Agenda for the 10/28/98 Grex Board of Directors Meeting

Oct 24 04:34 UTC 1998

        Agenda for the 10/28/98 Grex Board of Directors Meeting

              7:30pm - upstairs at Zingerman's Nextdoor

       94  Initial Gavel Pounding - janc              2 seconds
       80  Treasurer's Report - aruba                10 minutes
       55  Publicity Committee - mta                  5 minutes
       44  Technical Committee - staff               10 minutes
       40  Phone Line Reduction - aruba              20 minutes
       15  New Business - all                        ?? minutes
       10  Final Gavel Pounding - jan                 2 seconds

response 4 of 18:

Oct 27 13:05 UTC 1998

Since we did it before in response to the CDA threat, without objection 
that I'm aware of, I don't see the need for a tremendous amount of 
discussion. And if the board doesn't take action at this month's 
meeting, it would be delayed for a whole month.

response 6 of 18:

Oct 27 22:43 UTC 1998

I, too am in favour.

response 8 of 18:

Oct 28 13:07 UTC 1998

i think that this is one of those things we can go ahead and do, and then undo
if there is enough uproar to make it an issue.

response 10 of 18:

Oct 28 16:05 UTC 1998

Go for it.  This is a blue-ribbon BBS on my book!

response 12 of 18:

Oct 28 16:21 UTC 1998

Out of curiosity, how many of the people advocating putting up the blue ribbon
are familiar with what this new legislation does.  I'm not very familiar with
it, but the impression I get is that it's not great, but certainly isn't just
a clone of the CDA from a couple of years ago.  If we're going to protest it,
I would like us to have some understanding of what it is that we're proteting,
and given the comments that this is just the CDA all over again, when compared
to what I've read about this in other places I think indicates that maybe we
don't have a good picture of it.

response 14 of 18:

Oct 28 21:29 UTC 1998

From the EFF web site:

 The so-called "Child Online Protection Act" makes it a federal crime to
 "knowingly" communicate "for commercial purposes" material considered
 "harmful to minors." Penalties include fines of up to $50,000 for each day
 of violation, and up to six months in prison if convicted of a crime. The
 government also has the option to bring a civil suit against individuals
 under a lower standard of proof, with the same financial penalty of up
 to $50,000 per violation.

 Despite lawmakers' claims that the bill is "narrowly tailored" to
 apply only to minors, ACLU Staff Attorney Ann Beeson said that the
 constitutional flaws in this law are identical to the flaws that led
 the Supreme Court to strike down the CDA.

 "Whether you call it the 'Communications Decency Act' or the 'Congress
 Doesn't Understand the Internet Act,' it is still unconstitutional and
 it still reduces the Internet to what is fit for a six-year-old," said
  Beeson, a member of the original ACLU v. Reno legal team.

 Although proponents claim that the law applies only to commercial
 websites, nonetheless, the groups said in legal papers, the law "bans
 a wide range of protected expression that is provided for free on the
 Web by organizations and entities who also happen to be communicating
 on the Web 'for commercial purposes.'"

 :

 Also, the Justice Department noted, the new law is ineffective because
 minors would still be able to access news groups or Internet relay
 chat channels, as well as any website generated from outside of the
 United States.

It's hard to see that this would directly impact Grex.  However, free
speech on the internet is what Grex is about.  The concept of "harmful
to minors" is an awfully loose standard to hold the whole commericial
part of the internet too.

The page about posting blue-ribbon icons is at
   http://www.eff.org/cgi-bin/br2/br2-submit.pl

The blue-ribbon is animated.  Yuck.  I think we should grab a static version.
Danged if I know where we will fit it on our home page.  It's isn't exactly
overloaded with empty space.

response 16 of 18:

Oct 28 23:56 UTC 1998

So the only thing that's harmful to minors is sex?  That's silly.

response 18 of 18:

Oct 29 22:20 UTC 1998

And snuff films would be acceptable under the law as long as they don't
portray sex...

Phooey!