Worst case scenarios

[Joe Rodgers]

 The topic is starting to fade, but I've been working on this post for 
five days now. If you don't want to resurresct this 'issue', you may want 
to privately e-mail me any flames. I can take it.
 


 It's been suggested that what SCN needs to worry about is a takeover by a
well organized group who love power for its own sake. That is a story 
that helps (as far as it goes) with planning for the future. 

  Here's another story that may help with planning for the future.


A person seduces away a minor, only this time it's not on AOL, it's on SCN.
 
or,

Someone meets someone else through e-mail, and accusations of rape are 
made. Then the police serve a warrant to look at both people's e-mail 
accounts.

or,

 The government manages to pass a law that makes it a crime for anyone to 
facilitate communications that are considered illegal. And then SCN is 
singled out as a test case for the law.

or,

SCN gets sued by someone. (the most likely scenario of the bunch, IMO.) 
It could be a frivolous lawsuit, it could have substance. Lawsuits seem 
to have no bearing on whether or not there was wrongdoing, but simply how 
visible the target is. For many high-profile companies, there are 
contantly lawsuits pending, it's considered a cost of doing business.
SCN may not have much in the way of resources, but we are certainly high 
profile.

              --==[  *SO*   ]==--

When the cops or the lawyers come knocking, we can say, "Oh, we're just a 
volunteer group, we never had time to fulfill our contracts." And 
they'll have us over a barrel, and SCN as an autonomous entity, will
 cease to be.

Or, if we've been running a tight ship, we can stand our ground and tell 
them what we've done, and know that we've done what we say we've done.

 my point is, that legal self defense begins with honoring a contract. 
The contract I cried foul on is a very small one, hardly very important 
at all. But it was made publicly, along with several much larger contracts.

 The By-laws and the Policy statement are a contract with the users of 
SCN. We can debate and chew and hem and haw;but I've never heard anyone 
question the authority of the coordinating council. What the CC decides 
is the 'law of the land'. BUT ONLY IF IT'S WRITTEN DOWN.

 I've heard it suggested that we should let this one go,it's such a small 
thing, what would be the harm...

 At what point does a written contract become important enough to honor? 

Not that anyone asked, but I think the answer is, when we present it 
publicly in written form to our users.  SCN users  include 
lawyers, judges, crooks, cops, and folks who couldn't care less. 
Even if the last is the biggest, it's the first 4 you gotta worry about.









For the record, I do not get my rocks off by being difficult. Everyone's 
telling me that I'm not being very nice, that I should try to build SCN 
up instead of always pointing out its flaws all the time.

I have spent the last 4 years working for a public service agency's data 
processing division. When I'm being paid, no one has ever told me to 
ignore a problem that I see: On the contrary, I've been repremanded for 
ignoring problems that were then discovered by our customers.

 Now I'm volunteering, and being accused of having way too much fun as I 
point out what I see as a serious problem in SCN's attitude: Contracts 
are only worthwhile when they don't have to be enforced. I see occasional
violations of the contract that we all sign to get on. But from all the 
response to this 'rulebreaking' I can only conclude that that contract is a 
bluff.

 With the legislation that's been proposed in the State and Federal level, it 
looks like SCN and the other public data services are going to come under
 serious scrutiny, if not actual persecution. Even if the free speech 
clause, and our right to assemble manage to survive unscathed, SCN is 
still, eventually,going to get sued.

 I can't shake the feeling that there is some denial happening here, that 
if we all just wish hard enough, SCN will somehow be immune to all the 
crap that flies around in that mean old outside world. So far, people's 
'need to be liked' seems to exceed their need for a rational pattern. 

 SCN is not going to blow apart and flutter away if anyone looks too hard 
at it. Neither is it going to grow in strength UNLESS it receives some 
scrutiny.