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| Author |
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| 25 new of 316 responses total. |
janc
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response 191 of 316:
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Jun 30 15:30 UTC 1999 |
I got a call this morning from Marshall Widick. They're running a bit
behind schedule on submitting the "motion brief". They had planned to
get it in today, it currently looks like Friday.
On July 8, the attorney's will be meeting with the judge to set a date
for the hearing.
They are expecting that the hearing will last two days. They are
guessing that it is likely to fall somewhere around the 21-23 of July.
They have decided NOT to submit our declaration. Instead, they want to
call me as a witness, so I get to do the whole thing orally. With me
giving oral testimony about Grex, they don't need the written
declaration as well (presumably the defense could be annoying about any
minor differences between the two, etc).
If anyone had asked for volunteers to do this, I wouldn't have jumped up
shouting "me! me! me!", but I guess I'm OK with it. It should be an
adventure.
I still don't think Grex had any real choice about getting involved. I
don't know any way that we could function in compliance with this law.
The last two times such a law was passed, other organizations went to
court, and because they won, we didn't have to worry about it. Those
other organizations in those other lawsuits weren't in the business of
political action either. This time is the ball is in our court. If we
shouldn't do this, who should? Is "Art on the Net" somehow a more
appropriate organization to be doing this than we are?
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dpc
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response 192 of 316:
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Jun 30 15:54 UTC 1999 |
Thanx for the Michigan Daily reference, Eric!
Hm. It is a bit odd for the lawyers to work so hard with us
on the Declaration and then decide they don't want it after all.
But that's the thing about a lawsuit--signals are always changing.
The only critique I could make about the Declaration is that
it says *too much*.
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aruba
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response 193 of 316:
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Jun 30 16:27 UTC 1999 |
I think it was smashing. :) It is odd that they're not using it at all.
Jan, will the testimony be in open court (as opposed to in a deposition room)?
Will the other side get to interview you first, privately? I don't know much
about legal procedure beyond what I've seen on TV.
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richard
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response 194 of 316:
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Jun 30 21:41 UTC 1999 |
If Grex is lead plaintiff, that will make grex a target. If this suit
fails, and the law passes, grex will be among the very first sites the
government will come after to enforce the law. Or if the lawsuit
succeeds, Grex could be targeted by the bill's supporters and government
officials for retaliation. If grex simply had its name at the bottom of
the list, it would not draw such attention, and even if the bill became
law, it might have been months or years before any officials even cared
about making grex compliant or knew grex existed. The possibility of
being lead plaintiff should have been raised prior to and as part of the
vote.
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aruba
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response 195 of 316:
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Jun 30 21:56 UTC 1999 |
We considered those issues when we voted to join the suit.
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albaugh
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response 196 of 316:
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Jun 30 22:29 UTC 1999 |
Color me possibly naive, but I consider grex too small fry for "the man" to
go after - it doesn't have any cool toys, such as multimedia support.
Note that grex *could* operate in some fashion were the law to come into
effect - it just doesn't *want* to. How? The simplest thing would be to
require validation of each (prospective new) user. That would scare off 99+%
of the current anonymous new users, and the necessarily slow response by the
appointed grex validator(s) (human) would turn off the impatient. A pretty
picture? No! But doable. It's hoped/assumed it will never come to that...
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mdw
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response 197 of 316:
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Jul 1 03:01 UTC 1999 |
I don't think any of the staff or board of grex would have felt the
least bit comfortable operating this system in clear defiance of the
law. Many of the board & staff have family and other responsibilities
outside of grex, and would not in good conscience be able to continue to
serve. One of the things that makes this case interesting is that I
don't think the law makers had ever considered a system precisely like
grex. I think they were only thinking of large commercial online
providers, and small "outlaw" sites. This is a good opportunity for us
to put our needs forward, and to make the best possible case for
ourselves. We've been spending a lot of time trying to 2nd guess what
the law really means. It is certainly popular to think "grex is
text-only, grex is not in danger", but I certainly see nothing about
that in the law, and, so far as that goes, I would like to think we can
someday afford enough internet bandwidth that we could start allowing
more images. This is our chance to ask the courts what this all really
means for us, and to interpret it specifically in our context, in an
unprejudiced state (ie, nothing wrong has been done yet.)
