I've been reading about the implication of the Patriot's Act and wonder what power it could have over Grex. We've always been clear that should law enforcement contact us, with the appropriate paperwork, we'd comply and supply information that was covered under the warrant. But could the FBI, CIA, or police come to us demanding user information and not need a warrant? Could we be prosecuted if we told the user about request? Would we be allowed to determine our (Grex's) rights and contact an attorney or the ACLU for advice? Libraries, banks, schools and other entities are being put under the government's thumb in regards to these searches. Where does Grex stand?116 responses total.
Grex has a long history of giving out more information to law enforcement without a warrant than the Clinton Administration Justice Department said was legal. This hasn't seemed to bother anybody on the staff when I've pointed it out before. Post-Patriot Act I'm not sure what the law is, but my impression is that there are still a lot of procedures for law enforcement to follow when requesting information. In the pre-Patriot Act era, law enforcement often didn't follow the required procedures, and the Electronic Communications Privacy Act put some legal burden on those being asked for the information to not provide information to law enforcement without the appropriate court orders. My suspicion is that law enforcement agents probably still don't have a very good idea of what the post-Patriot Act procedures are, and Grex could still get into some legal trouble for complying with an improper request. My first suggestion would be to talk to a lawyer who knows this sort of thing, and find out what the current law says regarding responding to law enforcement requests. At that point somebody (the board? The membership?) needs to decide whether the current requirements are something Grex can live with, and either develop a policy that complies with current law or make a conscious descion to fight it.
I suggest that Grex staff place a notice in the MOTD that Grex has never turned any user's records over to LE pursuant to the USA PATRIOT act. If it ever happens that Grex is required to do so, the staffer involved could remove the notice without violating the terms of the law (no user would be identified, after all). It's far more likely that CALEA would be used instead of USA-PATRIOT anyway.
I like it.
I guess if we were approached under any of the new rulings I'd like to see us get some advice on the legality of the search or investigation before being helpful. If it were me, I'd contact the ACLU staff and ask if they'd care to offer advice or recommend someone who might help us out. I know they are heavily involved in fighting this legislation. It's my understanding that even seeking their advice would make us punishable under the law. Is that true? Should that matter in terms of our course of action? The reason I'd like to discuss what we *might* do is we won't be able to talk about it if it happens. Would the users want us to take a position that might be seen as non-compliant even if that means the system could be seized? Would they be understanding of those involved if staff simply complied with all requests and didn't say a word to anyone? Should we do the right thing or the safe thing?
Hmm.... I'm inclined to do the right thing. In most cases, the only way to get the Supreme Court to review a law is to appeal a conviction.
I'm also inclined to do the right thing, and I believe that the ACLU would happily back us on it. I don't think that we could be subject to prosecution for consulting an attorney about our rights and obligations under the law if presented with an order to provide information. If in doubt, we could simply require proof that the person presenting the order is actually a law enforcement official and that the order pertains to a current investigation, and during the delay before that proof is provided, we could make the attorney contact. After all, we would only be fulfilling our obligations to National Security to be absolutely certain that any information we provide is actually going to Law Enforcement and not some terrorist posing as same in order to subvert the system.
Could someone (Mary?) give a primer on what kinds of requests we might receive, and what the secrecy requirements seem to be?
What kind of information are we talking about ? A user's personal files ?> or say things like party logs ? ( which is public viewable anyway , but does that mean we have to be careful of what we say in party ? )
Re: #7
The only thing that IS clear is that the Patriot Act forbids
revealing to a person whose records have been ordered turned over that
such an order has been given, received or acted upon. Presumably, just
based on the scattered information we do have, the information to be
provided could conceivably be anything at all to which we have access (as
root). Anyone who has actually read the full text of the act, or
consulted with an attorney regarding its impacts, please correct me as
necessary.
I've read bits and pieces of the act, but what's really interesting are the implementing regulations. I've been trying to read through the one jointly issued by Treasury, the SEC and a few others on limiting money-laundering.
You can always talk to your lawyer about what the law requires you to do in a specific case. The lawyer may not be able to talk about it with anybody else. I'd strongly suggest not going to the ACLU for legal advice. The ACLU is a wonderful organization, but they have a pretty set agenda. If you've decided to take a legal stand on something and at that point the ACLU is willing to provide representaiton, that's great. But Grex needs its own non-ACLU legal counsel to first define what the legal obligations are. The way this is supposed to work at companies that get these requests on a regular basis is that they have a lawyer (or legal department) who has already agreed to review this sort of request. Any request from law enforcement goes straight to the lawyer, who says yes or no to the request and decides what information will be given to who. This is important, as the law enforcement people often aren't willing to wait for a decision, and the legal consequences of saying no to a proper request *or* yes to an improper request can be quite bad. Really, the only question anybody should be asking at this point in this discussion is who the good lawyers are in Ann Arbor for dealing with wiretap law, who might be willing to do some pro-bono work.
