🚀 go-pugleaf

                                                  dd
                                                  dd
         www   www   www   ooooooo   rrrrr   ddddddd
          www wwwww www   ooo   ooo  rr      dd   dd
           www    www      ooooooo   rr      ddddddd

            An official news service of EFF-Austin

+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+

                       February 7, 1993

         ATLANTA SUMMIT MEETING..........David Smith

+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+

This is not intended to be a definitive account, but rather
my personal account of what I thought was important at the
Atlanta Summit Conference.

EFF-National legal counselor Shari Steele has promised us
copies of the minutes that she took.  You will have them when
we have them.

An edited version of this article appears in the latest issue
of EFFector Online (#5.01) alongside commentary by Mitch
Ratcliffe from This!group and Jerry Berman, EFF-National
Executive Director.

 ___________________________________________________________
|                                                           |
|"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrowmindness"|
|                                                           |
|                       -- Mark Twain                       |
|___________________________________________________________|


                  ATLANTA SUMMIT CONFERENCE

                         David Smith
                   bladex@wixer.cactus.org

Atlanta was the host city to a "Summit Meeting" between EFF-
National and cyber-libertarian groups similar to EFF-Austin
on the weekend of January 23, 1993.

For local groups, a total of twelve representatives attended
from NTE (New York), this!group (San Francisco), EFF-Austin
(Austin), as well as individuals from areas with no
comparable organizations (Michigan, Huntsville, and
Washington D.C.).

The entire EFF Board attended and participated, as well as
legal counselors Shari Steele and Mike Godwin.

Representing EFF-Austin were Board members Jon Lebkowsky,
Dick Anderson, and myself. Jon attended as a member of the
Steering Committee responsible for creating the conference
but was free to represent EFF-Austin as well.

The format of the conference was (roughly) a day and a half
of conversations while seated in a Georgia Tech campus
building, 2-3 hours of conversation while seated at a Chinese
restaurant, and many more hours of conversation while seated
in the lobby and bar of the hotel.

In addition to a greater understanding of the other groups
and individuals, I learned a lot more about EFF-Austin, and
how we fit into the "national scheme."

Take, for example, the nature of each organization. The word
"civil liberties" was dropped more times by lunch than I had
heard in almost a year of my own involvement with EFF-Austin.
While EFF-National works primarily as a political activist,
EFF-Austin works as a social activist.  The strength of our
organization is providing a forum and common ground for the
vast and diverse members of the Austin electronic community.

While a wing of EFF-Austin may develop in the future that
more closely resembles the traditional cyber-liberties
organizations, I believe the self-definition of community
activist more aptly describes not only our history but future
goals as well.

A preconception I carried into Atlanta was thinking that the
"Best Thing To Do" was the creation of a document, FAQ,
outline, or guideline that served as a cookbook for creating
other local groups across the country.  After meeting and
speaking with members from the other groups, however, I now
believe a cookie sheet cut-out won't work, because each group
exists as a function unique to their environment and local
area.

Some examples.

San Francisco already hosts a strong Computer Professionals
for Social Responsibility (CPSR) group as well as Bay Area
MacIntosh User Group (BMUG). There is no need (or desire) for
this!group to replicate those efforts.  There is no need (or
desire) for another highly structured organization like an
EFF-Austin, and so this is a very loose affiliation of people
picking and choosing tasks that interest them. Judi Clark and
Mitch Ratcliffe are working a CD-Rom that will be a
combination of historical archive of the Computers Freedom
and Privacy Conference (sound bytes, multi-media), as well as
having 600+ textfiles.  Glenn Tenney mentioned as another
project an informational brochure or pamphlet.

Matt Midboe, the representative for Huntsville, Alabama, is
another example of how a group exists as a function of their
area.  He can not receive UUCP access, much less an Internet
connection.  (Matt is forced to "borrow" an account from a
Department at his university, with implicit permission).
Austin has at least a dozen dial-up sites where one can
receive USENET newsgroups and e-mail access, so this is not
an issue of major concern for EFF-Austin.

Finally, after listening to Simona Nass and Alexis Rosen
discuss the organization-building experiences of NTE, I am
glad that EFF-Austin had the good common sense to only have
*one* lawyer-type and not half a dozen or more.  <g>

                 EFF-NATIONAL RE-ORGANIZATION

Jerry Berman, executive director of EFF-National, spoke about
the recent reorganizations, the role of EFF-National, and how
they plan to operate.  After reading the press release and
litany of jilted lovers on comp.org.eff.talk, and after
speaking with other EFF-Austin Board members, my impression
was that EFF-National had engaged in a full scale retreat.

