IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - Summer 2013 - 70

Iranian authors was permitted by
IEEE's interpretation of the OFAC
laws, but these authors were not
allowed to know recommendations
of reviewers (because informing
them would be regarded as providing a "service," and so forbidden).
Thus, if the papers were considered suitable for publication, they
had to be printed 'as is' with no
corrections to improve accuracy
or clarity.
Discussions of all these matters became widespread for a while
during IEEE Board Series meetings and the subject was frequently
on the agenda of the IEEE Transnational Committee.
There were uncertainties over
the regulations about joint publications with Iranian authors. For
example, suppose that a Canadian
citizen was a joint author with an
Iranian national, could reviewers'
recommendations be conveyed
to these authors? Perhaps only to
the Canadian author, raising the
question of whether he would be
allowed to inform his Iranian coauthor of them, or whether that
would itself be illegal.
Questions arose about the proper
interpretation for Iranian citizens
legally living in other countries,
for example particularly Iranian
professors on sabbatical leave in
other countries.
This seemed to be resolved by
a "don't ask, don't tell" regime,
e.g., IEEE did not have the practice of asking authors about their
nationality so unless an author had
an Iranian mailing address, IEEE
had no mechanism to become
aware that he/she was an Iranian
author, and so could not apply the
sanctions.
How to process a paper from a
non-Iranian, living legitimately in
Iran and so supplying an Iranian
address, does not seem to have
been resolved with any clarity.
IEEE seems to have "led the
way" in its compliance with what
appeared to be the interpretation
of the OFAC laws. For example,
70

the publishers of Science refused
to comply, saying that the prohibition on publishing went against
freedom of speech. Many other
publishers seemed to be unaware of
the issue before the publicity about
IEEE's approach.
The AAuP report quoted earlier
also included the statement:
Presumably this ruling
applies to all countries
under a U.S. trade embargo.
Currently the OFAC website lists those countries as
the Balkans, Burma, Cuba,
Iran, Iraq, Liberia, Libya,
North Korea, Sudan and
Zimbabwe.
Whether or not this was true was
apparently never reported in the
IEEE context. If the same rules
and same consequences had been
applied to the countries in the
Balkan Peninsula, that would
have had a major impact on r8.
After the wars in Yugoslavia, by
1992 there were three Sections
(Slovenia, Croatia, and Yugoslavia) as well as a Macedonia Section formed in 1997. Depending
on how "Balkans" is defined,
this might even include Greece
(by 2001 an Eu country) and
Bulgaria. The phrase "... website lists those countries as the
Balkans...." suggests that whoever drew up this list supposed
that "Balkans" was a nation
rather than an (ill-defined) geographical area.
In 2003, IEEE Spectrum published the following report by
Jean Kumagai:
On 30 September, the
U.S. Treasury Department
(Washington, DC) informed
the Institute of Electrical
and Electronics Engineers
(IEEE) that it must continue
to limit members' rights in
four countries embargoed
by the United States: Cuba,
Iran, Libya, and Sudan. The

ruling means, among other
things, that the IEEE, the
world's largest engineering association (and the
publisher of this magazine),
cannot edit articles submitted by authors in those
countries, making it effectively impossible for most
such work to appear in IEEE
publications.

Explaining the Problems
to IEEE Societies and IEEE
Conference Organizers
The relative independence of
IEEE Societies and IEEE Conference organizers meant that many
of them knew little or understood
little about the situation regarding
OFAC and Iran. The IEEE leadership had to inform them, and
the reactions of IEEE Societies to
these events was not at all uniform,
and frequently not at all supportive
of IEEE policy.
For example, on May 10, 2002,
the IEEE Computer Society Board
of Governors, meeting in Portland,
Oregon, passed a motion incorporating the following text (and
much more):
Whereas ..... our leadership has been called upon
to enforce compliance with
restrictions on global contributions even for events run
outside of relevant jurisdictions, including publication
of content from non-IEEE
events.....
Resolved that the Board
of Governors of the IEEE
Computer Society
1)
Communicates......
that ...... b) these restrictions are inappropriate and
contrary to the principle of
the free exchange of ideas
which are essential to the
advancement of scientific
knowledge......

IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE

SuMMEr 2013

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - Summer 2013