Re: #7: Here is a URL the text of the act and a nice summary of the reasons for concern. In terms of what we might be asked to hand over? I suspect it could be just about anything on someone they are interested in knowing more about, all done with extreme secrecy and lack of oversight. http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=12126&c=207
Why not move GreX to Canada, where both the patriot act and DMCA don't matter?
Wrong.
There is a major distinction to be made here, by the way, between the ideals expressed by some of the board and staff about how to justly respond to a Patriot Act order, and the kind of response our obligations to Grex might determine. It is easy to imagine that this would be a very difficult line to draw, but an extremely important one as well.
Exactly. Which is why I was asking for feedback from the users. How to respond would need to be a judgement call on the part of those involved. But I'd sure like to know how the users at large would feel about Grex taking some chances with our response.
I think it's more likely we'd be presented with a self-serve DMCA subpoena than a PATRIOT Act information request, though either is possible. While we're on the subject we might want to decide what we'd do if the RIAA filed a subpoena for user information.
In a nutshell, what are the differences between those three entities?
Umm, without input from the membership, our default course of action should be to comply with the law as fully possible in order to minimize the risk to the uninterrupted operation of Grex. The only way I could see clear to differing from that course would be if a majority of the membership voted to put Grex on the block if it came to it, in a challenge to the law. It would eat away at me to just comply, and I might resign in order to register my personal opposition to compliance even though my proper obligation as a board member would be to comply. For that matter, do we even have a policy which would cover a scenario in which a substantial portion of the board simultaneously resigned?
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19: Rewrite the quorum requirement so that it specifies a percentage rather than an absolute number.
Has law enforcement ever asked grex for any information before at all?
Yes.
Perhaps if we had some more information about that, to the staff members who were involved can discuss it without violating anyone's privacy, we'd be in a better position to discuss it, yes yes?
Speaking in the general case, what would usually happen is some law enforcement person would call (or in a couple memorable cases show up) asking for information. To my knowledge there have never been court orders involved. They would generally get sent to STeve Andre, who would give them public information from the wtmp, newuser information if publicily visible, and so on. I don't remember ever seeing the contents of a mailbox or private files handed over, but this may also have happened. I'm not sure. It turns out giving out even publicly visible information to law enforcement was illegal pre-Patriot act. I'm not sure waht the current status of it is. It was legal to sell your subscriber information, or post it on the web, because that wasn't regulated, but it was illegal to give that information to law enforcement without court orders. Nobody on the Grex staff was aware of the rather counter-intuitive legal situation when this became common practice, but I don't think the practice changed after this was pointed out. I'm not sure how this sort of situation is handled now, since I'm no longer very involved with staff stuff. I would guess it's rarer, because Grex is a lot harder to find. While Grex used to list an an address where it was possible to show up and find computers and occasionally people (or at least scared landlords who would direct law enforcement to people), and used to list a phone number that got answered, Grex's current whois data points to a PO box, and my old home phone number that was disconnected more than three years ago. Given that law enforcement people in active investigations generally lack the patience to send e-mail and wait for a reply, my guess is that they probably go to Grex's ISP, which probably has a lawyer who insists on the proper documentation or court orders before identifying customers. My experience dealing with this sort of thing in a professional capacity a few years ago was that asking for legally required procedures to be followed was almost always sufficient to get the law enforcement people to go away and not come back. Really, the above situation in which Grex was giving more information than was legally permissible to law enforcement is why a lawyer who knows this sort of law really needs to be involved in setting the policy, and reviewing any requests that come in to make sure the policy is followed and what Grex does remains legal. If after consulting with such a lawyer, the only legal policy to follow seems too burdensome or otherwise unacceptable for Grex to follow it (either because it requires us to give out too much information, or if consistent with past Grex practice we're not comfortable withholding information to the degree required), that should be discussed. But unless anybody here really understands the current law and can explain it, any discussion of refusing to follow it is premature.
There haven't been any recent contacts from law inforcement. Steve's memory of the less recent ones seems to be clearer than mine.
Clearly, it's much clearer.
Of course, if the LEAs involved were competent, they would be sending their computer forensics people to grex, whereupon grex could say "grex is UNIX", and the computer forensics people should be able to take it from there. I.e. know where the public files are on a UNIX system etc.
I find it hard to believe that it was illegal to provide without a court order to law enforcement in particular any information which anyone at all, including law enforcement personnel, could have had access to without even either asking or resorting to devious means. Can you substantiate that?
