dpc
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Motion to Rescind Board Resolution on Suspending Grex Public Access
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Jul 28 16:11 UTC 1999 |
As a Grex member, I move that the following resolution, adopted by
the Board on July 27, be rescinded:
In the event that Michigan Public Act 33 of 1999 goes into effect,
all public access to Grex shall be suspended, with the exception
of an informational web page, pending the formulation of new policies.
That's the resolution that my motion would rescind. I think it is totally
unnecessary to shut down Grex, even temporarily, just because an unwise
law goes into effect. We have no real idea if we will be targets of
prosecution at all. As I think I said elsewhere, the interest groups
behind these state "Internet minor" statutes really want to go after
the "teaser" pages on adult porn sites.
Plus, even if by some remote chance Grex is prosecuted, I believe we would
be able to successfully defend ourselves in court.
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jep
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response 1 of 203:
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Jul 28 16:21 UTC 1999 |
There is not enough time, under the procedures in the bylaws, for this
motion to occur, unless the court makes an injunction against that law.
Grex will shut down on Sunday unless there's an injunction before then.
This motion can't be voted on until after that.
I don't favor overturning the decisions of the sitting Board. It's
their job, and they've done what they thought was right. I disagree
with this particular decision, but even if there was time to do
otherwise, I would prefer to support the Board.
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don
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response 4 of 203:
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Jul 28 20:55 UTC 1999 |
1) About the mail forwarding, I would hazard a guess that the board would
suspend public access by turning off logins (easily achieved by backing up
the password file, then replacing all of the passwords with *'s which
disable logins for that user). So you could probably set up a .forward
file, open a free mail account (hotmail etc), and then access your mail
from an internet cafe or someone else's internet connection.
2) I'm not expert on parliamentary procedures, but I'm pretty sure that
bylaws (in general) can be temporarily suspended by a 2/3 vote. I guess
since the GREX bylaws require 3/4 for amendment, a 3/4 vote might be
neccessary. So what you could do would be to have a motion to suspend the
voting procedures and have that immediately voted on and concluding
tomorrow or Friday, then invoke that motion (when voting ends; you might
be able to expidite it even more by ending voting procedures as soon as 75
people have voted yes; explain to people that this isn't a vote for
rescinding, merely to be able to have a vote; if the board gives you a
hard time, invoke whatever clause in the bylaws or declaration of
principles that says that the membership has a right to make the policies)
to call for a vote on your original motion immediately, the vote ending
right before whenever the point-of-no-return for shutting down GREX would
be (11:45 on July 31?). This may look confusing, but read it slowly and
you'll get the picture. Be sure to phone the keeper of the vote program to
start it up immediately for the suspension vote.
When all of the dust clears, somebody should propose an amendment to the
bylaws providing for emergency votes. I'm not doing any of this because
I'm not a member.
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cmcgee
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response 7 of 203:
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Jul 28 23:17 UTC 1999 |
Richard, curb your paranoia.
I'm with jep on this. I support what the board did, even at the cost of
losing my net access. I think the board is very mindful of the turmoil that
would be caused by shutting Grex down, even for a short while. I think it
is a very unlikely possibility that we will have to shut down.
Nonetheless, the board _should_ be considerting these kinds of things, and
just as I am making arrangements should this emergency action be required,
they are very prudent in making arrangements for that possibility.
As far as I can see, those of us who feel civil disobedience is the correct
course should be getting our MNet accounts set up quickly.
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remmers
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response 8 of 203:
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Jul 29 00:14 UTC 1999 |
Re resp:6 - the hearing last week *was* to enjoin the state from
enforcing the law while the suit is pending. We're waiting for the
judge's decision. If it goes against us, the suit on the merits will
still go forward, but the law will be in effect and Grex will be
liable for prosecution.
I'm the board chair, so I'll try to explain where the board is coming
from on this. C. McGee has it basically right. We were planning for a
worst-case scenario that we don't expect to come about. But we felt
there should be a contingency in case the law did go into effect. I
suspect the reason that nobody - either board members or users -
initiated public discussion of this earlier is that we are so
optimistic of winning. In retrospect, it would have been better if
there had been. But there wasn't, so the board took it up for the
first time at Monday's meeting. We thought it would be irresposible to
continue with business as usual if the law goes into effect. To cite
just one concern, users could be in jeopardy without knowing it - for
example, someone who posted sexually explicit text in a conference a
while ago and who isn't even on Grex anymore, even though their text
still is. We felt we needed some time to make decisions on what to do
about things like this.
Like Steve, I don't think this will really be an issue, since the
judge promised a decision before August 1, and I have every reason to
think it will be in our favor. At the hearing, which I attended, the
judge appeared very sympathetic to the our case. (Also, he's an ACLU
member, and not an Engler appointee since this was federal, not state,
court.) And in any case, a temporary shutdown would not be "running
away". If our request for an injunction is denied, the ACLU will
appeal, there will be a trial on the merits of the law, grex will
participate in that process, and we will fight the thing in court.
In the unlikely event of a shutdown, users won't be out of the
loop. I'll call an emergency board and staff meeting for purposes of
getting as many services up as we can as quickly as possible. There
will be updates on the web page. It is probably feasible to use
Backtalk to have a discussion item in which users can post responses.
Email appears to be protected by the "ISP exemption" in the law, so I
think we'll be able to have that up and available with minimal
disruption.
Again: A shutdown appears very unlikely to happen. My take from my
participation in this suit is that the judge is almost certain to
grant the temporary injunction against enforcement of this law (he
promised a decision before August 1, as Steve points out) and we won't
need to worry about changing a thing when August 1 rolls around.
Dave's take on the law in #0 puzzles me, and seems contradictory. It's
far from obvious to me that it's aimed only at "teaser pages on adult
porn sites." If that's really true, then Grex and Arbornet don't have
standing in the case, Grex shouldn't have become involved, and Dave
shouldn't have been the declarant for Arbornet. If we don't think
this can have serious consequences for Grex, we shouldn't be plaintiffs
at all.
Anyway, an article in last week's Detroit Free Press indicated that
the Michigan State Police plan to use it to nab "internet predators"
without having to produce a victim. Hmmm... Presumably if someone
posts sexually explicit material and a cop decides that it looks
"predatory"? A scary prospect. In any case, I think we have to go by
what the law actually says, not a best-case scenario of how it might
be applied. Look at the text in item 98, resp. #7 (resp:coop,98,7),
read Section 2(c) definiing "sexually explicit verbal material", then
Section 5, which criminalizes posting it where it would be seen by
minors. Then think about Grex's open conferences, where postings hang
around for years and are probably just about all seen by minors at
some point. The "ISP exemption" in the law doesn't appear to apply to
the conferences. I don't buy it that the law is only for "porn sites".
As has been pointed out, Dave's motion can't be voted on by August
1st, and there's no provision in the bylaws for "emergency user votes"
to override the time limits. However, this issue may come up again.
Assuming that the judge grants the injunction before August 1, the
Attorney General's office may decide to defend the law, in which case
there would be a trial on the law's constitutional merits 6 to 9
months from now. A possible (but I think unlikely) outcome of that
trial could be that the law is upheld and goes into effect. At which
point, decisions will need to be made about what to do. At least in
that case, we'll have had at least 6 months for thorough discussion.
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