Motion to Rescind Board Resolution on Suspending Grex Public Access

Jul 28 16:11 UTC 1999

As a Grex member, I move that the following resolution, adopted by
the Board on July 27, be rescinded:

In the event that Michigan Public Act 33 of 1999 goes into effect,
all public access to Grex shall be suspended, with the exception
of an informational web page, pending the formulation of new policies.

That's the resolution that my motion would rescind.  I think it is totally
unnecessary to shut down Grex, even temporarily, just because an unwise
law goes into effect.  We have no real idea if we will be targets of
prosecution at all.  As I think I said elsewhere, the interest groups
behind these state "Internet minor" statutes really want to go after
the "teaser" pages on adult porn sites.

Plus, even if by some remote chance Grex is prosecuted, I believe we would
be able to successfully defend ourselves in court.

response 2 of 203:

Jul 28 18:38 UTC 1999

I'm really surprized by the board's decision, and there is no way I can divert
all my email to another ISP before Sunday.  

 Is Grex going to forward my email? I'm in the middle of a job search.  My
resume has this email address. I can't believe I'm suddenly going to
disappear from the net.  Does anyone have any suggestions of how I can
manage this fiasco?

response 4 of 203:

Jul 28 20:55 UTC 1999

1) About the mail forwarding, I would hazard a guess that the board would
suspend public access by turning off logins (easily achieved by backing up
the password file, then replacing all of the passwords with *'s which
disable logins for that user). So you could probably set up a .forward
file, open a free mail account (hotmail etc), and then access your mail
from an internet cafe or someone else's internet connection.

2) I'm not expert on parliamentary procedures, but I'm pretty sure that
bylaws (in general) can be temporarily suspended by a 2/3 vote. I guess
since the GREX bylaws require 3/4 for amendment, a 3/4 vote might be
neccessary. So what you could do would be to have a motion to suspend the
voting procedures and have that immediately voted on and concluding
tomorrow or Friday, then invoke that motion (when voting ends; you might
be able to expidite it even more by ending voting procedures as soon as 75
people have voted yes; explain to people that this isn't a vote for
rescinding, merely to be able to have a vote; if the board gives you a
hard time, invoke whatever clause in the bylaws or declaration of
principles that says that the membership has a right to make the policies)
to call for a vote on your original motion immediately, the vote ending
right before whenever the point-of-no-return for shutting down GREX would
be (11:45 on July 31?). This may look confusing, but read it slowly and
you'll get the picture. Be sure to phone the keeper of the vote program to
start it up immediately for the suspension vote.
When all of the dust clears, somebody should propose an amendment to the
bylaws providing for emergency votes. I'm not doing any of this because
I'm not a member.

response 6 of 203:

Jul 28 22:33 UTC 1999

perhaps the board should re-convene via conference call and have an
emergency motion to rescind the shut-down motion.  If this judge is
an Engler appointee, he is probably conservative and may well uphold
the law.  

The government could not shut down grex or attempt prosecution while the
lawsuit is pending-- grex could get an injunction itself for that.  

Shutting down grex even for a small period of time could cause major
problems-- those with paying grex memberships could request pro-rated
refunds for the time that grex wasnt available.  If grex is down for more
than a day or two, grex will get swamped with inbound email, and probably
angry responses from ISPS getting email bounced back from grex.

A motion to completely shut down should have been voted  on by
full membership, and one could argue that this motion wasnt made earlier
because the board wanted to keep that vote to itself.