Minutes of the June 7, 1999 Special Meeting of the Grex Board

Jun 8 04:01 UTC 1999

                         Cyberspace Communications
              June 7, 1999 - Special Board of Director's Meeting
                                   Minutes

Presiding:  John Remmers (remmers)
Recording:  Jan Wolter (janc)
Other Board Members:
    Mark Conger (aruba)
    Dan Gryniewicz (dang)
    Scott Helmke (scott)
    Steve Andre (steve)
    Misti Tucker (mta)

From the ACLU:
    Michael J Steinberg (mikes)
    Jessica Leibermann

Members of the Public:
    Eric Bassey (other)
    David Cahill (dpc)
    Steve Gibbard (scg)
    Andrew Lanagan (drew)
    Arlo Mates (arlo)
    Valerie Mates (valerie)
    Mary Remmers (mary)

John Remmers called the meeting to order at 7:32pm

This meeting was called to discuss whether or not Grex should join as a
plaintiff in a suit being organized by the ACLU with the intent of
overthrowing a law recently passed into law by the State of Michigan.
This law bans "disseminating sexually explicit material to minors" and
which is referred to by the ACLU as the "Internet Censureship Act" was
originated as Senate Bill 117.  (At the meeting, nobody knew what number
was assigned to after it was signed into law - it is now Public Act 33
of 1999.)

There has been extensive discussion of this question in Coop Item 98.

Mark Conger moved:

  That cyberspace communications join the suit that the ACLU is bringing
  against senate bill 117.

Misti Tucker seconded the motion.

There was extensive discussion, mostly taking the form of various questions
directed to Michael Steinberg.  Some of the topics discussed:

 - The ACLU hopes to file the suit by June 18.  The member vote on Grex won't
   be complete until June 20.

 - Should the motion explicitly say that we will drop the suit if the
   motion currently up for member vote does not pass?  We decided the wording
   was unnecessary, since a member vote always overrides a board vote, and
   the board would certainly withdraw from the suit if that motion failed.
   In the meantime, the board wants to unambiguously commit to this action.

 - Discussed the resources we would have to be able to commit to this
   undertaking.  We need to name one or two contact people for the ACLU.
   Initially we will have to prepare a (somewhat elaborate) disclosure
   document describing why this law would hinder us.  We might have to
   answer discovery questions from the attorney generals office.  Someone
   (possibly the president) might have to make a deposition at a trial.
   That trial is likely to be held in Detroit, but might be in Ann Arbor
   or Flint.  We should not have to pay any money.

 - The lawsuit could be over before August 1, or it could run on for years.
   The first alternate is probably more likely.

 - There was some discussion of the possibility that if this suit should
   fail, we might have brought ourselves to the attention of law enforcement
   officials and might be more likely to be prosecuted than we might otherwise
   have been.  Nobody really expects the suit to fail, and nobody was very
   troubled by the possibility of coming under greater scrutiny if it does.

 - The lead attornies on the case will be Andrew Nickelhoff and Marshall
   Widick of Sachs, O'Hare, Helveston, Bogas & McIntosh (a Detroit firm
   specializing in representing workers in labor cases).  J. C. Salyer,
   Michael Steinberg and Jessica Leibermann will also be involved.

 - There was some discussion of how much input we would have on the suit
   (mainly just the portions that directly talk about our organization),
   and how we would be kept apprised of the progress of the suit (we'll
   get press releases).

 - There was some discussion of the question first raised by Rane Curl -
   whether it is appropriate for us to pick out particular material on Grex
   that would violate this law and use it as an example is our disclosure.
   Michael Steinberg felt that we probably would need to do this, though
   we might not need to quote it explicitly.  No real resolution was reached
   on this, except that we will get permission from the authors.  We would
   try to choose examples where we can say "here are some valuable discussions
   that would be interfered with by this law."  The idea is not to present
   material in a negative light.

 - There was some discussion of how we would answer possible media questions
   about why we want to allow such material on our system, or why we allow
   anonymous posting on our system.

 - Mark Conger presented for discussion his spin on the stance John Perry
   took on-line, suggesting that maybe it is inappropriate for Grex to take
   any political stance on any subject, because it might alienate users of
   different opinions, and thus effectively limit our ability to act as
   a neutral forum for free speech.  (OK, maybe that's my spin on Mark's
   spin on John's position.)

The motion was called to vote, and passed, 7-0-0.

John Remmers moved that:

   We designate Mark Conger as contact person for the ACLU and Mary Remmers
   as spokesperson.

Misti Tucker seconded the motion.

Mary Remmers would be the main person to direct any media people to who want
to talk about this.  Mary stipulated that most of what she does will get
cleared through the coop conference.

Jan Wolter also volunteered to help write up statements and responses.  Dan
Gryniewicz and John Remmers also said that would be interested in helping.

The motion was passed 6-0-1 (Mark Conger abstaining).

John Remmers adjourned the meeting at 9:20pm.

response 2 of 15:

Jun 8 04:53 UTC 1999

I like the way the question of how "to pick out particular material" will
be handled, except that I suggest that the perspective be "..that could
be..." rather than "...that would be...".

response 4 of 15:

Jun 8 15:34 UTC 1999

Excellent minutes of a l-o-n-g discussion.

response 8 of 15:

Jun 9 10:43 UTC 1999

(I agree. Harder to read than a plain-text version would be.)

response 10 of 15:

Jun 12 03:28 UTC 1999

While I have no objection to seeking permission from posters ("authors")
before using the text of their responses to supply examples of things that
would be affected by the law, I don't think the actual names (handles) of the
posters should be included, as it's the content of the postings that matters,
not who said what.

response 12 of 15:

Jun 12 19:48 UTC 1999

I suggest that you do that for anyone who does not request otherwise; ie, that
it be the default that names and handles be disguised.

response 14 of 15:

Jun 13 13:21 UTC 1999

I understand very well the objections to including people's words in a
context different from where they originally posted it.

But I feel it is necessary to point out that there are also problems
with editting a document that we are submitting as evidence in a court
case.  We at least need to talk to the attorneys before doing that.

My thinking is that we might do best by (1) getting permission to use
sections of these items as they stand, (2) quoting those sections, while
giving the URL to read the whole item.