At last night's Board meeting we had a nice long discussion about the
Communications Decency Act, and we couldn't agree on a policy since the CDA
is not yet being enforced, and it is likely that pieces of it (or the whole
thing altogether) may be removed as a result of current (and future) court
action.

So this is the item to discuss the CDA and how Grex should deal with it.

103 responses total.

My opinion on the CDA is that if it is enforced, Grex will have to comply.

My own personal projection of policy is that Grex may have one or more
verified (with good verification criteria) adult conferences, and censoring
of (under the CDA) illegal (obscene, indecent) content elsewhere.  Resources
like mail and party are probably not subject to enforcement, except perhaps
that party logs will not be available for reading the way they are now. 
Conferencing, Web Pages, .plans, and accessible user files will be dealt with
on a complaint basis, since there is no way staff could find time to actively
browse for material.

I'm not especially happy about this.  I do think cyberspace doesn't *need*
to be part of an anonymous culture where anything goes, but I don't like it
that a draconian law would force it to be a cleaned-up kiddie park.  And most
users are *not* a problem anyway.

Modifications would also have to be made so that FWs could delete
single entries, I should think... an entire conf could be sullied
by someone wandering in and entering "f***" in every item.

What's wrong with "f***"? An f followed by four asterisks surely does
not fall under CDA restrictions. 

My opinion is that nothing needs to be done until the act is enforced -
including talking about it, other than to decide that nothing needs to
be done until the act is enforced. It will all be pretty clear, or at
least simply to decide, when the time comes. 

I would rather have a conditional policy, such as "Grex will comply with
whatever parts of the law survive to be enforced", which we could have now
and use as soon as needed.  Others at the board meeting wanted an emergency
meeting to get a policy when it does go into full effect.

  I think grex should refuse to comply and take the consequences.  If
something is wrong, it is wrong.  Suppose a law was passed legalizing
apartheid, and requiring that boards like Grex screen for race and only
allow white new users on?  Would any of you suggest grex complying 
with that even if that was the law?  

Of course not, so the only dignified thing to do would be to fight it.
Grex should stand its ground and if the government comes after us, which
they probably wont, refuse to comply and refuse to pay any fines and go
to court if necessary.  

If there is an emergency meeting and policy is enacted, I think a number
of people might drop their memberships and some might leave grex altogether.
The board MUST think of the consequences!

Do the right thing.  Dont comply in any way, shape or manner.

and kerouac is willing to pay all of your court costs and bring you
muffins if you are tossed in the klink. 8^)

  The ACLU and other legal types would probably represent Grex pro
bono in the extreme unlikelihood that it ever came to a legal
challenge.  Nobody is going to jail.  The only possible reason for
even token compliance is paranoia, and it would represent a selling
out of the principles upon which grex was founded.

At the very least, the question of CDA compliance should be brought 
and decided in a vote of the membership.  At least that way, it wouldnt
be a few paranoid people trying to strongarm the board into doing
something totally unneccesary and damaging to Grex's reputation.  

Besides, no token  effort at compliance is going to insulate grex in 
from CDA in any way, and I think most people know that.

  And Carson, before you  go with your sarcastic responses, answer
the question I posed in the previous response.

If the CDA were the communications decency apartheid act, and required 
Grex to make all attempts to screen out non-white users, would you
comply?  

If people arent willing to put their asses on the line in support of what is
right, then this world is in lousy shape.  

Yes, Richard, the board must think of the consequences.  It's very easy for
somebody who is not on the board or staff to say that we shouldn't obey it
at all because users wouldn't like it.  Those users who are not on the board
or staff are not the ones who could go to jail over this.  Those of us who
are going to be held accountable for what Grex does have other consequences
to think about instead.

I'm not comfortable at all with this law, either with the consequences of
obeying it or with the consequences of not obeying it.  If it went into full
force, even including the abortion provision, there's no way I feel that we
could keep running Grex and obey the law.  Even with the full force of the
indecency provisions, I have trouble seeing how we could obey it.  I don't
think the abortion provision or the indecency provision are going to be in
there when all is said and done.  I'm not even sure the Exon Ammendment will
still be law, since there's a bill now to repeal it.  However, on the chance
that it does not get repealed, there are provisions of it that will probably
hold up.  The bans on obscenity, for example, are probably constitutional.
After all, bans on obscenity in other media have already held up in court.
This is a new law, with a very vocal and politically active group behind it.
If it starts being enforced I have no idea whether or not they'd come after
Grex, if we ignored it, but I'm fairly sure they'll go after somebody, and
we have no way of knowing it won't be us.

I'm sure we all have limits of how far we will go in terms of what kinds of
laws we will obey.  Most of us also have limits to what we are willing to go
to jail for two years for.

I was one of the people last night who insisted on not passing anything last
night, because we don't know what's going to be enforced, if any of it is.
It's too early to figure out exactly what we are going to do.

   Speaking just for myself, there are limits to the extent that I
am willing to comply with the CDA.  I think things will work out,
or perhaps I should say I *hope* they do.  The abortion section
apparently will not be enforced at all, according to the letter
Janet Reno sent the Vice President the other day.
   The "obscene" restrictions aren't that different from what is
already on the books.
   The rest of it, and how it might be enforced is what gives
me nightmares (litterally).
   As it stands right now the only way I could see Grex truely
complying with the CDA is to ban children from Grex.  Given
that I have two of those beings on this system myself, I can't
quite bring myself to see that as something I'm willing to do.
   But, not banning children from Grex seems even worse--we're
opening ourselves up to real problems if we don't.
   So, I don't know what the proper solution is.

   I am however, not far away from telling the entire United
States government to engauge in automonic copulation over this
issue.  There comes a time to make a stand against the horrors
of the day, and I'm not sure that we aren't there now.

   The good news is that with the absolutely incredible mass
of legal resistance out there against this, *with luck* we
might not have to deal with it at all.  The bad is that we
may have to comply to stay legal.  I'm simply not sure I will
do that.  That I could do it.

I feel almost exactly the same as Scott Helmke on this. 
If some of these provisions begin to be enforced, Grex will either comply,
or I will be forced to disassociate myself with it. That means I will be
resigning from the board and staff of grex should it decide to operate
against the law. I don't expect that to happen. If it does it will force Grex
to choose between losing me or losing some other people, I suspect.

I have respect for STeve Andre's position, for example, but we are quite at 
odds over how to proceed. If enough of this law is enforced, either STeve 
or I will not be working for Grex any more.

Kerouac, your opinions are welcome here. I know what it means to stand up for
what is right. I have been working all my life to make a good life for my
family. I am not going to drop that in the toilet over a BBS. Others will have
to decide for themselves, if it actually comes up. This is the "chilling
effect" in action. I will also cease to send out my humor mailing list if the
indecency portion is upheld. This will disappoint many people, but why should
I risk jail over that. This is also the "chilling effect".

I would welcome a vote of the membership of Grex when the time comes. While
I am a director, I will vote for Grex to proceed in a direction that I can
remain involved with it. If the membership feels grex should go a different
way, I will leave. If that happens, I will be cheering for Grex on the
sidelines, as long as I believe that you are standing up for what is right.

When you ask me to stay on and fight the law by violating it, you ask too much.
I am just not the civil disobedient/martyr type.

(remember, this is all hypothetical, but if it becomes real, the internet will
 be a very different and much poorer place.)

did I mention that kerouac would spot you bail money along with the muffins?

since I'm continuing my sarcastic responses, I might as well point out that
during the 50's and 60's, many people went to jail and accumulated large
debts over the issues of segregation and civil rights. some did not, even
though they agreed with the movement. It took a long time and the outcry
of many a peoples to change what you and I tend to percieve as abominable
behavior now. In many ways, I am thankful for the people who fought the
good fight, however they did. I'm not interested in playing the armchair
board member, though, and expecting anyone to go through the great personal
expense that could possibly arise from this legislation, precisely because
I'm aware of what's involved. While I may do it myself, I have no right
to demand such an ante from anyone else.

(Rane, you actually made me laugh there... thanks.  =} )

Ah..one of my life's goals accomplished... ;->

Now everyone, calm down. There is no need for a "conditional policy"
because it would be developed in a semi-vacuum. The easiest thing in the
world to change is a policy, but there is no need to waste time on a
conditional one, since good policy can only be made with all the facts (?)
in hand. There is also no need to panic when the regulations are issued -
no need for an "emergency meeting". Calm down. Lie back. Breath deep. Just
discuss alternative responses and, at a regular board meeting, if
necessary, propose policy to meet the regulations. No one is going to be
carted off the jail, or even threatened with it, in the first few months
of implementation. 

All these words, time and emotional energy devoted to discussing now how
Grex should respond would be better spent on writing to your
congresspeople, and forming coalitions to support ACLU's actions. 

I had a wonderfully indecent response all worked out for this
item, and now rcurl's gone and written a nice version of the
same thing.  Darn.  >8)

The EFF's open letter to the Internet a while ago specifically
asked systems NOT to take any action for the time being, as there
are far better things we can be doing with that time and effort.
I agree with the EFF, and I agree with Rane.  If (gods forbid)
the law is upheld and goes into effect, we can decide what to do then.

(Anyone who wants to see the indecent response, write or send me
mail now, while we know it's still legal.)

So .... what does MIT do with its    rtfm   machine? Call it FireTruck?

(and after making me laugh here, you managed to piss me off in another 
item, rane... as well... back to the norm.  =( )
er ah well

   (ReadTheFabulousMachine)

Give-and-take...give-and-take   :)

    The dynamics of the Tennesee standards vs. California BBS, as well as
the CDA in general, bear some elaboration.

    Things like the CDA are largely driven by several variants of Christianity
,
of which I have several comments which are likely beyond the scope of this
item. However, it will suffice to mention a couple of characteristics of the
attitude of believers: they tend to dislike certain communication, particularl
y
of matters having to do with sex, sexual organs, and other bodily functions,
and the uttering of certain words; and they often try to exert more control
over their children, particularly in attempting to coerce them into behaviors
supposedly appropriate to a believer. This means, among other things, that
parents of the faith often prohibit access to "pornographic" material (picture
s
of naked women, the seven dirty words) to their children.

    Now by the time the hormones hit, and the kid develops an interest in
this sort of thing, he usually knows his parents' policies on the matter, and
will hide his contact with pornography to the best of his ability, for his
own safety if nothing else. If there is an internet path to a site, he will
prefer this, since using it can go undetected indefinitely.

    The kid may not be familiar with the cost of long connect times over
long distance phone lines, however. Or else the hormones may simply be too
powerful to resist; who knows? However, this is how the infamous 1-900 sex
chat lines incurred so much wrath: huge phone bills attributed mostly to
spending hours on the porn line. It was noted that the kid in the Tennesee
case was dialing direct. It must really have pissed off his parents to find
that they were being charged hundreds of dollars a month for their kid's
prohibited access to sex stimuation!

    Had he gone in through the Internet, and applied a little internal
security, he could have gotten away with it, and so could the BBS. So closing
the internet link may actually increase the danger if kids in the South are
determined to use Grex as a hotchat line.


    My impression of the CDA is that the above mentioned parents, failing in
their attempts to impose their tastes on their kids, are calling on the
government for help. They want not only the government, but the operators of
BBSes as well, who would not have known that these families even existed, let
alone have any interest in taking sides, to do some of their dirty work for
them. If people seek to oppress other sentient beings, the least they could
do is to do the work themselves.