Now, if this law *is* upheld, and interpreted in its worse sense towards
grex, then we'll clearly have to do something. I see at least 3
options, shut down, change what we do, or change where we do it. Of
these three options, I think the last might become the most attractive.
Canada, Illinois, and Ohio are all conveniently at hand, any of these
might make a good home for grex, and it could be a good exercise for
grex to become less geographically oriented. Still, I don't think any
of us really wants to do this, and there is every reason to expect that
it will never come to this.
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albaugh
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response 198 of 316:
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Jul 1 05:47 UTC 1999 |
(Dunno if #197 was in reponse to my #196... If so, please note that I never
intended to suggest that grex would *not* comply with the law. Just that grex
doesn't want to have to operate in a way that would comply with the law. In
that case, your alternatives are the kinds of choices the grex powers would
have to decide upon.)
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mdw
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response 199 of 316:
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Jul 1 07:16 UTC 1999 |
#197 is in response to #194, the suggestion that there was
any risk to grex by being involved in this suit, or that it would be a
good thing for grex to hope it wouldn't be noticed by the authorities in
due course.
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jep
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response 200 of 316:
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Jul 1 14:11 UTC 1999 |
Just to clarify (again) my point against being involved in the lawsuit:
it doesn't have anything to do with #194. It has to do with Grex being
misused as a political agency, without the knowledge of the users and
against the personal preferences of some of them, sort of like labor
unions.
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richard
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response 201 of 316:
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Jul 1 14:41 UTC 1999 |
If this bill becomes law, and is interpreted at its worst potential and
grex is clearly in violation, then what should be done is what was
suggested back in the CDA debate. Continue to operate the system but
the board members should all resign so there is no risk of repercussions
against them. Of course if Grex operated in violation of the law,
it could get dropped by its ISP, and it might lose its lease and have to
move into somebody's house. But if the law is unjust and wrong, grex's
continuing to operate would be the strongest possible protest. If you
were a black person and the government re-instituted slavery, and told
you to give up your freedom, would you do so just because the law now
says you had to. At some point, civil disobedience is necessary. At
some point, you have to do what is right. Grex's continuing to operate
in outright violation of this law may well be what ends up being the
right thing to do. And if something is right, really right, it is worth
the consequences. The board and staff of grex should consider it a
matter of dignity and honor to keep Grex free and open and uncensored,
no matter what.
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dpc
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response 202 of 316:
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Jul 1 17:32 UTC 1999 |
One of the fun things about the new law is that we won't know if
we're complying with it or not until someone charges us with
violating it! If the law is upheld, I think we should continue
to do "business as usual". We shouldn't move the System, nobody
should resign. It could easily be that after August 1 exactly
*nothing* happens to us, ever.
Why mess with a good setup just because of a small risk?
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scg
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response 203 of 316:
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Jul 1 18:15 UTC 1999 |
Uh, Richard, even if the board members all resign, and Grex gets moved into
somebody's house, somebody would still be operating Grex.
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richard
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response 204 of 316:
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Jul 1 21:23 UTC 1999 |
#203..right, but if the board members all resign, the board and by
extension cyberspace inc. becomes inactive and control of grex reverts
from the membership to grex staff. Grex staff can operate grex far more
clandestinely-- the identities of grex staff can be kept fairly secret
and it would be the problem of the government to prove who is grex staff
and who isnt.
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mdw
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response 205 of 316:
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Jul 1 21:27 UTC 1999 |
And it would have to a pretty brave house owner.
I can guarantee you that not all of the grex staff & board are willing
to risk civil disobedience. Ultimately, the question would be what the
membership at large decides, and perhaps, who the membership can find
that will be willing to undertake whatever risks there are.
