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Grex > Coop11 > #114: Motion to Rescind Board Resolution on Suspending Grex Public Access | |
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| 25 new of 203 responses total. |
richard
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response 75 of 203:
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Aug 5 21:38 UTC 1999 |
only the membership should be able to cease operatoins. If the board
shuts down grex (Im not talking about system shutdowns for maintenance
or anything like that) it is infringing and rescinding the membership
rights of the members. The bylaws dont give the Board that express
right.
Imagine, for example, that the board supported an amendment to the bylaws
to make some major change. the amendment vote fails. Rather than
accept the membership verdict, the board is presently asserting that it
could enforce its amendment by voting to shut down operations unless
the membership reconsiders. The board can shut down operations at any
time right?
The Grex bylaws should be amended to say that Grex is supposed to remain
up and in operation, except in cases of routine maintenance or basic staff
issues like repairs or technical/facility problems, unless or until the
membership of Grex votes to temporarily or permanently cease operations.
This is the issue, in fact the only issue, where it should be spelled out
that the board cannot supercede the authority of the membership.
If grex is funded by the members, than only the members shouldbe able to
shut it down.
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scg
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response 76 of 203:
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Aug 5 21:48 UTC 1999 |
The members *do* elect the board. But Richard, weren't you the one who
thought it was horrendously unfair to base voting rights on monetary
donations?
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richard
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response 77 of 203:
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Aug 5 21:57 UTC 1999 |
I do scg, but thats a different argument-- I think any user choosing
to validate themselves and show committment to grex by being a user
for a certain period of time, should be allowed to become a full voting
member. The members elect the board, just as voters elect congress.
But congress cannot do two things-- they cannot dissolve the government
and they cannot, by themselves, amend the Constitution. The board of
Grex cannot by itself amend the Grex bylaws, and they should not, by
themselves, be able to cease this organization's operations.
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aruba
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response 78 of 203:
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Aug 5 22:22 UTC 1999 |
Well, I'm not sure I agree that the board should never be able to cease
operations without consent of the membership, but I do agree that it would
be inappropriate to do that in this case, and in any other I can think of
at the moment. However that's not at all what we voted for, as richard
well knows by now.
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richard
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response 79 of 203:
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Aug 5 22:32 UTC 1999 |
you voted to cease operations until you figured out what do do. Therefore
you voted to cease operations, which is the same thing whether it is for
three days or three weeks. Under the terms of the resolution, the Board
could have kept Grex down indefinetly or permanently. Only the membership
should have been able to decide to do that. The effect of ceasing
operations even temporarily could have been quite damaging, yet the Board
was saying the membership should hve no say in the matter? Thats like
the Board saying to a member, "we'll take your money, but unless a board
election is taking place and you can vote us out, to hell withyou, we'll
make our own decisions"
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aruba
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response 80 of 203:
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Aug 5 22:55 UTC 1999 |
(Most of the time I remember "hey, it's richard talking" and just hit the
"p" key. Occasionally I slip.)
As you well know, richard, we didn't vote to cease operations at all. We
voted to suspend public access while we worked on what to do next. The word
"suspend" was put in there to make it clear this was not "indefinite" or
"permanent". I'm sure a period of suspension would be a very busy time for
the board and staff, working to open the system up enough to let the rest of
the membership have a say in what to do next. So operations would not cease
at all.
It probably would have been better if the board laid out a more
comprehensive plan for the suspension, but we felt that we would need to
consult with the lawyers before we knew for sure what we could do next.
However, I'm confidant that such a plan would include
1. Getting e-mail up quickly (unless the lawyers thought we were liable
for anonymous users sending e-mail), and
2. Opening public access to a few items to a few items to allow people
to discuss what to do next.
Once again, I would like to see someone propose a policy that we *could*
implement, rather than just abrogating our safety valve. That policy
could be "business as usual", of course.
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richard
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response 81 of 203:
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Aug 5 23:23 UTC 1999 |
suspending public access is tantamount to suspending the service that
grex offers. maybe this needs re-phrasing: only the membership should
be able to vote to decline to the members and users grex's service,
unless technical problems or maintenance is required.
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steve
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response 82 of 203:
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Aug 5 23:53 UTC 1999 |
No, Richard, it is not the same thing at all.
But I have all but given up on the concept of your understand things.
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mdw
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response 83 of 203:
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Aug 6 01:02 UTC 1999 |
If the courts end up letting this law stand, it's extremely probable
that they won't let it stand unaltered. It's a bit difficult to predict
how the courts might alter this law's meaning (since they haven't given
any indication of having any interest in doing so), but if they were to
do so, they might (for instance) restrict the law's coverage to only
"obscene" materials, instead of merely "sexually explicit materials", or
they might add additional legal defenses to cover systems such as grex
(perhaps a text-only system will be excluded from coverage, or users
might be required to voluntarily give their age to the system and grex
might be required to provide a mechanism whereby certain conferences
could be excluded from view by people who have voluntarily said they are
not of age.) If the courts were to do this, it's very likely that they
will also give us more specific advice on how we could continue to
operate legally despite the law. If they did not volunteer such
information up front, hopefully the people we had there representing our
side would have the foresight and opportunity to do so.
