains to remind me of the very point you quote me
making!

I'm unaware of anyone who's suggested that the content of the proposed
draft is anything other than a TC matter, or who's asked the Board to
interfere in TC matters.  It seems like this may have become a bit of a
strawman issue somehow.

As for the DHS contract, I appreciate you sharing your opinion. 
However, as a longtime civil servant at various levels of government,
I've learned to pay close attention to questions of conflict of
interest.  As I'm sure you understand, conflict of interest is an
ethical and "optical" matter as well as a legal one.  And it can come
back to bite one in surprising ways, as each day's headlines remind us. 
Regrettably the current TC process offers no safeguards against such
conflicts.  Only your Board can protect OASIS' reputation on that score.

And my concern for our international credibility has nothing to do with
timezones.  It has to do with what I fear is a growing perception among
emergency managers around the globe that the OASIS EM TC has been
co-opted by the U.S. authorities and is no longer a viable vehicle for
developing global standards.

I hope this has helped to clarify what I'm saying and what I'm not.

- Art

>>> Eduardo Gutentag <Eduardo.Gutentag@Sun.COM> 02/16/09 4:29 PM >>>
Art,

allow me a few personal comments, as a member of the Board of
Directors but not on behalf of the Board, which has not discussed
this matter.

We are always glad to hear from our members, and I'd like to thank
you for your efforts. That said, I do hope we are all on the same
page and that no unfounded expectations underlie your messages.

The Board does not generally interfere in TC matters; certainly
not on technical issues, such as whether certain material should
be included in an Appendix or not.

In your message you mention repeatedly the OASIS process, as in
- "There is no need under the OASIS process for us to include this
language in full either. "
- "So why is Appendix B in there?  Not in support of the OASIS
process, clearly."
- "There’s no compelling reason under the OASIS process for
including the confusing, contradictory and extraneous material in
Appendix B, "

But please remember that the OASIS process is completely mute as
regards what technical content TCs' specifications should include
or exclude.

The technical knowledge needed to determine which is the right
decision in these technical matters resides within the TC,
not the Board itself. The Board will intervene in the internal
proceedings of a TC only if the appeal process specified in
http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/process.php#appeals is followed;
as you can see, this appeals procedure is process-centric, that
is it can be triggered if the process is violated, not if there is
disagreement on technical issues.  As long as the TC process is not
violated or bent, the Board will generally avoid getting involved.
Ultimately it is the OASIS Members who will decide whether they agree
with the content of what the TC produces or not.

As regards the contract that OASIS entered in with the US Department
of Homeland Security, I personally do not believe it is necessarily
different from contracts that I'm sure some TC chairs or members
have with external funding entities, or from contracts many other
standards organizations have with other funding organizations, of
which you may not be aware because they might not be as transparent
as OASIS is.  I do not see why OASIS should shy away from such
funding sources, and I can assure you that if the EU Commission
or some other regional entity (such as some Australian Government
office, for instance, or a Chinese one perhaps) were to approach
OASIS with a funding offer that was equally punctilious in its
respect for our TC process, they would not be rejected out of hand
either. And while we may be pr
evented from showing you the contract
to prove how innocent ithe Freedom of Information Act provides a level of transparency that,
to me, is just about enough to ensure that no mantle of conspiracy can
be
attached to it.

At the same time I cannot but see it in a positive way when an agency
that could work in obscurity in some musty corner of an invisible
office decides to publicly and clearly endorse the openness and
transparency of the OASIS process.

And regarding the very hairy issue of TC membership across more
than two timezones, all I can say is that we (and many other
organizations) have been trying to figure out a solution for a long
time without having found one that would satisfy everyone. As it
is, currently OASIS TCs have a lot of freedom to deal with it as
they can. Some TCs have therefore two sessions of the same meeting
per week, with zones A and B in one session and zones A and C,
and/or zones B and C in another session the same week, so that
everybody can participate, communicate and vote (check out how UBL
does this). Other TCs have email participation and voting, thus
having freed themselves from the tyranny of the clock. In other
cases still, those who are in a given time zone in the minority
(and therefore suffering from it) may choose to increase their
numbers to tilt the balance, instead of withdrawing...As I said,
it's not that we're unaware of the problem, it's that there is no
universal solution that can satisfy all -- for now. Perhaps one
day we'll hit on it and be able make it part of the TC process.

