Committee of the Whole Discussions: ***NOTE*** These notes from the discussion are recorded as a service to members. Since we are an on-line community, we would like members to have access to as much information as possible on-line. Since the Board Meeting at which the following discussion took place was open to the public, these notes attempt to make the content of the discussion accessible to everyone. Please treat the following material as if you had heard it at a live meeting. All statements are casual, informal, personal opinions. APPENDIX A COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE DISCUSSION ON DRAFT POLICY ON FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION Rebecca Last in Chair It was agreed to poll opinions by proceeding around the table. Lisa Donnelly: Good first stab but not particular enough. I have contacted Human Rights Commission about speaking to a board meeting or with a few directors. Chris Hawley: maybe a little bit open. Nadia Diakun-Thibault: I feel I cannot comment on this. I just got back from the US and I have not had an opportunity to look at these policies. I do support the notion of having strong policies. I would like to defer a decision until I have had time to research. Brett Delmage: I am generally happy with the policy. I am nervous about liability and risk. I like the policy. We should confirm that we have a good handle on the legal situation. Need legal opinion. There seem to be many legal opinions online. Jim Elder: I like the organization of the policy and I like the guidelines at the end. I agree with the concerns expressed by Lisa. I have some specific suggestions for whoever is going to pick it up next. Rosaleen Dickson: The human rights people will be pleased if we do something. Everyone is floundering in the dark. They would be pleased to know we are giving some direction to our membership. This policy does this. Guidance is good but we really have no control. We don't know who our members are and we don't even know where in the world they are. Andrew Patrick: There are a large number of things that need change. I really want to be on the side of liberalism. We must recognize limitations. This policy is very limiting. We are tying our own hands. I have been looking at policies online and most just say we decide whether you stay or go. There are cases which seem to suggest that guideline is a reasonable response. Saying we can't do anything until someone complains may not be reasonable. Also violates our aup. User agreement is explicit. Also talks about some places may be more appropriate than others for posting. This policy would still allow www porno pages on ncf. Our hands would be tied. Yvonne Dionne: I posted some of my opinions online. There are two issues here - What's illegal and what does the human rights commission want. Richard Taylor: I get tired of seeing our freedom restricted by so much nervousness about getting legal opinions. We have a place where people can express themselves about anything they want. We are lucky that we have this freedom in Canada and we need to preserve this. In other countries people are put in jail for saying things which are not popular. We should stand up and fight on the side of freedom. Julie Chahal: I am also in favour of freedom of expression. I have no worries about my own ability to screen out pornography or hate literature. There is a danger the NCF could become known as a place for porn and hate literature. If we adopt this policy we must change our user agreement. I would like to hear from the complaints committee. Jessica Cohen: I am happy with this policy. Issue of spam or porn is looked after by technical requirements. We still need the complaints committee. Natalie Munro: We need a freedom of expression policy. I am glad the human rights commission wants to work with us. Simon Coakeley (Complaints Committee): Everything everyone has said is true. Phenomenally grey area in Canadian law. The pictures that were posted were probably not illegal. The Human Rights commission - we might want to avoid the Human Rights Commission or talk to them. The Human Rights Commission goes beyond the letter of the law - that is their mandate. We should be careful about accepting the advice of the police. They are not lawyers. The Crown Attorney's office representative might be better. One problem of policy is that if you have one you may be expected to follow it. If you have no policy it may be better. We get complaints - 8 megs in file and mailbox - 950 items after I cleared several hundred out. We have certain users who do everything eg porn pages. We have people who send out spams and we get complaints from around the world. We have people who write close to hate literature. We have someone just bumped off the Toronto FreeNet who is now posting on ncf. This cannot be resolved in 10 minutes. We have to look at the problem of civil liability and criminal liability. We must broaden the discussion. Think of the impact on staff and volunteers. Lisa Donnelly - Last week the B'nai B'rith said NCF is a haven for hate literature. We have two members with web pages that have been the subject of complaints about hate literature. Andrew Metcalfe: Toronto Freenet has a very open policy. Recently we had someone posting alleged child porn to infohighway newsgroup. No matter which way you go you will have a lot of problems. Rebecca Last - chair - I am going to wrap this up. As a board we have 3 ways we can go: 1. Listen to the experts and then *take* a leadership role. 2. Listen to the experts and do what they say. 3. Decide not to have a policy. Personally I agree with what Richard has said and I agree very strongly with this policy. I was attracted to the wild west atmosphere. Jim Elder and Natalie Munro have indicated that they are willing to wordsmith. We will invite a representative from the Human Rights Commission to the next board meeting speak to us at the next Board meeting. Andrew Patrick: Dave (Sutherland) and I looked at this and we are not sure the Human Rights Commission has jurisdiction. Rebecca Last: It doesn't need to have jurisdiction. We can listen to them. Lisa Donnelly: Maybe our existing aup and membership agreement is all we need. Nadia Diakun-Thibault: We are primarily in Province of Ontario jurisdiction. ?: No, no, no Rebecca Last: It's not clear whether Federal or Provincial. Simon Coakeley: Could be grey area where neither Federal or Provincial apply. Rebecca Last - I suggest we wrap this up. Yvonne Dionne - There were a lot of skeletons beside the road in the wild west. Let's not make it a mythical wild west. ACTION: Richard Taylor, Jim Elder and Natalie Munro will re-draft the Freedom of Expression Policy and bring it back to the Board. APPENDIX B COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE DISCUSSION ON DRAFT CONFLICT OF INTEREST POLICY Consensus of the meeting was that Committee of the Whole, polling members' opinions in turn was very satisfactory and it was decided to continue. Andrew Patrick in the Chair. Brett Delmage: This is a standard policy which many organizations have. The purpose is to show that the Board and on down is looking out for the best interests of the organization. We are not here to serve ourselves but to serve the organization and its members. Sets a standard of conduct. Jim Elder: I like the message being put out. I'm not sure about the policy itself. Conflict of Interest is discussed in the Corporations Act. the goal here is to emphasize that the people here are working for the members. Rosaleen Dickson: I don't think this needs to be written into an act. Andrew Patrick: I like this. I feel I live under 4 or 5 conflict of interest policies. This one seems like a boiling down of all those. Yvonne Dionne: I agree with it. Anyone new should be familiar with it. Richard Taylor: I like this policy as it is written here. Only possible objection is that perhaps it is too wordy. Julie Chahal: In principle it is fine. Too heavy? We are putting a lot of time, energy and effort into this job and this policy makes me tend to say this is not worth the bother. Jessica Cohen: The 4th paragraph may be too verbose but I agree with the policy. Natalie Munro: I quite like the 4th paragraph. I like the policy. Rebecca Last: I agree this is something that we need. 10 years ago I was in the position that Lisa is in now and one of the board members acted irresponsibly. Maybe it needs to be shortened down a bit. 4 or 5 questions added might be useful for people who are not familiar with this type of policy. I guess I am suggesting we turn this into a policy and a discussion as well. Chris Hawley: We need it. Even though we are volunteers we have control of the corporation and we need these guidelines. I think the questions at the end are kind of neat. Nadia Diakun-Thibault: At risk of seeming confrontational I will not support this policy. Only direct pecuniary benefit conflict of interest should be covered. I find words like "apparent" too vague. Should apply to this Board and employees. One paragraph. Should be in by-laws. I would be happy to draft something. Andrew Patrick: It sounds as though we have several people who want changes. Nadia Diakun-Thibault: I would be glad to work with Brett on this. Brett Delmage: I think we have such different views that we cannot work together. I think volunteers, for example, should be included. Julie Chahal: I think if the two of you worked on this it would be good. Andrew Patrick: I will leave it to Brett to let me know. ACTION: Brett Delmage and Nadia Diakun-Thibault re-draft the Conflict of Interest Policy and bring back to the Board. APPENDIX C COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE DISCUSSION ON DRAFT PRIVACY POLICY Yvonne Dionne in chair. Nadia Diakun-Thibault: What is the intention? Chris Hawley: Everyone on freenet - people reading newsgroups - can be recorded. Freenet selling list of names is another concern. We explicitly wanted to make it clear that we do not share information. There is a requirement for those who have system administrator access to specifically assure they will keep information