    As to what to do about it, should enforcement occur, each of the people(s)

of Grex, and m-net, will have to make their own choices. If the consensus is
to comply, there is already a policy against the distribution of pirated
software on both systems, which could be expanded to cover "indecent" material
.
A notice to this effect, along with a request to *anyone* who finds such
material in an open conference (presumably including prosecutors) to report it

immediately, might offer a great deal of protection.

    Some would suggest banning underage people from Grex, or from large parts
of it. Distasteful as this is, there may be a bit of light in this, as I
would hope that it inspires some of them to set up their own dirty-words and
naked pictures BBS systems. The government would look silly for prosecuting
a minor for contributing to his own delinquency. We cannot help them, though,
lest we be accused of being interested in someone's feet.

    The most applaudable approach, IMO, is to continue with business as usual.

At least one Grex board member expressed this desire. I would hope that someon
e
with ample resources could mount some sort of defense, legal or otherwise.

  The fact is that even if you close confs to verified users, contents
from those confs would *probably* appear in open confs, through linking
or other means.  Or discussions of sexual or other objectional material
will simply originate in an open conf.  So even token attempts at
censorship open up a hornet's nest.  Are fw's to be instructed then to
censor their own confs, and does staff take the ultimate responsibility
of reviewing EVERY response in EVERY item in EVERY conf for content?

What you will have if Helmke's suggestions are made policy, is a 
situation of staff (and fw's if they must act as censors) ending up in
a war of attrition against those users (mostly minors and others who
object to the censorship policies enough to take action) who refuse to
accept censorship where possible.  A couple of people I  talked to 
in party mentioned they might keep a footer of brief indecent words
that they'd put on the end up every response and item they enter, as a
way of showing their own conscentious objection to the policy.

As long as grex is open-access, censoring content and closing confs
just wont work.  Staff cant remove pestering users because they'll just 
use other logins.  And its unreasonable to ask staff to be censor
police, wasting valuable staff time reading every conf for dirty words and 
sexually explicit words, phrases and depictions.  

Sooner or later, with that type of policing, the relationship between staff
and the user population and the general environment in the confs will
erode and get very bad.  People will leave rather than put up with it.  And
what would be the point of complying with a policy if it kills off 
the heart and soul of Grex?  

The only solution is then, as steve said, is to verify all users and
disallow anyone under 18 from using grex.  That is the only way to ensure
anything resembling compliance.  And I'd say its better off to fight
this   than to let it come to that.

Rane>  Yep, definitely... you made me smile again.
Us emotional people are fun to play with, ain't we?  =}

Believe it or not, I agree with just about everything kerouac said
in #21.  Throwing minors off the system is not an acceptable solution,
and I will not support such a policy.

Er.  we don't have to absolutely censor, we just have to censor what we find.
That is what the CDA says.

And it is unreasonable to ask staff to do this, which is why I hate the CDA.

Grex isn't an obscenity board.  I said earlier that aside from some incidents,
Grex is a very clean system, thanks to our users.

  Yeah but it can easily be proven that every conf probably has at least
one staffer as a member, and if that is the case, staff will be expected
to censor just about every instance of objectionable material appearing.
It would be very difficult to make it stand up in court that objectionable
material appeared in a conference on grex and not even one staffer knew 
about it.

Now if the CDA said staff didnt have to censor anything unless and until
someone complained and requested a censoring, that might be more workable.
But far be it for the CDA authors to be that reasonable.

My concern isn't about our current users.  I think if the CDA had never been
passed, we would have remained a clean free-speech system indefinitely.  

I am concerned though, about the effect of combination of GREXes open newuser
and the systems in the rest of the country being forced to crack down or close
down.  I fear that if we try to remain a completely open system, we'll find
every numbskull in the country ( <-- Hyperbole) logging in here to spew filth.
Now, I have little moral objection to filth, but it's boring, and the load
of it could well bring GREX to its knees.  We could end up losing our system
to knuckleheads.  I don't think that means we have to close down immediately
and let the threat of the law have it's chilling way with us.  I do think it
means that we should be prepared with a plan for what we plan to do about it
if it starts to happen.  Censor?  Close Newuser and allow only verified people
to use the conferences?  Sit it out and hope we can cope?  There are many
possible reactions.  The worst one is to "wait and see" and "Hope we won't
have to deal with it".  If it catches us unprepared, this (possible) influx
has the most potential to close us down.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the Board and Staff in composed of
individuals.  These people have to make personal decisions about just how much
we are prepared to risk and for what causes.  I;'m sure that by now all of
us have discussed the possibilities with those closest to us and have some
idea how far we're willing to go.  I respect the decisions of every member
of the board.  Yes, the brave and "right" thing may be to stick your neck out
for what is right, but looking out for the interests of people who depend on
you is just as right as taking a stand for an ideal.

Something the membership and usership needs to keep in mind is the vast
difference between democracy and tyranny by the majority.  When you vote to
force someone else to make a stand you are *not* participating in a democratic
action.  You are hiding behind the anonymity of the majority.  So, if you,
the user or member of GREX think that there is a point at which GREX must take
a stand, are *you* prepared to take your place on the Board or the Staff to
fill the position of someone who is forced by that decision to step down? 
Are you willing to take your chances with committing a felony, accruing a
criminal record that may handicap your future ability to get work and may
endanger your ability to have custody of your own children?  Are you prepared
to shoulder the huge legal debts to defend yourself and the huge fines if you
lose?

If you are, stand forward.  If you're not, make your thought known loud and
clear, yes, but also be sensitive to what you are asking of another person.

I have my line.  I will take a stand against the CDA if I think it demands
too many concessions of our First Amendment Rights.  But I won't make that
stand on any one elses part.  And I won't sanction breaking the law if it's
brought in line with all the other impositions on our first Amendment Rights.

I guess my language got to full blown for clarity.  What I am saying is that
under certain circumstances, if the Board, Staff, and Membership decided to
participate in conscientious objection to certain parts of the CDA as it now
stands, I would stand in solidarity with them and remain on the board.  That
does not extend to completely flouting the law.

  mta, can you honestly say that closing certain confs or eliminating
newuser and validating everyone wont kill grex?  The minute grex 
starts to build walls is when even the most loyal users start leaving. Even
now, as it is, grex's user base is extremely fragile.  What does it do
to the membership base if you eliminate all those members who are under 18?
Grex needs to be open access in order to survive because it needs 
members to survive, and you dont get them by making it hard to get here or
restricting content.

There are no workable options.  None.  Thats the bottom line.  There are
some that may be technically feasible and may make it safer to be on the
board or staff.  But whats the point if noone comes here anymore?

Even now membership is down.  Conference participation is down.  There has
not been one suggestion in the way of compliance that would not result in
Grex becoming a ghosttown within a year of implementation.  Thats the reality.

Unless you want to cut 'net access, and go down to two phone lines and
become local and tiny again, grex cannot survive economically as a closed
board.  And there's no way to be open access and be in compliance with the
CDA without making changes that will alienate too large a percentage of 
grex's member base.  

So the only options are to fight it, or when push comes to shove, shut
down altogether to protect board and staff from prosecution.

Truth is, two of my three confs would be shut down almost as CYA
under CDA.  I would have a hard time staying under those conditions.
Then again, I don't expect the CDA to be cleared out of the courts and
enforced for months or maybe years, ...
*shrug*
time will tell.  I *will* ignore a law which I think violates my
First Amendment rights.  If baffers choose to sanction me for that, 
that's up to them.
(Incidentally, I don't hink I have the First Amendment right to wander
around elementary schools muttering obscenities... I do have a fairly
conservative interpretation of the First Amendment that I go by...)

I've seen little to suggest that conference participation or membership
is down - from everything we know, all the current bottlenecks are
purely technical - how many people we can get on at once, how much
internet bandwidth, etc.