Re #200, Not everything grex does is necessarily going to meet with the
approval of everyone on the system. In this case, considerable notice
was giving of the whole business, input was solicited, and of the people
who cared, a vast majority thought that participating in this lawsuit
was in grex's best interest. This is a legal issue that directly
concerns grex, it was with the knowledge of the users, and it is with
the express approval of the vast majority of the membership.
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mdw
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response 206 of 316:
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Jul 1 21:31 UTC 1999 |
The grex staff aren't interested in operating glandestinely. At least 4
have families, and all are much too well known to have any serious hopes
of hiding, even if any were interested in doing so. In order for this
to work at all, grex would have to somehow recruit and train a whole new
set of staff who were willing to take the risks, and it would be awfully
hard to preserve any sort of meaningful continuity in the face of doing
so.
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richard
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response 207 of 316:
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Jul 1 21:49 UTC 1999 |
grex should at least limit its options to either continuing to
operate illegally or move out of state. I think there should
be a followup member vote to commit the membership to a resolution that
grex will not ever willingly censor its users or the materials in its
conferences; that if grex is ever found to be in nomcompliance with this
new law in a manner which would require censorship, it will either shut
down, move out of state, or continue non-compliance. Resolve definitively
that grex will not, under any circumstances, comply with this new law if
compliance in any way requires censorship.
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albaugh
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response 208 of 316:
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Jul 1 21:54 UTC 1999 |
"Scottie, I need manual override *now*, richard is up to it again!"
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aruba
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response 209 of 316:
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Jul 1 22:11 UTC 1999 |
Richard, let's just wait and see how the suit turns out, and not decide
anything we don't have to.
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mdw
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response 210 of 316:
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Jul 2 02:56 UTC 1999 |
You can always become a member, Richard, if you seriously want to
propose this. If you become a member now, you could then run for the
board when a bunch of open seats open up, if the law is upheld. Better
not pledge to do anything illegal before then; I'm not sure if the board
could in good conscience turn over any resources to a board member who
has pledged to commit illegal acts. Better bone up on your Unix skills
too - how are you are doing backups?
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janc
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response 211 of 316:
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Jul 2 03:58 UTC 1999 |
If this law gets upheld, moving out of state, or out of the country
would not necessarily help. Even if we moved Grex to India, if a minor
in Michigan saw something sexually explicit posted on Grex, then
Cyberspace Communications could theoretically be prosecuted under
Michigan law. I kind of doubt that Michigan has any extradition
treaties with India, but they could always arrest any board members who
happened to visit Michigan.
I'm not sure, but I think I'd resign from staff and board if Grex
decided to run outlaw. I'm not that big a hero.
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scg
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response 212 of 316:
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Jul 2 05:30 UTC 1999 |
Michigan doesn't have extradition treaties with anywhere -- that's a Federal
thing. I would imagine the US probably has an extradition treaty with India,
but they probably have to first convince India that such an extradition is
a good idea. They also have to be motivated to pursue the issue.
I get the impression that Richard's suggestion to put Grex in somebody's house
is that that would make it hard to find out where Grex is. It wouldn't. Grex
has phone lines, which have to terminate somewhere. Even if we went Internet
only, the Internet connection is a phone line. If Ameritech were served with
a subpoena from the police, wanting to know where those phone lines terminate,
they would comply.
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mdw
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response 213 of 316:
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Jul 2 08:59 UTC 1999 |
Moving out of state or out of the country would certainly help. It
imposes more expenses, more nuisance, and more chances for somebody to
say "no, this is silly." Whether it's sufficient depends on the law.
I'd have to reread this law to be sure, but I *think* it was worded to
only apply to sites in michigan. I also don't think michigan can do
much to sites operating elsewhere. This is a good thing. Places like
Tennessee and Saudia Arabia have some pretty scary laws and "local
community standards".
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jep
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response 214 of 316:
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Jul 2 14:34 UTC 1999 |
I agree with #202.
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aruba
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response 215 of 316:
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Jul 2 16:58 UTC 1999 |
Re #213: The law is not restricted to sites in Michigan, that's why a number
of the plaintiffs are outside Michigan. Part of the basis for the suit is
that it regulates interstate commerce, which is unconstitutional.
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