to themselves. Sheila Currie-Alder: I have to supervise office volunteers and also I work with the Complaints Committee. We will bog down with this policy. For example, I give the birth date to the complaints committee to verify that a user is not a minor. Chris Hawley: This means you have been ordered by the Executive Director to do so. Add "except as required in the performance of their duties". Rebecca Last: I share Sheila's concern but from the opposite direction. It seems a lot of people have access to information. Niggling question - what responsibility do we have to protect privacy of users from other users. I would like to see the rights of users with regard to privacy explicitly stated in the policy. This is not a critical policy. Natalie Munro: I think this is an important policy. Overall I like the policy. Jessica Cohen: I like the policy. I like what we used to have in the policy area online. Office volunteers would have to sign privacy statement. What about when a user asks for help with a problem. Matthew Darwin: I look in peoples work directories when I am asked. Jessica Cohen: Files cannot be made private in FreeNet. Perhaps we need this idea worked in. Julie Chahal: I like this policy. I suggest we change the last paragraph to specify operation purposes. We need a disclaimer that the internet is not secure. Richard Taylor: I don't think we should raise any expectations at all so that users think they have any privacy at all when they are on FreeNet. The software does not allow privacy. We don't want people to be secret about who they are. People cannot hide their identity. Andrew Patrick: We have an existing policy that Ian and I wrote. Libraries make the distinction of looking at information in order to operate the system as opposed to divulging the information publicly. Sometimes we unsubscribe from a listserve if a mailbox takes up too much space. I do agree with the issue of statistics. We need to add to policy guideline on the statistics we collect. I think we have a policy that works. Rosaleen Dickson: I don't think it makes a difference what reasons there are for getting information. People should not be led to believe that a level of privacy exists when so many people can access the information. Jim Elder: I like the goal of informing members what to expect. Many may have uninformed expectations. I like the idea of guidelines for staff. Brett Delmage: A policy isn't created to tell our members about ourselves but to direct how we do things. It is important to tell members that privacy cannot be assured. I like the approach. I think adding the statements about statistics would be important. Nadia Diakun-Thibault: Privacy is already gone. Confidentiality is the issue. Listing which discussion groups a person subscribes to should not be posted, obviously. I am not sure of the intent. Chris Hawley: Nobody likes the word divulge. In some cases this policy was written to reflect how the system operates now. Everybody seems to think it is good to inform members of what they can expect on FreeNet. Perhaps Andrew's idea of working on the original policy is good. Ian Allen: This may limit my ability to operate the system. Some things I know from wandering about the system I feel I have a duty not to divulge. This policy does not cover this. Andrew's policy did. Alana Boltwood: Privacy does exist to a degree. We can promise users we will do our best to keep information private. We can inform members that everything is private unless they choose to make it public. Only exception is name and id number. The policy as written states that we will not distribute statistical reports that would allow specific people to be identified. Simon Coakeley: We (Complaints Committee) have looked at information - when last logged in, age, addresses - I can see a situation where we would want to ask if a user had looked at alt.sex.... We have checked names, addresses and telephone numbers. We could be sued if we divulged information which should not be divulged. What about volunteers who abuse trust? Richard Taylor: I notice a contrast between what Sheila and the Complaints Committee said. Makes me nervous about how much power we are giving to complaints committee. Should we have that kind of investigation or only deal with complaints about what is done in public areas. Brett Delmage: I think the complaints committee is working well. No complaints about complaint committee. Roy Hooper: usually snail mail is sealed. Electronic mail cannot be sealed in the same way. Yvonne Dionne: In summary, it appears we agree that it is good to let people know about the problem of privacy. I like to think of everything as postcards. Should we maintain a log of sysop activity in case of conflict? Sheila Currie-Alder: I have a locked cabinet that has a record of all my correspondence with complaints committee. Andrew Patrick takes back chair. ACTION: Chris Hawley and Andrew Patrick will re-draft the Privacy Policy with input from Alana Boltwood, and bring it back to the Board. *** End of Committee of the Whole ***