My information came from a presentation by Mark Eckenwiler from the US Department of Justice, at the October, 2000, North American Network Operators Group meeting in Washington, DC. The powerpoint slides from the talk are online here: http://www.nanog.org/mtg-0010/justice.html The section that's relevant to this argument starts here: http://www.nanog.org/mtg-0010/ppt/justice/sld026.htm and goes into more detail if you look at the next few slides. But as I said, this was both the Clinton Administration Justice Department, and pre-Patriot Act. I'm guessing the Bush Administration Justice Department would have had a different view of things, and the Patriot Act probably changed the rules. What the rules are now I don't know.
Either there is a flaw in the interpretation of this law, or the law itself is so fundamentally flawed as to be laughable.
I haven't read this, but I've heard rumors of its existence, and just found it via a Google search. It looks relevant: Searching and Seizing Computers and Obtaining Electronic Evidence in Criminal Investigations Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section Criminal Division United States Department of Justice July 2002 http://www.cybercrime.gov/s&smanual2002.htm
Grex doesn't have the resources to have an attorney on our case for all concerns or questions. I'd like it to be otherwise, but we're pretty poor. What I do think we can do is know of someone to contact, ahead of time, in the event something comes up that has us really worried. I think doing that much is a really good idea.
The part of the USA Patriot Act that people are discussing is section 215 of that act, which adds a new section 501 to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The amended version is 50 United States Code section 1861. Basically, section 501 says that an FBI agent may make an application for an order requiring any business to produce "any tangible things" to a special, secret court. The court is not allowed to deny the application for an order if the form is correct. (No, I'm not making this stuff up!) Then it goes on to say: "No person shall disclose to any other person (other than those persons necessary to produce the tangible things under this section) that the Federal Bureau of Investigation has sought or obtained tangible things under this section."
Not even our attorney?
So, David, in your opinion, that section would absolutely preclude the consultation of an attorney by anyone receiving such a request? (Mary slipped in) If that is so, then I would personally volunteer to violate that law and pursue it as a test case should the issue come up. That is completely beyond the pale.
There seemed to be some confusion earlier about *when* an attorney could be consulted. It seems to me that consulting an attorny before any request was made for anything is perfectly legal.
Yes, but the point here is that, if I'm reading Dave's coment correctly, this law prohibits anyone from consulting even their own attorney about the proper response to a specific request, at ANY TIME, EVER, after the request is made.
Yes, that was my understanding, as well.
Which makes it ever more essential tat we consult an attorney IMMEDIATELY upon receipt of such a request, while waiting for the source of the request to provide proof that they are indeed legitimately entitled to make it (in the interests of National Security, of course).
From what I've been hearing, the FBI at this point tends to show up with their credentials and their court orders, and sits there waiting for you to deliver what they're asking for. But I'd wait for Dave's answer before jumping to conclusions about whether you can call your attorney. While I could be wrong, I'd expect that conversation to be protected by prviledge and thus be ok.
There are no court decisions interpreting this language. From the plain reading of this provision, there is no exception for consulting an attorney. Congress *could* have included such an exception, since it felt free to include the "other than those persons necessary" exception. But it didn't do so. Now you see why libraries and other businesses have been jumping up and down about this bizarre part of the Patriot Act.
As well they should be.
It's quite possible parts of the patriot act wouldn't survive a good constitutional challenge -- and it's also quite likely the government is going to avoid doing anything that would risk such a challenge. Also, parts of the act have time limits, and all this is likely to change in due course anyways; parts of the government are already gearing up to try to push through what they strenuously deny is "Patriot II", meanwhile other parts are getting cold feet about what they passed in the heat of the moment. As a practical matter, I'm not at all convinced it's worth worrying too hard about this -- we all know the government isn't supposed to just toss people in jail indefinitely without due process of law, and yet this already happens: if the government decides to show up with steel toed thugs, there ain't nuthing we can decide here that amounts to a hill 'o beans. The best we can do is continue to do what we have always done with grex, which has its genesis in the coffee houses of the 1790's even as our constitution was originally being drafted -- and that is not to talk about what we ought to do in response to our government, but to talk about what our government is, is not, ought, or ought not do, why, and why not. Those I submit are far harder questions than what do do in response to a lawyer or a thug -- by the time that happens, the time for policy making has long since passed. [ Canada, incidently, is no citadel of freedom compared to the US. They have a deserved reputation for politeness, and rumour has it Canadian politics are far more liberal; but perhaps the former is in part due to the far more fragile constitutional basis of Canadian freedoms. It's a lot easier to respect a fragile glass vase than an iron pot. The latter may be due to the comparitive absence of the puritan and the cavalier in Canadian pioneers. ]
#44 brings up a good point. Under no circumstances would I want to see anyone going to jail for the sake of Grex.
The point is, it wouldn't be for the sake of Grex. Grex would be incidental to the matter. The point would be to initiate a challenge which would overturn a law which has a serious potential chilling effect as long as it stands.
Marcus - perhaps in #44, s/cavalier/roundhead/ ? the cavaliers were the supporters of non-puritan protestantism,and of themonarchy, whilst the roundheads (so called because many of them wore bowlcuts, apparently) were the ones who chopped off the King's (Charles I's) head, and established the English republic (Commonwealth and, later, Protectorate).
Re: #46 True, but you still need at least one grex staffer willing to reduce his/her quality of life to "camp X-ray" level for an unknown number of years (while the legal wheels slowly & fitfully grind) for the eventual greater good...hopefully. Perhaps i just haven't noticed the staffers rushing to volunteer for this.
I hope we won't be giving the ACLU Grex's name ad resources to use for their political lawsuits again. A lot of Grexers support the ACLU. That's fine, they all know how to contact the ACLU. Some of us do not. We should be able to support Grex even so.
re #49: I don't understand what you mean when you suggest that Grex gave the ACLU it's name and resources for their political lawsuit, when the reality of the situation is that they invited us to take part in a suit to overturn a law which would have resulted in the end of Grex if left unchallenged. The interests of the ACLU ARE the interests of American citizens, whether we support them or not.
No, the ACLU's interests are not synonymous with those of American citizens. There are many very sharp conflicts. It is possible -- I don't find it at *all* hard -- to distinguish between the political agenda of the ACLU and the interests of America and it's citizens. The reality is that the ACLU used Cyberspace Communications as a name to hide behind. The lawsuit of a few years ago was an ACLU lawsuit. Grex didn't have the slightest influence on whether that lawsuit succeeded or failed, or how it was filed, or anything else about it, other than that Cyberspace Communications was used as a name when it was filed. Grex was never threatened, or at risk of being threatened, by the state of Michigan or any of it's laws. I have no objection to you sending your money to the ACLU. I think it's sad but it's your choice. I objected and will continue to object to you having Grex promote *your* politics against *my* politics.
I'm sorry, but you are simply wrong. The only agenda the ACLU has is preserving the Bill of Rights for the benefit of all Americans. There are a lot of people who seem to be incapable of realizing how the ACLU is serving their interests, but it does nonetheless. The most challenging thing about what it does is that often the cases it takes on are unpopular, but that is the crux of the issue. The Bill of Rights protects all citizens, but the protections it offers are significantly more important for those who are in the minority, and often, those who are in the minority are so because they hold unpopular beliefs. If supporting the majority position is your choice, that's fine, but if it is the only choice, then it isn't a choice at all. The ACLU is working to preserve that choice. I don't care what issue you disagree with the actions of the ACLU about, they are still serving your interests. You may not believe it, but you're wrong. And by the way, *I* didn't "hav[e] Grex promote *[my]* politics..." The board voted, and perhaps the membership did also (I don't remember), on being involved in the lawsuit. The decision was not made by one or a few individuals. And further, if you think the existence of Grex was not threatened by Michigan Public Act 33 of 1999, then you do not understand the law as it was written, period. (Sorry!)
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Re #51: > Grex was never threatened, or at risk of being threatened, > by the state of Michigan or any of it's laws. From what I read of the law, I think Grex was seriously threatened by it. I think the only way you can say Grex wasn't is if you're assuming that we would be ignored by law enforcement because we're small. I think that's a dangerous assumption to make.
re resp:52: Your respect for the rights of minorities appears to end when those minorities don't agree with you. I, for example, am "wrong" in this case (in your opinion). That being the case, I have no rights that need to be respected, and my opinion of the ACLU's agenda can be freely trampled upon with the misuse of Grex to promote that agenda. When you want it to be, it's not "our" Grex, it's yours. I've discussed the ACLU's heavily biased political agenda before, and don't need to do it again here. Whatever your personal view of the ACLU, it is clearly an organization which an individual should be free to support or not support. There is no law in America forcing one to join the ACLU. (Not yet, anyway.) When Grex supports the ACLU, it forces me to support it too, or stop supporting Grex. A few years ago, I declined to support Grex because of it's support for the ACLU. If we have another such occurrance, I'm more likely to send money to the ACLU's opposition to offset what Grex gives.
"Is the ACLU wonderful or not?" is, currently, pretty much totally irrelevant to the subject and purpose of the coop cf. But the politics cf. could really use some more activity. (Hint:)
I've been trying to decide where to follow up on this, too, Walter. On the one hand, the question, as you put it, is not fodder for coop. On the other hand, the question of whether Cyberspace Communications should use the ACLU to accomplish its own ends is fodder for coop. I don't understand John's antipathy. I don't always agree with the ACLU, thus I don't always think they are doing the right thing. Nonetheless, they have resources we can use to preserve grex. Why shouldn't we use those resources?
55: My disagreement with you, and proclamation of it in the statement that you are wrong, is in no way a denial of your right to make the statements with which I disagree, and the suggestion of equivalency only serves to suggest that you fail to grasp the subtleties at stake in exactly this kind of issue. In fact, I encourage you to continue to debate the issue, and to present a case which might convince me of the error of my own position. This is the essence of a healthy political debate of the sort that is absolutely vital to the preservation of liberties under our system of government.
While I think it was a very good thing for Grex to have been involved in the lawsuit it was involved in (both for Grex and for society), I think it's a real copout to say we didn't have a choice. We could have attempted to comply with the law we challenged by reading lots of conference postings and censored as appropriate. I don't think we could have kept up with the volume of stuff posted if we had wanted to, but we could have tried. We could have started preapproving postsings to the conferences and been in full compliance, if running a rather different sort of system. We could have declared that we had no interest in breaking or challenging the law, and if the sort of system Grex is was illegal, we could have shut Grex down. We could have ignored the law and assumed we weren't worth prosecuting. Or, as would have been the most likely scenario, we could have sat back and watched as somebody else challenged it. Did the ACLU use Grex to further its goals? Yes. The ACLU is in the business of suing to challenge potentially unconstitutional laws, and for that it needed plaintiffs and witnesses, both of which Grex provided. Did Grex use the ACLU to further its goals? That depends on what Grex's goals are, but if Grex's goals include keeping what Grex does legal, then yes. Most things Grex does further somebody's goals. When Grex pays for phone lines, it furthers the phone company's goal to collect money. Same for when Grex pays it's rent, and the landlord's goal to collect money. In the free speech lawsuit, Grex furthered the ACLU's goals in a somewhat different way, but it seems to me to have been a "price" worth paying. In the current case, if I understand things correctly, what's being discussed is attempting to use the ACLU as a source of free legal advice. Once again, this strikes me as a case not of supporting the ACLU unconditionally, but of accepting help from the ACLU when it's in Grex's interest to do so.
The board voted to accept the ACLU's invitation to participate in the lawsuit, and the membership voted to endorse the board's decision. Jep was pretty much alone in his opposition, then as now.
doesn't make his position wrong.
His position isn't right or wrong, it is just his position. What is wrong is the reasoning behind it.
Really? How do you conclude that? I can see two ways you might support your position, Eric: 1. Grex should accept *any* help offered it, without any other consideration, as long as it benefits Grex. Maybe PETA will want us to join their lawsuit next, or the election committee for Lyndon LaRouche. I do not believe Grex would have accepted being used by a group with a different political agenda. I don't think Grex's participation in the last lawsuit was agenda free by any means. 2. The ACLU is unassailable. Anything it does is good for everyone, and individual opinions to the contrary don't matter. Eric has argued this already, and I find it pretty chilling.
It appears that there's a fundamental disagreement about what the ACLU's "agenda" is, more than anything else. I agree with Eric's position that the ACLU's agenda is protection of the Bill of Rights.
Oh? Including the "free expression of religion" clause of the first amendment? They have often gone to court to prevent people from expression of religion, simply on the grounds of their doing it in a publicly-funded forum, when there was no real question of their expressions being taken as official acts that could fall under the establishment clause. They have no commitment whatever to the right to bear arms. They in fact are quite selective in their support of the bill of rights.
(Which is where I disagree with them. They are more interested in freedom _from_ religion than freedom _of_ religion. Still, they do come down on the side of freedom of speech and the right to be secure in our homes often enough.)
They pick their battles. They don't have the resources to fight all Civil Liberties cases, so they fight the ones nobody else will take up. There are lots of people who will fight for freedom OF religion (most of whom don't even understand the rationale behind the establishment clause), and of course the NRA does a real bang-up job on the 2nd amendment. To condemn the ACLU for not wasting its resources fighting fights other, much better equipped, people are already fighting is specious at best.
(I don't condemn them, I just disagree with them. They fight _against_ freedom of religion, in favor of freedom _from_ religion. I disagree with their interpretation of the establishment clause.)
Since most of what the ACLU does is file lawsuits, I suppose it could be said that what they're doing is giving the courts the opportunity to decide such issues. Given that they seem to generally win the religion battles, it seems the courts think they're on the right side of the issue. As far as jep's first possible pro-ACLU argument goes, I think it's mostly right in its first sentence. But then he delves into whether Grex would join PETA or the Lyndon LaRouche campaign if it served Grex's interests, and it seems to me that's where the argument becomes rather loopy. In htis case, there was a law that was seen as a threat to Grex. The ACLU's agenda is to challenge such laws, and they asked for help in challenging this one. I have trouble imagining such a scenario with either of the organizations jep mentioned. Then again, various people did used to claim years ago that Grex was hamster powered. I suppose if anybody ever argued that that claim was fraudulant, and attempted to force us to actually implement such a power generation model, PETA might be the right organization to join in opposing it. ;)
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I picked organizations that weren't the KKK or Nazi Party for variety. I think it's undisputable that Grex wouldn't collaborate with just anyone. That is largely the problem. Grex took a blatantly political action. I don't ever want to see that happen again. I don't want Grex acting politically even when I agree with the politics. I definitely don't want it opposing my political preferences again.
You're entitled to that preference, but if the majority of the membership overrules you, I certainly hope you won't leave and deprive us of your contributions to the overall personality and culture of Grex.
Eric, I didn't and don't believe you wanted me to leave Grex because of this issue.
If jep doesn't recall that the law being challenged had the potential to shut Grex down, either with impossible requirements to verify the age of users or a demand to classify content and "protect" children from that which was "inappropriate", he should go back and revisit that discussion. We'll wait. While I don't agree with every position taken by the ACLU either, I am neither so blind nor so reflexive as to oppose their help just because it comes from the (gasp) ACLU.
Basically the problem is that other people are using the law to try to force their politics on Grex, or else shut it down. We can't avoid getting involved in politics, even if we don't like it. I don't like it, but I don't see any alternatives.
In #51, jep said: > The reality is that the ACLU used Cyberspace Communications as a name > to hide behind. The lawsuit of a few years ago was an ACLU lawsuit. > Grex didn't have the slightest influence on whether that lawsuit > succeeded or failed, or how it was filed, or anything else about it, > other than that Cyberspace Communications was used as a name when it > was filed. That isn't true. Jan did a great deal of work on the lawsuit, wrote an elaborate brief, and testified in court. (Grex was the only plaintiff to provide a witness.) I worked with him and with the attorneys (over the phone and in person) to make our case, and attended the hearing. I can say for certain that Grex had a great deal of influence over how the suit went.
I apologize; I was wrong. It doesn't make me any happier. I was more involved with the ACLU's lawsuit, against my will, than I thought I was. Couldn't you and Jan have done the same as volunteers for the ACLU? I wish you had, if you'd wanted to be involved with it. I should not have had to participate.
We were acting as duly authorized representatives of Grex, in accordance with the wishes of the membership, which voted 36-2 in favor of participating in the lawsuit. I'm sorry you didn't agree with our actions, John, but the fact is that you were outvoted.
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I don't believe I was a member at the time of the lawsuit, but membership in Grex carries only voting rights. I was as much a part of Grex then as I am now that I send in a check every year. There was a vote, and the voting membership decided to participate in the ACLU's lawsuit. The membership was wrong. It engaged Grex into political activism, making choices for us all that were against the wishes of some. That should not have been done. I'm still shocked and scandalized that it *was* done. I definitely and very strongly hope it doesn't go even further.
RE: "The membership was wrong." In your eyes, this statement is true because you believe something that the majority of the membership of Grex does not also believe. This is an inherently subjective value judgement. I and many other other members of Grex believe that our decision was right and that by consequence you are wrong, but the application of that value judgement in either direction doesn't make it TRUE. In response, you can come up with any sort of hypothetical situation in which the membership might vote to do or support something which might offend the morals or sensibilities of anyone reading this and then ask if the (hypothetical) fact of the decision makes it right, but that would be an irrelevant aside, because only what does actually happen matters -- not what might hypothetically happen (but never actually would). This is in distinct contrast with my assertion that you are wrong about what the ACLU does. You may not think that their efforts benefit you and thereby serve your interests (and the basis for your arrival at THAT conclusion completely escapes me), but no matter what you think about it, they are serving your interests as a citizen of the United States of America. The only value judgement in that assertion is the assumption that preserving the rights of individual citizens to think and speak freely without fear of government repression is a GOOD and is therefore in the interests of all citizens.
I defy JEP to come up with a single negative consequence of Grex allowing the ACLU to help.
JEPP JEEP YOUHVE BEEN DEVIED"
re resp:81: Your views of the ACLU are not the same as mine. I think they are a very heavily biased political action group. You think they are worth supporting, even to the point where you think I should have to support them, too, because you think I benefit. In support of your remarks, you mentioned "individual rights". I clearly have a different definition about individual rights than you do. I'm not trying to stop you from supporting the ACLU. I'm objecting to me having to support them. If Grex were allying itself with the NRA or anti-abortion groups, then you might be in a similar position to mine and have a better understanding where I'm coming from. I'm not arguing whether or not the ACLU is beneficial to anyone. This is not the place for that discussion. I'm stating I don't consider them beneficial. I believe I have that right, even if you don't. I am protesting being forced to support them, in hopes that I won't be put in such a position again. Grex is not supposed to be a political activist group, it is a forum for discussion. Whatever support I've ever given to Grex was for the forum known as Grex, not for political lawsuits. Maybe Grex should form a political action branch, then those interested can support that. (Cyberspace Communications Committee for Politics.) I won't be involved with it, unless Grex itself forces me to be. In the name of individual rights and freedom, of course.
Let's face it, winning an election or vote does not make a position right. I can think of far too many cases where wrong decisions were made by a majority of the voters.
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re 87: I think it is perfectly legitimate to describe the choice to engage in a legal action as a political decision. The distinction has lost any meaning. re 84: > You think they are worth supporting, even to the point where you > think I should have to support them, too, because you think I > benefit. In support of your remarks, you mentioned "individual > rights". I clearly have a different definition about individual > rights than you do. Never have I suggested, nor do I believe that because the ACLU supports you, you have to support them. Grex, by virtue of its mission, cannot completely avoid being political by merely existing, so you cannot reasonably suggest that no money you give to Grex be used for political purposes. At the same time, the portion of the financial resources of Cyberspace Communications which were used in discussing and pursuing the lawsuit are so immeasurably small as to be utterly insignificant. Obviously your concern here cannot merely be the money. Grex takes a political position merely by declaring itself to be a free and open forum for the discussion of ideas, which it did before ever I became involved with it. The choice to become involved in the lawsuit was merely an extension of that declaration. That choice, more than anything else it did, allowed Grex to continue to fulfill the mission for which it was created. (This isn't to say the lawsuit itself didn't have other more significant effects.) Please don't confuse the issue by ascribing to me beliefs that I not only have not espoused but have actively disclaimed. I think it would really help inform this discussion if you would take a moment to explain exactly what it is that sets you off so much about the idea of Grex and the ACLU working in concert to achieve goals which (you do not seem to believe) benefit Grex. Personally, I believe that your conclusion is the basis for your reasoning on this (as opposed to the other way around), and I think we could find some common ground if you could disabuse me of that notion.
Re #47 re #44. For what it's worth, regarding roundheads vs. cavaliers, yes, I meant cavaliers. The roundheads were represented by the puritans mostly to the NE of the US, and were (for the time) progressive utopians. Human nature failed them here as it did in England, but their beliefs are still very much in evidence in the US. The cavaliers settled mostly in the SE, where their brand of idealism became just as much an integral part of US society. If you think of "puritans" as being relatively cold-blooded people fond of logic, more tolerant of personal insults, but perhaps more keen on fixing society, while "cavaliers" were relatively hot-blooded people particularly fond of personal honor, more keen on individualism, and less keen on fixing the inequities of society; perhaps this will make more sense. Both flavors of idealism were important ingredients to the american revolution, and 80 years later, the american civil war could be described, as fairly as anything, as a conflict of cavaliers vs. roundheads. Canada, by contrast, was initially settled by french fur-traders, then by well-mixed royalists from both the N and the S escaping the aftermath of the american revolution, then to some extent by escaping slaves, but to a much greater extent, by emmigration from the british isles and europe. This last part is common to both Canada and the US and is more recent, so perhaps the earlier history would better explain differences in tendencies between the US and Canada. Even here in this item, you can see some of these uniquely american characteristics in action. John, here, is I guess our prototypical cavalier. He's certainly a staunch individualist, and isn't interested in fixing society (that's an unfair simplification of course). I'd say too that personal honor is an important concept to him. The analogy isn't exact, of course; I'd say logic is also important to John. I'm not at all certain that Eric here makes nearly as good a puritan; but even there some aspects do match. By definition, it would be hard to avoid being reactionary if one were a close match to the past.
Um, all political posturing aside, you still need to come up with a "what do we do if we're approached by law enforcement" policy.
That is the *least* interesting question. What can we do when the law comes knocking? We can cooperate as best our individual understanding of the law goes, or we can choose to resist, again individually, with diverse probably unpleasant consequences. We can't corporately direct that anybody resist the law--well, we could, but that would be extremely unwise and stupid. It's not clear what we could do after the fact either, and while a discussion of that might be more entertaining, I'm not sure it can be any more productive. The main things I can see that make sense to discuss are: (1) just what *is* the law (which is not necessarily quite the same thing as what it says or people may claim), what are the options, ramnifications, and uncertainties, and (2) who might we choose to *be* the people on the spot when the law comes knocking. For the former, I know of only one organization with the experience and interest to have an informed opinion on the matter. I think everybody on the board would be interested to hear of any alternative with a proven record that we can afford. For the latter, well, that's what being on the board and staff, or various other lines of communication, means. Like I said before, I think it's highly improbable that grex will be the first such target of a patriot act raid. Law enforcement already has better ways to collect any of the information they might possibly collect with such a raid, and grex is probably a good enough cause that "they" aren't very likely to want to risk setting the wrong precedent in court. If such a raid were to occur, then it would surely be because the objective is, not to collect evidence, but to shut grex down. Given the relative size of the federal budget vs. grex, it should be immediately obvious which entity wins, and that "being right" is almost entirely relevant. Are you *sure* the patriot act is more relevant to grex operations than roundheads vs. cavaliers? For the more general case, I invite people to consider, not just the possibility the government might come knocking with requests that are in whatever measure evil or just plain stupid, but also the possibillity that they might really be looking for the next generation wannabe 9/11ers, or perhaps just your average everyday spammer or computer vandal. Presumably, whatever the law says, we have some responsibility towards society at large to prevent mass murder, and we have some responsibility to our users to see that grex does not become a haven for spammers and vandals. How do we balance that responsiblity vs. the equally important rights of privacy and free speech? There's a lot of tricky nasty stuff here, and plenty of room for blunders on everybody's part. Of course, we have also succeeded in getting a wide range of opinions expressed here on grex - and one man's blunder is another man's stroke of genius.
