>Our initial, more restrictive approach was motivated solely by our desire to protect our volunteers and our members from legal risk
In other words: They overreacted, possibly biased by those in charge.
In other words: They overreacted, possibly biased by those in charge.
That this affected the IEEE in this way is a matter of concern, for an international academic/professional organization. I'd say most of us want to do good work, in good faith, for all of humanity, and are happy to collaborate around the world.
Even when there are tensions and conflicts among nations, politicians, and businesses, the rest of us can keep doing our collaborative work. Also, our mutual engagement around the world promotes diplomacy and our better selves.
I'm still amazed how many people fell for the 'concerns of espionage' pretext. I guess most wars in history have started will equally dumb pretexts.
More seriously, I'd like to understand what legal liability they thought they were exposed to, and how they made that decision so fast, and who.