Even so, I'd not care to participate in a system that practiced
censorship, and I would not wish to see the results of CDA, or to
participate in any way to further CDA.

        I am 16.

        If Grex does any of these things, I will no longer be priviledged to
participte in the cf's here, and I'm not willing to just be a party slug.
IF I'm even allowed to party.

        I will undoubtably be off the user lists for good, because the only
internet access I have is throught the school, and when I graduate, I will
probably either cut back my useage of Grex (which is IF I have an account at
my col;ege,) or stop entirely.

        I like it here.  I would be very upset if the limitation of my Physical
age should impeed the growth of my psyche and personae through interaction
with others outside my realm of existance.  I have learned do much here, like
the poetry cf has given me a lot of oppertunities to do something I'm
PAssionate about.  (If not technically good at-- yet.)

Well said, arianna.  I was 15 when I started using Grex, a bit over three
years ago, and I learned a lot here while I was still a minor.  I really don't
want to see us restrict minors' access to the system.  I think it would be
a big loss.

<scott is impressed by Misti's eloquence!>

I don't want to lose minors either, which likely means censoring.  Ugh.  We
could probably keep the questionable conferences by making them closed and
limited to verified adults.  I have it on my ToDo list to check out Cflirt,
but I went thru most of Hsex a couple weeks ago and was pleasantly surprised
at how clean it was.

It is interesting to watch people's unconscious assumptions being expressed
here. kerouac says "sexual or other objectional material", adding that
word "other" thinking unconsciously that "sexual" = "objectionable". And
scott expresses value judgements ("clean"), presumably having a standard
for that - perhaps the CDA? Its one thing to take steps to adhere to
a law, but its another thing to fall into implicitly supporting the law.

   Nicelt said, both Misti and Arianna.  I also agree with Richard that
there isn't any solution.  Not the way the proposed law is written.

   So I think I should stop thinking about this right now; if it seems
that the law is likely to go ahead, I will deal with it more then.  As it
stands right now I do not see how we can come up with contingincy plans,
unless we want to come up with them for all possible conditions.  And I 
just don't think its worth it, spending the emotional effort.

   If we have to, we can.  But we need to know what we're defending outselves
against, first.

This response has been erased.

        First I want to say that it looks unlikely that the abortion section
of the CDA will be enforced by the justice department according to what
I have read on the EFF web page.  It also seems unlikely that that the
indecency provisions will survive the legal preassure being brought
against them by the ACLU et al.  So likely we will have to do nothing as this
grinds through the court system, and we can all breathe a sigh of relief.

However, if the indecency provision should be enforced, I as FW of the
cyberpunk conference will not censor a single response (other than security
violations) in my conference.  I will also resign from Grex and encourage
others to leave if staff should use root to censor an item in
cyberpunk. I am willing to risk jail and/or fines to do the right thing.
I furthurmore ask those board/staff members who believe that the CDA is wrong,
yet would comply with it anyway, didn't you think beforeyou joined
board/staff, that you might be exposing yourselves to legal and or
financial risk? It is irresponsible and an act of moral cowardice to obey
a law which you think is wrong.

        --This item now linked to cyberpunk, your one stop for CDA info
on Grex.    <set rant=off>

How many grex users that are minors are also members?

It is not necessary to devise ahead of time a one-&-only for-all-time policy.
Grex can implement a particular policy, and if it doens't work out, change
to a different policy.  Normally this would be along the lines of starting
with a less stringent, hoping-for-cooperation policy, and only changing to
a more stringent policy if there are continual abuses.

And speaking of value judgments, how about the implication that someone
who "falls into" agreement with the CDA or some/any of its principles is
somehow "bad" or "wrong" ?

        re #38 if you were refering to my response I never said those who
agreed with the CDA are objectively wrong (I think they are wrong), what
I said is that it is cowardly to think the CDA is wrong, and then to go ahead
and obey the law.

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss