response 25 of 203:

Jul 29 19:47 UTC 1999

ERm, we didn't win.  We merely got the judge to suspend the enforcement of
the law until a decision on the merits of the case are made.  Not the same
thing at all.  

response 27 of 203:

Jul 29 21:18 UTC 1999

If there was no chance the judge wouldn't rule quickly enough, and in 
Grex's favor, then why was there a Board decision to shut down the 
system in case it occurred?  Was it just childish grandstanding, in your 
opinion, STeve? 

response 29 of 203:

Jul 29 21:23 UTC 1999

   John, when dealing with the court system or any other unpredictable
system, its always a good odea to have a fallback policy.  Grex has always
had a fallback policy on hardware--should a piece die, we usually have
had a spare waiting.  So with legal stuff--I really really did expect this
to happen, from hearing judge Tarnow talk; he clearly understood a lot of
the issues, I daresay better than the laywer that the State had.  But we
couldn't know the outcome, not with 100% accuracy, hence the desision
for a fallback.  I was one of the vocal proponents of doing this at the
last board meeting.

response 31 of 203:

Jul 30 03:03 UTC 1999

I should point out that the preliminary injunction does not make Dave's
motion moot.  At some point in the future, probably six to nine months
from now, there will be another hearing (probably in Cincinatti).  The
outcome of that is extremely likely to be favorable to us, but it is
possible for it to go against us.

If this law had gone into effect, it is possible that the corporation,
the individual board members and many of our current and former users
could be at risk of being prosecuted.  Dave says "yeah but it'll never
happen".  He's probably right.  But he isn't definately right.

It is almost a certainty that we will win our fight against this act. 
If we lose though, then we are in a tough position.  Either Grex as we
know it is dead, or we have to run in open defiance of the law. 
Historically we have tried hard to avoid breaking the law, but I'm not
absolutely opposed to doing so - heck, Valerie and I break the laws of
the Great State of Michigan every day by cohabiting.  But nobody can
make that decision for anyone else.  Each board member has to decide
whether or not they want to expose themselves to the risk.  Every user
who has ever posted anything sexually explicit on Grex has to decide if
he or she wants to leave it there or censor it.  We need to decide what
to do about sexually explicit material posted by people no longer here.
Time will be needed to make all these decisions.  During that time, Grex
has to be down.

We may be able to bring some services on line quickly - like Email.  But
even Email has issues.  We give out anonymous Email accounts.  What if
someone takes out an anonymous account on Grex and uses it to Email
something really nasty to thousands of teenagers in every county of the
state.  Could some county prosecuter go after that person, and finding
that we can't identify him, prosecute us instead for deliberately making
it possible for people to do this anonymously?  I'd like a legal opinion
on that.

I'm pretty sure we could safely give people read access to their email
immediately.  Even if a teen reads a pornographic Email message on Grex,
the ISP exemption would unambiguously cover us (but not whomever sent
it).  So people worried about losing access to their Email needn't
worry.

response 33 of 203:

Jul 30 06:17 UTC 1999

<birdy gives the board a standing ovation for all of their hard work on the
case *and* the foresight to plan for a "just in case" situation>

response 35 of 203:

Jul 30 13:51 UTC 1999

Well, I'm willing to let the hot-blooded board members stay on, and the
chilled ones leave.  As a member of a board that once had the IRS suing us
individually for the the malfeasance of a staff member, I don't blame them
one bit for not wanting to take on the State of Michigan with their personal
assets and freedom at risk.  

I do agree with David on point two however.  Now is the time to hold the
discussions about how the membership wants to handle this when it comes up
again in the future.  I don't think we've seen the end of legislation that
tries to make us responsible for the content of the confrences.  I said in
some other response that the membership could direct the board to continue
to operate in defiance of the law.  That is certainly a scenario some people
would find appealing.  

I don't think we are ready for a member vote on any resolution, since I don't
sense any consensus or even agreement on what realistic options are.

Let the debates begin!

response 37 of 203:

Jul 30 16:08 UTC 1999

I didn't vote for this motion because of my personal liability as a
board member.  I would never vote to shut Grex down permanently because
I didn't want to expose myself to risk of prosecution.  If I felt I
couldn't take the risk, then I'd resign from the board instead.

For me the compelling reason is the risk of prosecution to our current
and former users.  There is material in our conferences that is arguably
sexually explicit and was posted by people who are long gone, and who
may well not remember that it is here.  And yet there is a chance that
they could be prosecuted.  I don't think that the board has a right
place such people at risk without their knowledge or consent.

The board motion was written with the intent of buying us some time to
figure out a long term policy for how Grex would operate under this law.
The law could still go into effect, or another law could (though the
existing policy is specific to this law), but not soon.  It'll be
months, at least, before there is a chance of the law being upheld.

My suggestion to Dave Cahill is to put his motion on hold.  All it does
now is suggest that the board's policy be withdrawn.  It doesn't suggest
an alternative.  We now have months to come up with an alternative. 
Leave the board policy stand for now, and come up with an good
alternative policy.  Then do a membership vote on that.

Basically there are only three policies possible:
  (1)  Permanent shut down
  (2)  Continue running with greater restrictions on what can be posted
       or who can access it.
  (3)  Continue running as we are, in defiance of the law.
Option (1) is pointless.  Anyone who wants it should just leave and let
people who want to keep running do it.  Option (2) is disgusting.  Grex
should not abandon its ideals.  Anyone who wants a safe and legal system
should go start one, but Grex/Cyberspance Communications should stand
fast.  So option (3) is the only valid one.

However, that still leaves lots of questions open that need to be
resolved:

  - What do we do with existing material on line that might be sexually
    explicit?  We could build a tool that let users review all their
    old conference postings and withdraw ones they didn't feel
    comfortable leaving up.  What do we do for users who are no longer
    here?

  - What do we have to do in terms of informing users of the risks they
    expose themselves by posting sexually explicit material here?

  - How open do we want to be about defying the law?  Should our home
    page declare our refusal to even try to conform, or should we be
    quiet about it?

  - How do we avoid being overrun by pornographic postings by people who
    know we are defying the law and who take out anonymous accounts to
    post trash here just to prove they can do it?

response 39 of 203:

Jul 30 17:51 UTC 1999

Re #35:  Do you understand that a member vote to keep running in defiance of
the law would be the members putting the board at risk of prosecution?  I
don't think anyone has the right to put someone else's reputation and money
at risk.

response 41 of 203:

Jul 30 19:16 UTC 1999

Right...but they don't have to prove it.  The mere act of bringing Grex's
board to trial would bankrupt us.

You forget, justice is a system that you can only play in if you're rich, or
have a fairly well-moneyed interest to back you.

response 43 of 203:

Jul 30 20:49 UTC 1999

There is one point to consider in all of this:  Unless Grex has a written
contract with some legal representation that provides for no-charge legal
defense, a shutdown (pending adjustments or whatever) is the only sane
option.  If, for any reason, the non-contractually bound offers of aid
fail to occurr, then Grex is essentially destroyed by any legal action,
notwithstanding personal liability issues of the board members.  I'd have
to have several attorneys provide proof otherwise before I'd accept that
it was not the case, but I can't imagine the entire assets of Grex paying
an attorney long enough to get to court, let alone actually win.  (Entire
assets=all the money, including selling ALL the hardware for cash.)

response 45 of 203:

Jul 30 21:24 UTC 1999

As to whether there should have been prior online discussion about a
contingency plan in case the law went into effect: I'm not concerned
about the "panic" possibility; we've never gone wrong by treating users
as level-headed folks and being forthright with them. And we might well
have gotten some good suggestions that the board didn't think of. As
chairman, I feel particularly responsible for the lack of advance public
discussion, and I apologize for any failing on my part.

However, after seeing the discussion in this and related items, I have
to say I'm of two minds on this issue. If there had been an item about
contingency planning earlier, then I suspect Dave would have been making
all his statements about the law not being a threat to us earlier as
well. I'm of course not a lawyer, but I must say I would have been more
than a bit uncomfortable at seeing the declarant for Arbornet, one of
the plaintiffs, arguing in a public forum that the law isn't a serious
threat to Grex and Arbornet, before the injunction hearing had even been
held. Given that the case isn't yet settled, I must say I'm not
comfortable about it now either.

Somebody set me straight if the preceding paragraph is off base.

response 47 of 203:

Jul 30 22:55 UTC 1999

Moving grex wouldn't be nearly that straight forward.  Firstly, if grex
moved its hardware out of the country, but staff & board continued to
reside in Michigan, this is not likely to be a big problem for the
state.  Arresting the staff & board would still be trivial, and what
might happen after that would be a moot point because it's unlikely
staff or board would consider serving in view of such a risk.  Laws of
incorporation vary from place to place.  Grex could probably incorporate
in Nevada without doing anything else, because Nevada has very lax
incorporation procedures.  Ontario probably has much stricter
requirements, like provincial residency, in order to incorporate.
Transporting the equipment across international borders also introduces
problems like customs duty.  There are other subsidiary issues, like
finding space, and an ISP, and funding these, that would not be trivial.
Realistically, therefore, you are talking about the following: (a)
shutting grex down, (b) some grex staff/board resign, (c) remaining
staff/board move to a new state or country, and reincorporate there, (d)
the assets are transferred, (e) a new ISP and home are found for grex,
(f) grex resumes operation.  This is probably like a year project and
has a significant chance of failure.

Having said that, I still think see the options a bit differently than
Jan:
 (0) shutdown (jan#1)
 (1) restrict who can get on (part of jan#2)
 (2) restrict what can be posted - either pre or post censorship (part
        of jan#2)
 (3) operate in defiance of the law (jan#3)
 (4) move grex to another state
 (5) move grex to another country
I think all of these options are pretty yucky.

response 49 of 203:

Jul 31 22:41 UTC 1999

Grex down under, if it ever came to that, but it won't (-: