Attending Board Members: slynne, mary, dpc, gelinas Non-Attending Board Members: bhoward, vanloons, polygon Attending Non-Board Members: STeve, aruba, remmers The Board meeting was never called to order on February 18, 2005 because of lack of a a quorum (5 members). Bhoward had sent e-mail stating that he would not be able to attend. We reached vanloons by phone. He said he was moving out of his apartment that evening and could not attend. He said he was moving to India March 1, and wants to connect after then by Yahoo video conferencing. We were not able to reach polygon. The "informational meeting" began at 7:15 p.m. at slynne's house, 208 N. Grove, in Ypsilanti. Dpc said he thought the only thing the Board could do under its rules was seek a quorum or adjourn. Since we had sought a quorum and failed to achieve one, we must adjourn. Others present said that it was Grex practice to hold an "informational meeting" at which matters could be discussed, but no decisions could be made. Dpc, wanting to be a good sport, took notes. The Board first discussed the question of subpoenas. Generally, people thought we should have a policy on subpoenas. Slynne said that until we had a policy, she would decide what would be done if we received another one. Mary said she wants the Board and staff involved. STeve said that that four times in Grex history the staff had had communications with law enforcement, and the information requested had been public. Mary said we don't have the resources to fight a subpoena. STeve said we should examine everything on a case by case basis. For example, what if we received a request for information on people with Arabic-sounding names? Dpc said that cost should not be a factor in contesting a subpoena. He would provide legal services at no cost. The motion fee used to be $20; it may have increased. There would probably be just one court hearing. Mary said what do users expect? People have to expect we will give up information. Maybe we should say something like "you were warned." Dpc said what if someone asked for his own privileged client-lawyer e-mail? Or what if someone on Grex is involved in a divorce, and a subpoena arrives for all the e-mail between the user and the boyfriend/girlfriend? Dpc said we need two things: a policy to give users notice of what we will do, and a policy on how we will handle things internally. He said would draft something, although it might be a while. Treasurer's Report: None. Staff Report: STeve reported that the hardware was stable. There has been one crash caused by an Internet card. The Board congratulated everyone on the smooth move to Provide.Net - especially gelinas. The DSL line at the Pumpkin has not been reliable and gelinas will disconnect it on Monday. Schedule Next Meeting: The Board members present thought that the next Board meeting could be held on Friday, March 18, at 7:00 p.m. at mary's. However, since 3 members were not available, this will have to be decided on line. Moving Out of the Pumpkin: We are moving out of the Pumpkin on February 26. There was a l-o-n-g discussion about what would be going where, and who would be taking it there. Since we moved out of the Pumpkin, some of our users no longer have local dialin service to Grex. The Board considered putting a terminal server in somewhere, or installing another phone in Ann Arbor and paying for forwarding. 761-3000 no longer forwards. Further discussion of this matter, and a poll, will be online. STEve said that about 25 people use the dialins. Dpc expressed surprise that this was such a small number. Aruba said that it was part of our charitable mission to provide access to the Internet, and that if we do not provide phone lines we are not providing a minimal connection to the Internet for people with limited means. Apparently 4 people are being affected by the long-distance problem. New Business: Aruba reported that he had done the personal property tax return. Dpc said that he had been getting at least 50 pieces of spam a day on his Grex e-mail account, and suddenly there was an almost total lack of spam. STeve said that it was not our doing. He said that most spam is due to "zombie" machines, especially at universities, which have been taken over by spammers. Whoever was spamming their machine had been knocked off; hence no spam. STeve said that when we go to some form of Spam Assassin, Grex will box down, and we will need a second box. Gelinas said that the University of Michigan is going with DeSpam. Remmers said that a new version of exim is coming out, and it will have hooks for Spam Assassin. STeve said that Grex is still as big as most medium-sized colleges in terms of what we do. We are one of the larger OpenBSD systems in the world. Dpc expressed his concern that in order to use Grex e-mail people still have to use telnet, which is obsolescent. He pointed out that when he clicks on the "Telnet In" link on the home page, he gets a system message saying that telnet is not supported on the Mac for OS 9.2. He said we should move to Web mail. He said we should either install decent e-mail or not offer it at all. The informational meeting adjourned at 8:40 p.m.24 responses total.
YOu can use ssh instead of telnet. I HATE webmail - it is very slow and inconvenient and wastes a lot of resources. Could there be an 'ssh in' link that works on Macs? How obsolete is Mac OS 9.2? Someone offered us several copies of OS 10. Dave, would you like a laptop set up to dial grex directly? I would appreciate if the notes even for an informational meeting could be posted within a few days of the meeting. 'We are moving Feb. 26' is rather out of date on March 2. How come the last board meeting before this one chose a meeting date that was not convenient for 3 of the members? Would it be possible to pick a date on which at least 6 members agree every time, in case of changes in plan?
STeve said that that four times in Grex history the staff had had communications with law enforcement, and the information requested had been public. Mary said we don't have the resources to fight a subpoena. STeve said we should examine everything on a case by case basis. For example, what if we received a request for information on people with Arabic-sounding names? I don't even know where to start on this. First, and foremost, "Were all four subpoenas FROM law enforcement?" Second: Does Grex have to "fight" a subpoena if it is a ridiculous civil court request? Third: "Arabic-sounding names"??? What did STeve mean by that? I'm trying to assume he was implying Grex would have the balls to discern against profiling of its users by prying eyes and only comply to a subpoena of substance with solid requests by a judge rather than for a civil situation that might not have any merit. Am I wrong here? *slaps forehead*
Re: 1 All seven board members were at the January meeting when the date for the Febuary meeting was set.
Is there any way board members could give notice a week in advance if they cannot attend a scheduled meeting so that it can be rescheduled?
Yes, STeve was making an example of something that should be refused out of hand.
SBC has begun blocking port 25 on its DSL service. That may partially account for the spam reduction. You can opt out of it post facto, through their website.
Would STeve still advocate the request being "refused out of hand" if that request came shielded by the Patriots Act? I think it's generous of Dave to offer to lend his legal expertise to help Grex with these documents. I'd still like to see any final decisions be a group think among board and staff, if the law allows. Any policy we come up with should clearly state that if someone leaves information here we can't promise it will remain here. Don't share or deposit anything on Grex that you need kept private. We need to be truthful. We can't promise to protect anything.
dude, grexists, being paranoid mother fuckers, are all worried about the patriot act this and the patriot act that, when really their proposed policy of handing over private information BY DEFAULT to every dingbat two-bit lawyer who's involved in a civil case and asks for it is just as bad. being a social structure that isn't governmental (whatever real distinction can be made between governmental and non-governmental social structures) does not exempt you from caring about the safety and humanity of the people under your control.
re #8 That's kind of harsh. To be blunt, I think the BoD main priority on ANY non-profit starts with fiduciary responsibility. In other words, the executives of Cyberspace Inc are elected to maintain the corporation's trust and confidence to it's membership and to the general public in the case of a 501c3. Can I propose a motion or at least compel the BoD to organize a "legal issues" subcommittee? And for the sake of not overstepping any boundaries, the appointees NOT be attorneys but be willing to seek some pro-bono counsel specifically for assistance in drafting a formal policy that protects the membership and corporation while demonstrating respect for law enforcement?
resp:9 I would like to see what dpc comes up with before deciding to create a sub-committee. Our organization is pretty small so it might be possible to simply say that board and staff should be involved in the decision without creating a seperate committee
If legal counsel beyond what dpc or any other grex legal beagle can provide is required, might I suggest contacting "our friends" at the ACLU, given how grex teamed up with them over the CDA lawsuit.
The ACLU are not our personal/organizational legal counsel. If they have time, they might be willing to answer a few simple questions, but anything involved which does not fall clearly into the category of a civil rights issue should be taken elsewhere. Generally, our organizational legal obligations are not the concern of the ACLU and they are not, and should not be, the answer to our ignorance of those obligations.
I think Eric's right that most of the issues we'd run into won'tfall under the mission of the ACLU. But if we have one that does - such as a sbpoena requesting information on every Grex user with an Arabic name - then I think we should definitely contact them.
Sure, if we have a specific concern which clearly falls in their purview.
that's funny an email joe sent me said that fat slut slynne wasn't on the bod, and she know's she not on the level about anything and is as well going through legal issues with another grexer. however, let me get to what is important, slynne when you are so fat that only way to get a picture of you is by standing over you it's time to think fat free water and diet so i hear.
I said she wasn't on staff. Board members do not get 'root' access.
you lied is what you did.
diet free water
dude. freed iot riot.
"Just a quick note: slynne is not on staff and does not have, to the best of my knowledge and belief, the current root password on grex." If you misinterpreted "staff" to include "BoD", I'm sorry.
Sorry Joe
Sorry, Joe!
mac OS 9 is obsolete
TROGG IS DAVID BLAINE
You have several choices: