response 88 of 111:

Jun 1 18:44 UTC 1999

John Remmers appointed me to take care of arranging a special board meeting
if we need one.  I just got off the phone with Michael Steinberg, and he said
he will have a conference call this afternoon with all the lawyers involved
in the case, and after that he will be able to give us a definite date by
which they need an answer from Grex.  It will certainly be within two weeks,
though, so we will need to have a special board meeting.  Mr. Steinberg said
he will be able to attend.  We discussed either Thursday the 3rd or Monday
the 7th.  He'll call me back and let me know which, and then I will arrange
for a place.  I have a feeling we should book a place slightly larger than
the Kids room at Zingerman's; anyone have any suggestions?

response 90 of 111:

Jun 1 19:36 UTC 1999

Great news about the special Board meeting, aruba!!

response 92 of 111:

Jun 2 02:17 UTC 1999

87> Point? Is there a significant difference between 8.5 and 10, in these
matters?

response 94 of 111:

Jun 2 05:08 UTC 1999

How explicit does sex have to be before you disapprove of it? I detect
that you draw a specific line. 

response 96 of 111:

Jun 2 13:44 UTC 1999

Actually, the *federal* "internet minors" statute which Michigan has
cloned was designed to go after the free "teaser" pages of those
adult hard-core porn sites.  That statute has been struck down.
I fully expect Michigan's clone to be struck down as well.

response 98 of 111:

Jun 2 14:21 UTC 1999

Re #92: The difference between 8.5 and 10 is 1.5.

response 100 of 111:

Jun 2 14:48 UTC 1999

Have you tried reserving our usual room in Zingermans?

response 102 of 111:

Jun 2 17:37 UTC 1999

You expect that when you are going to discuss sex....  :)

Re #98: this gives me confidence in Mark as our treasurer.... :)

response 104 of 111:

Jun 2 18:22 UTC 1999

Another note on Matthew Gutchess's comments here and in item 100.

The objection to this bill is not because we are supporters of pornography.
There are already laws against transmitting pornography to minors, and many
of us are strong supporters of such laws.  The ACLU suit will NOT be based
on the claim that "pornography is free speech."

The challenge would be based mainly on the fact that this law substantially
restricts both the transmission of ordinary non-pornographic speech between
people of all age, and the transmission of pornographic content between
concenting adults (which is legal, whoever much you might dislike it).  It
does this by placing an undue legal burden on such free speech forums as Grex.

To comply with this law, we'd have to do one of the following:

  (1)  Identify which users are minors, and ban them from forums containing
       possibly obscene material, or
  (2)  Identify which users are minors, and ban them from using Grex.
  (3)  Ban all possibly obscene material from all parts of Grex.

In addition, for any conferences or chat areas that are accessible to minors,
we have to do one of the following:

  (A)  Validate the identity of all users before allowing them to post, so
       that if they post obscene material in defiance of our rules, they
       can be held responsible.
  (B)  Review all postings for obscenity before allowing them to be seen by
       others.

Choice (1) and (2) and (A) are difficult to do, and make it significantly
harder for anyone to gain access to this supposed forum for free speech.
They all pretty much require people to prove their identity to us before
using Grex.

Choice (B) is difficult for the conferences, nearly impossible for live chat
areas like party, and totally impossible for E-mail.

Choice (3) means that this law which was meant to prevent children from
getting access to obscene material, actually prevents adults from doing so
too.  Grex probably wouldn't mind too badly if we only had to do (3) - though
if it is your intent to write a law banning pornography totally, then you
ought to do so and not pretend you are only trying to protect children.
But we would also have to do (A) or (B) (or some combination),
and those would have much broader impact on our system's ability to act as
a forum for free speech on topics completely unrelated to sex.

The other basis for challenging this law would probably be on the grounds
that most communications over the net is interstate, and thus not within
the purview of the State of Michigan to regulate.  A technicality, but
probably enough by itself to ensure that the law will be overturned.

response 106 of 111:

Jun 3 01:11 UTC 1999

There's a worse problem with trying to implement (3) "ban all possibly
obscene material" (janc#103); obscenity and pornography are very much
subjective judgements and some people paint this with a *very* broad
stroke.  This leads right directly back into the definition mess.  To
some people, for instance, any form of nudity and "the seven words you
can't say" are both "obscene", and because this makes for a simplistic
legal definition, this is where we get the notion of "the naughty bits",
and a generation who think fuck is spelled "f**k".

Unfortunately, these kinds of simplistic definitions don't really
eliminate the problem.  As the television industry has long known (look
at the costumes in classic star trek), it is generally far more erotic
to suggest nudity than to actually be nude.  This can also be seen in
photography; photos of "naturists" (people who enjoy spending a weekend
in the country with no clothes) generally show far more skin than photos
intended to be really hard core "porno" (which often feature odd
costumes, extreme closeups, or various other tricks to enhance the
sexual aspects, by suggesting things in the mind rather than showing
things in the reality.)

On grex, we don't even make any attempt to enforce "the 7 words".  There
are other places on the net that do enforce such things.  This has
created a small but significant population of users who seem to enjoy
flaunting violations of such rules.  Policing such users would be very
time consuming; much worse than the eggbot and "no gifs" policies.  I
hope Jan wasn't seriously suggesting we make any attempt to implement
(3).

In #93, David claims this law was actually directed against "teaser"
sites.  Maybe the drafters hoped the voters would believe that; but then
again, I suppose policians must often have a pretty low opinion of the
intelligence of the average voter.  It's certainly no great problem for
the "teaser" sites to get around this law.  One easy strategy is the
"red dot" over the naughty bits.  Another is to relocate to a locality
where less restrictive laws apply; with the internet, physical location
counts for very little.  In any event, I think politicians need to get
rid of the idea that they can eliminate human vice merely by passing
laws against it; we've had a war against drugs for 50 years now, and the
net effect is that we've given the recreational narcotics industry a tax
free government protected monopoly.  It's a lot easier to catch drug
smuggling than it is to catch information smuggling.  The effect of laws
like this is not to eliminate the abuse.  The effect of laws like this
is to polarize society, to divide people, and to reduce everyone's trust
in government.

response 108 of 111:

Jun 3 17:16 UTC 1999

(Actually www.lyrics.ch lets only lets you see song titles and artists.
Actual lyrics are not available.)

No, I'm not suggesting that we take course (3).  I'm suggesting that we
do are best to ensure that the law be overthrown so we don't have to try
to obey it.  I'm no expert, but I think that although the fuzziness of
the definitions is a real problem, it isn't a basis for a legal
challenge against the law.  Law is full of fuzzy definitions.  That's
part of why we have courts.  I think that definition of "obscene" in
this law is lifted from other laws that are considered constitutional.

response 110 of 111:

Jun 3 23:37 UTC 1999

I talked it over with Jan, and we decided to reserve our regular meeting 
place, the Kids Room at Zingerman's Next Door, for the board meeting on Monday
the 7th at 7:30 PM.  Hopefully it'll be big enough, and in the worst case that
it's not we can relocate to the bigger room at the end of the hall.