On 02/14/2009 12:07 PM, Art Botterell wrote:
> Dear OASIS Board Members -
> 
> Since this matter seems likely to become public early next week, and
since I think it may bear on some important questions of overall OASIS
policy, I'm going ahead and forwarding this note from the Emergency
Management TC list for your information.
> 
> - Art
> 
> Art Botterell, Manager
> Community Warning System
> Contra Costa County Office of the Sheriff
> 50 Glacier Drive
> Martinez, California 94553
> (925) 313-9603
> fax (925) 646-1120
> 
> 
>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Subject:
> [emergency] Objections to DHS-Dictated Material in the IPAWS Profile
Draft
> From:
> Art Botterell <abott@so.cccounty.us>
> Date:
> Sat, 14 Feb 2009 11:49:42 -0800
> To:
> emergency@lists.oasis-open.org
> 
> To:
> emergency@lists.oasis-open.org
> 
> 
> Friends –
> 
> If you look at this 71-page document you’ll see that almost two-thirds
> of it isn’t OASIS work-product at all.  The actual draft Profile,
> including an appendix created by the CAP Profiles Subcommittee, makes
up
> only 25 pages.  The other 46 pages, Appendix B, are actually a
> separate--and in many ways contradictory--document created by the U.S.
> Department of Homeland Security.  
> 
> I believe that including that non-OASIS content in our draft for
public
> review is unnecessary, confusing, risky and ultimately damaging to the
> credibility of the OASIS process and this Technical Committee.  I also
> believe it’s against the public interest, as I’ll discuss in a moment.
> 
> It’s UNNECESSARY because the same DHS document is already referenced
and
> linked in section 1.5, "Non-Normative References," along with several
> other references that weren’t included in full.  There is no need
under
> the OASIS process for us to include this language in full either.  For
> simplicity, if for no other reason, we shouldn’t obfuscate our
document
> with a large block of redundant material, particularly if we’re
serious
> about seeking meaningful public review and comment.
> 
> It’s CONFUSING because although the DHS material purports to be a
> requirements document, it’s actually written in the form of a fairly
> detailed specification, one that contradicts the draft OASIS Profile
on
> a number of very significant points and goes far beyond it on others. 
> Putting that conflicting material in an appendix and lab
eling it
> non-normative can’t offset the overwhelming f> comprise the largest part of the document.   And including a mass of
> extraneous and inconsistent material in the draft can’t help but muddy
> the public comment process.
> 
> It’s RISKY because we’re being drawn into uncharted legal and
procedural
> waters. The traditional role of OASIS has been to generate voluntary
> standards that folks can use or choose not to use.  But here we’re
being
> asked by DHS/FEMA to conduct what they’ve told us on several occasions
> they plan to treat as the public review component of a federal
> regulatory process, one that will have significant financial and
> political implications on a number of industries, jurisdictions and
> other stakeholders.  That’s a very different activity, and not one I
> think most OASIS members contemplated when they joined the
organization.
>  Although we may hear opinions on the subject, the fact is that we
> simply can’t know what sorts of liabilities, legal expenses or other
> ramifications might arise from such an undertaking, not only for OASIS
> but also for the individual members of this TC.
> 
> And it’s potentially DAMAGING to OASIS and the OASIS standards process
> because it creates an appearance that OASIS and particularly the
> Emergency Management Technical Committee are no longer independent and
> honest arbiters but now merely agents of the U.S. government.  (That
> impression can only be deepened by the fact that the chair and most of
> the members of the CAP Profiles Subcommittee... and many if not most
of
> the active members of the EM TC... are themselves DHS/FEMA contractors
> or subcontractors.  And further, that OASIS itself has entered into a
> side contract with DHS.)  We’ve historically heard complaints from
> international members that this TC is excessively U.S.-oriented; we
> don’t need to add fuel to that fire.
> 
> So why is Appendix B in there?  Not in support of the OASIS process,
> clearly.  It’s there, I’d suggest, because OASIS has been recruited,
> perhaps unwittingly, into a radical experiment in the privatization of