If avoiding contact with the ACLU is more important than Grex's right to contact a lawyer, perhaps we could compromise with the EFF?
At this point we are simply asking the ACLU for the name of an attorney who might know enough about this stuff to be of help, should we need it.
I have asked, and am awaiting a response other than "this looks like an interesting discussion."
Re #63: It strikes me that you seem to feel the ACLU is so throughly evil that any cause they take on is tainted, and so we shouldn't take advantage of their resources when it's in our own interest to do so. That seems like a pretty extreme position. It's not as if Grex has been making donations to the ACLU; in fact we probably *cost* them money overall. Re #71: Grex's mission is partly about free speech and free access to (some parts of) the Internet. That's inherently political; you can't escape it. We can't plug our ears and pretend that we're an island unto ourselves that isn't affected by politically-motivated changes in U.S. law. Re #92: I personally find the EFF much more extremist than the ACLU on many issues. I'm not sure what specifically about the ACLU jep finds so reprehensible, though, so maybe he'd find them more acceptable.
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At the risk of engaging in necro-equuo-flagellation, I would like to distinguish between the two meanings of "political" that seem to have gotten confused in jep's mind. The first is "arbitrary, and/or having to do with Democrats and Republicans." That's what we mean when we say "oh, that argument is just political" or "the people at work are playing politics again". The second is "having to do with the government." Grex got pulled into this kind of "politics" because the government (in the person of the State Legislature and "His Grimness" Former Governer Engler approved a law which would have shut Grex down. So Grex played "defensive politics", with the ACLU's help. And we prevailed. I agree with jep that Grex should not "play politics" in the sense of, for example, endorsing candidates for public office. However, we are *forced* to be "political" when the government attacks us. Forgive me if I have lost track of exactly what the Grex Board wants from the ACLU. I am a member of the ACLU Lawyers Committee for Washtenaw County. I would be happy to give Grex free advice personally about the Patriot Act. Or, if Grex wants to have the ACLU represent it officially, I would be happy to forward this request to the Lawyers Committee. We meet monthly.
Thanks, Dave. I'd suggest rereading the item to refresh your memory.
As a non-profit corporation, Grex is in fact *prohibited* from officially endorsing candidates for public office.
re 96 John Remmers said it was never OK to read a conference fast. Just what do you think you're doing?
I've now read the minutes of the last Board meeting. I gather the Board is waiting on a reply from Michael Steinberg.
I can agree that Cyberspace Communications is prohibited from endorsing candidates for office, but not because it is non-profit, but rather because it is a 501c3 corporation. Not all non-profits have the limitations of a 501c3 corporation.
I think michigan not for profit law prohibits us from backing political candidates. So far as 501c3 goes, I think it actually works the opposite way: if we were to back a political candidates, we'd lose eligibility for 501c3. There's 2 sets of laws here which work sort of oppositely; the michigan state law grants us existance and status. The federal law here merely recognizes our existance and grants us certain privileges, if we stay within certain bounds. The former is a brick wall within we must stay; the latter is a painted white line which we can cross outside of easily enough, but can't cross back inside nearly so simply.
Hmmm... I'd thought certain entities had incorporated, as well as registered as Political Action Groups. Maybe not.
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I would NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT like to see Grex as an organization start taking sides in partisan politics. It's a free speech forum. I think 501(c)3 is right for us.
I agree. I apologize if my comment made anyone think otherwise.
Me, too.
501c3 does, in fact, allow some space for doing limited political things. When I wrote our 501c3 application I was very careful to NOT say that we would never do anything political, but rather to say that the kinds of political things we would do would fit within the 501c3 rules. I really didn't want people arguing that Grex has to be scrubbed clean of politics based on our 501c3 application.
patriot II has sent its tentacles to this disturbing location: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54512-2004Mar12.html The Justice Department wants to significantly expand the government's ability to monitor online traffic, proposing that providers of high-speed Internet service should be forced to grant easier access for FBI wiretaps and other electronic surveillance, according to documents and government officials. idon't like this at all, at all.
Grrr.
ARRR.
not even a little bit, a little bit?
not even a little bit.
TROGG IS DAVID BLAINE
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