If the courts do decide to do this, there is also the question of when
such an altered law might take effect. The worst case would be that the
courts decide it applies immediately, and retroactively as well. Since
the courts have so far appeared sympathetic to our mission and cause,
this seems unlikely. A hopefully more likely possibility is that the
courts would instead set a date some weeks or months after the hearing,
at which the modified law would take effect, and that the modified law
would not be retroactive. If this were to happen, then we would have
ample opportunity to consider the impact of the law on our operations,
and to make whatever changes were required to continue operation, if
such changes were indeed feasible, or to consider how to dissolve grex
and distribute the assets, if continued operation under the law were not
feasible. An advantage of being involved in the case, is that we have
opportunity to ask the courts for a more lenient timeframe to consider
our options, if they don't initially give us a reasonable timeframe.
Since we have no idea what an altered law might end up looking like, I
think it would be extremely premature to try to come to any binding
resolution regarding how we should continue to operate under such a law.
Since there is a chance the law could become operative quite quickly,
and since the board would become *personally* liable in this case, I
think it's only reasonable and fair that the board should have an
opportunity to shut grex down temporarily, if they feel this is the only
choice. I do not feel we have the right to require that the board
assume personal criminal liability, and if the membership were to pass
such a resolution, I think the board would be both legally and ethically
justified in ignoring such a resolution, if they don't in fact simply
choose to resign in en masse in disgust over our handling of matters. I
believe that if the law were to give the board a "grace period" before
enabling the coverage of an "altered law", that the board would use this
time to give the grex membership a chance to explore our options under
the altered law online. It is possible the time we might have for such
discussions might be very short before we would have to "do
something"--much less than our customary voting time, for instance.
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gull
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response 84 of 203:
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Aug 6 01:25 UTC 1999 |
Richard, I think you're being a bit paranoid. From reading your responses,
one gets the idea that the board is some evil organization that might
decide, at any time, to stage a hostile takeover.
I don't think that's likely, to say the least. And I suspect the bylaws
were written with the idea that the board will be reasonable in mind.
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jep
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response 85 of 203:
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Aug 6 01:33 UTC 1999 |
I'm with richard, just this once; the difference between "suspending
public access" and "ceasing Grex operations" is subtle enough that I
didn't understand it, and I'm not sure I understand it now.
I won't vote to tie the Board's hands about how to respond to a
situation. The Board is in charge; that's what we elected them for.
Otherwise we could govern Grex by direct vote on everything. I think
that would be horrible. I disagree with the Board's response, but I
think they had the right -- and need to have the right -- to do what
they did.
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albaugh
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response 86 of 203:
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Aug 6 03:15 UTC 1999 |
I feel inclined to point out that grex is *not* strictly a text-only
system. While bbs and party only allow for text depictions directly,
a user can house files of any kind in his directories, and make them
publicly available, announcing their existence textually via bbs,
party, and a web page. And as was pointed out under janc's scenario,
more than text can be distributed by e-mail on grex. All of this would
be strictly the responsibility of the user, except for the fact that
grex allows anonymous accounts. So while it's true that grex is
substantially a text-based system, and so most likely a lesser target
of those that would wish to prosecute some system under this law, I
think it is of little use to classify grex as a text-only system.
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aruba
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response 87 of 203:
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Aug 6 04:15 UTC 1999 |
Re #85: "Suspending public access" is like Grex going on vacation for a
couple of days. "Ceasing operations" is like Grex dying. Does that make
the difference clear?
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mdw
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response 88 of 203:
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Aug 6 07:12 UTC 1999 |
I don't think a "text-only" alteration is very likely, largely because I
didn't see much language in the law that would allow such a
construction. I only picked it as an example because a lot of people
here seem to feel grex "ought" to qualify under such an exemption, not
because I thought any such exemption would actually be workable (bits is
bits. Bits don't come in two flavours, X-rated and family values
compatible.)
I suspect any actual alteration in the law that the courts might pick is
likely to be much more arcane, and based on some very subtle logic
within the law. Since the act in question is rather long and
complicated, there are a *lot* of possibilities there. Figuring out
what any of those possibilities means for grex may even in itself be
non-obvious. At this point, the courts haven't given any indication
that they are considering any such thing, so it seems kind of unlikely
that any of these possibilities might come to pass.
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jep
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response 89 of 203:
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Aug 6 15:27 UTC 1999 |
re #87: If the Board had voted to "suspend operations for 3 days", or
something, then the difference between that and "ceasing operations
forever" would be clear. None of that type of discussion made it into
the minutes, though. It might have been clear to those that were there
what the expectation was, but it wasn't clear to some of the rest of us.
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aruba
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response 90 of 203:
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Aug 6 16:32 UTC 1999 |
Is it clear now?
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keesan
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response 91 of 203:
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Aug 6 17:41 UTC 1999 |
Again, I suggest that non board members attend meetings.
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steve
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response 92 of 203:
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Aug 6 19:09 UTC 1999 |
Amen to that. *all* are welcome.
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jep
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response 93 of 203:
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Aug 7 03:02 UTC 1999 |
re #90: It is clear now. It should have been clear in the minutes.
Sorry to pick on someone who's already too busy, who has many important
things to do for Grex, and had a lot more on his mind than the minutes
last week, but the minutes were incomplete.
re #91-92: I live 25 miles away from where Grex has their meetings, and
have 2 young kids.
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dpc
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response 94 of 203:
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Aug 9 15:48 UTC 1999 |
If my motion passes, the BoD would be perfectly free to pass a resolution
outlining in detail what would happen under what circumstances, including
suspending public access for a given number of days. The only thing
it could *not* do would be to suspend public access until new policies
are adopted.
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richard
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response 95 of 203:
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Aug 9 22:00 UTC 1999 |
I agree with dpc's resolution...I also think that if any board members
are having a crisis of conscience as to what they would do if this
becomes law, they should go on record. There ought to be a member
vote on a resolution to remain in operation, and on-line, regardless
of whether this becomes law, until all legal options and defenses have
been exhausted. And if said resolution passes, any board member
objecting should resign in time for this year's elections so grex can
elect new board members and present a unified front next year.
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janc
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response 96 of 203:
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Aug 10 17:21 UTC 1999 |
Some responses after a week off line:
- Dave doesn't seem to understand conditional probability.
Everyone says "this law is extremely unlikely to be upheld".
I agree.
Dave says "if Grex were prosecuted under this law, it would be
extremely likely to win." I agree.
However, the question at issue is "If the law were upheld, and Grex
were then prosecuted under the law, would we be likely to win?" I
don't think that is a sure thing at all. If the situation comes up
at all, it means that a high court of the land has already thrown
out all of our best arguments against the validity of the law. What
would we have left to defend ourselves with? Only arguments saying
that although the law is valid in general, it somehow shouldn't
apply to us in particular. Some of those arguments can be made, but
I don't think there is anything sure about them. They seem pretty
flimsey to me.
The problem here is that in planning for the event that this law is
upheld, we are planning for an low probability universe. Unlikely
things happen in low probability universes (by definition). It's
hard to make sensible plans in advance for such cases. A plan that
says "we'll freeze in our tracks and assess the situtation" is
really about the best that can be done.
- Dave says there has been no publicity yet, so there won't be if
the law is upheld. I think Dave doesn't understand the news value
of stories. We have the following news stories:
(1) Michigan passes an Internet censorship law. There have been
five or six similar laws previous passed, all of which were
thrown out by the courts. This one will probably be thrown
out too and will never effect anyone. The ACLU's challenge is
already started.
(2) The courts uphold a Michigan Internet censorship law, reversing
the position take in five or six previous laws. This new law
effects every web site in every country in the world. Many
other states declare they are going to pass laws on the Michigan
model.
Do you see the difference between the stories? The fact that the
first one got a ho-hum reaction from the press doesn't mean that
the second one would.
- Richard, has usual, is listening with his fingers in his ears. As
I said previously, I didn't vote for this motion because I thought
I needed protection. I can resign in seconds. I don't need a long
suspension to mull over that one. The reasons for the suspension
are to have time to think over the impact on our users.
- I consider Richard's claim that the "real reason" for the motion was
for the board to protect our butts to be an insult. I would like to
see him back up this claim by demonstrating that the other reasons
we have given are not valid. If he cannot do that, an apology would
be appropriate.
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richard
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response 97 of 203:
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Aug 10 22:56 UTC 1999 |
The other reasons for suspending operations are not valid because even
if the law went on the books, there is now way it would be enforced or
could be in the first three days. Therefore suspending operations was/is
totally unnecessary. M-net's board didnt vote to temporarily shut down.
Either they (mnnet's) board was being grossly irresponsible, or grex's
board was caught up in a panic attack. Individual board members were
no doubt thinking about exposure, about what they would/could be
exposing themselves to if they were on the board for even one minute of
the time that grex was up in seeming violation of the law. Grex doesnt
need people on its board who canbe so easily swept up into a wave
of paranoia and fear. There were people on mnet (not me) bluntly saying
Grex's board showed a lack of guts or balls by voting ahead of time to
suspend operations. They have a point.
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mdw
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response 98 of 203:
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Aug 10 23:25 UTC 1999 |
It's perfectly possible for the gov't to enforce something within the
first 3 days. All it takes is one pissed-off government official.
What's more likely, though, is that the gov't won't actually swoop in in
the first 3 days, but will spend a a week or a month or whatever
collecting evidence first. *Then*, they'll swoop in. They'll likely
try to name incidents including the first 3 days if they can, because it
would help them to establish a "wilful pattern of abuse".
I also don't think it's unreasonable for the board to be concerned about
their collective ass. A felony conviction however good the cause is
still rather like a bed of roses. It may look pretty, but the thorns
still hurt just as much.
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mary
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response 99 of 203:
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Aug 11 00:06 UTC 1999 |
So, David, what's the final wording and when does the voting
begin?
Maybe then we'll finally get to the discussion about
what Grex should do, short term and long term, if this
makes it to a trial and the verdict goes against open
conferencing.
There is nothing cowardly about the people serving on
our Board. But then I can say that because I know them.
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