> federal regulation launched under the previous Administration.  And
that
> experiment is now being pressed headlong to completion before the new
> Administration has a chance to consider it.
> 
> That’s a strong claim, I know, and the mechanics of such things may be
> unfamiliar to many OASIS members, so please bear with me while I
expand
> on it a bit.
> 
> The C
> AP IPAWS Profile will ultimately be binding on the radio, TV,
> satellite, cable and cellular telephone industries, among others, and
on
> state and local jurisdictions nationwide.  Historically, such federal
> regulations have gone through mature and well-defined procedures for
> open public comment and review managed, in this particular subject
area,
> by the Federal Communication Commission. 
> 
> However, in June 2006 an Executive Order (EO 13407) made the
Department
> of Homeland Security the lead agency for public warning, with the FCC,
> NOAA and other federal agencies tasked to support DHS.  Being quite a
> young federal agency, as such things go, DHS... of which FEMA is now a
> department... has not had time to develop fully its own processes for
> developing regulations.
> 
> In the case of the cellular alerting program (and with a bit of
prodding
> by way of congressional legislation) DHS partnered with the FCC in
2007
> and 2008 to conduct an advisory committee process followed by two
cycles
> of rulemaking with formal public comment and reply-comment processes.
> 
> But in the case of IPAWS, which is meant to integrate multiple public
> warning systems (EAS, cellular, NOAA Weather Radio and others) into a
> single coordinated national capability, DHS has taken a different and
> much less collaborative approach.  They’ve hired contractors, most of
> them with little or no experience in public warning, and developed a
> detailed set of technical specs, and then presse
d OASIS to cover those
> specifications with a veneer of public review by slipping it into our
> document as an appendix.
> 
> Working Group" to solicit comments on... and thus build stakeholder
> investment in... their own version of the Profile.  So it seems
> reasonable to question whether DHS actually is committed to the OASIS
> process, or whether they may simply be using OASIS to create, if not a
> rubberstamp endorsement of their own agenda, then at least an illusion
> of public and expert review of a document we’ve actually found to have
a
> number of serious shortcomings.  
> 
> In short, we need to consider the possibility that OASIS is being used
> in an attempt to shortcut the regulatory process and reduce the
> transparency of government.
> 
> The justification that we’re including this appendix as "a service to
> the users" is both transparent and irrelevant.  Including an appendix
> that explicitly contradicts the actual OASIS recommendation is hardly
> doing anyone a service.  And in any event, nothing prevents DHS from
> publishing any additional information it deems beneficial or necessary
> by its own means.  Ultimately the CAP Profile will only be one part of
> the regulatory framework required for IPAWS.
> 
> In summary, then:  There’s no compelling reason under the OASIS
process
> for including the confusing, contradictory and extraneous material in
> Appendix B, and a number of important reasons not to.  
> 
> I hope you’ll join me in acting prudently on Tuesday to remove this
> unnecessary appendix from the draft before it hopelessly confuses the
> public review process and perhaps permanently damages our reputations
as
> advocates of an open standards process.
> 
> And there’s no need for haste here, except perhaps on the part of some
> of the DHS bureaucracy.  The IPAWS program has been ongoing for at
least
> four years; we’ve been involved for less than ten weeks.  And DHS
> representatives have already advised us that they plan to come back
with
> amended or additional requirements in the foreseeable future.  So
please
> don’t be swayed by any implication that we’re somehow obliged to
release
> this document prematurely.
> 
> - Art
> 
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> 
> 
>
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-- 
Eduardo Gutentag        |    e-mail: eduardo.gutentag@Sun.COM
Technology Director     |    Phone:  +1 510 550 4616 (internal x31442)
Corporate Standards     |    Sun Microsystems Inc.
              W3C AC Rep / W3C AB / OASIS BoD



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