response 81 of 116:

Sep 29 00:55 UTC 2003

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.

response 83 of 116:

Sep 29 01:42 UTC 2003

JEPP JEEP YOUHVE BEEN DEVIED"

response 85 of 116:

Sep 29 02:02 UTC 2003

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. 

response 89 of 116:

Sep 29 04:38 UTC 2003

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.

response 91 of 116:

Sep 29 08:32 UTC 2003

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.

response 93 of 116:

Sep 29 19:20 UTC 2003

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.

response 95 of 116:

Sep 30 13:09 UTC 2003

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.

response 97 of 116:

Oct 1 17:33 UTC 2003

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.

response 99 of 116:

Oct 2 17:41 UTC 2003

As a non-profit corporation, Grex is in fact *prohibited* from
officially endorsing candidates for public office.

response 101 of 116:

Oct 2 20:18 UTC 2003

I've now read the minutes of the last Board meeting. I gather the
Board is waiting on a reply from Michael Steinberg.

response 103 of 116:

Oct 3 07:03 UTC 2003

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.