Berman's explanation, however, showed the re-organization as
an attempt to realign the organization with their commitments
to advance the cyber-liberties agenda.  Not only did it not
work to have two offices, he said, but it was counter-
productive, created mixed signals, and was not very
effective.  Rather than abandoning the communications
function of the Cambridge office, they were simply re-
consolidating inside the Beltway.  Nearly every member of
EFF-National that spoke admitted to the organization having a
serious communication problem, aggravated in part by having
two offices.

Berman also left me with a greater understanding of the role
that EFF-National plays in politics.  Cyberspace is a domain
in the Washington political arena surrounded by entities who
have interests other than the First Amendment at heart : the
CIA, FBI, the military, AT&T, NSA, IBM, et. al.  These
organizations have enclosed telecommunications policy into a
gridlock. In order to pass the civil liberties agenda, EFF-
National chooses to break this gridlock through the creation
of alliances with as many members as possible.

Berman presented the digital telephony bill as an example.
The FBI proposed (in essence) allowing law enforcement
agencies a back door to all encryption methods.

EFF-National opposed the proposal on constitutional grounds
and enlisted the aid of several business and
telecommunication industry interests.  Perhaps these
corporations were *really* concerned with the bottom line and
thought that the scheme would be too expensive to implement.
Perhaps they aligned with EFF-National not out of concern
about being a good democratic citizen, but rather from the
desire to protect profits.

So what?  says the EFF-National.

The alliance was so effective that not a single member of the
Senate nor House of Representatives sponsored the bill. The
digital telephony bill could just as easily have been framed
as protecting the public from terrorists or the need to be
tough on crime etc. etc.  The civil liberties agenda was
served through alliances with industry, spear-headed by EFF-
National.

This is the dance that Jerry Berman is hosting in Washington.

          HOW THE RE-ORGANIZATION AFFECTS EFF-AUSTIN

This is an official discussion item for the February Board
meeting, so I'll only speak briefly, and expand later if
something else happens.

If you have not read the press release that discusses the re-
organization, EFF-National has decided not to maintain local
chapters.

As a result, the EFF-Austin Board of Directors is considering
to delete the line in our charter that says we are a local
chapter of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Changing EFF-
Austin's name is another item for discussion.

At Atlanta, I suggested that EFF-Austin continue to
distribute the pamphlets, brochures, bumper stickers, etc. at
our information tables. Considering how popular these are
with EFF-Austin members (as measured by how quickly yall suck
them up), it would not make much sense to stop.

Again, these are only items for discussion for the Board
Meeting on February 9th.

                     POST ATLANTA AGENDA

Besides a sense of greater understanding and co-operation
between cyber-libertarian groups (as measured by a whole week
sans flames on the thesegroups mailing list), some more
concrete items are resulting from the Atlanta Summit
Conference.

The local groups banded together to present EFF-National with
a joint proposal about what we wanted from EFF-National. We
made a list of resource-sharing tasks that would assist us in
our operations, and asked EFF-National to assign or hire a
person to perform these tasks. Berman said this would be
discussed at the Board Meeting (which was scheduled for
Sunday afternoon), though no official announcement or follow-
up as been released as of this writing.

As a direct result of contacts made in Atlanta, Matt Midboe
reports that he has located a possible provider of network
access for the Huntsville area.

A special Steering Committee was formed to investigate the
creation of a formal organizational structure that will serve
as an alliance between the cyber-liberties groups.  Jon
Lebkowsky immediately volunteered as the representative for
EFF-Austin, pending Board approval at the next Director's
meeting.

We also agreed to continue using the thesegroups mailing list
as a forum for communication.  We discussed having another
conference in a year from now, and immediately volunteered
Austin as a host site. <joke! joke!> EFF-Austin is also
working on projects that involve members of different groups.

                            * * *

End note :

I want to point out that both Dick Anderson and Jon Lebkowsky
were vigorous participants in representing EFF-Austin as
well.  There just wasn't room to try and discuss everything.

Also, I want to personally thank EFF-National for sponsoring
the conference and taking the time to listen to our concerns.
I want to thank EFF-National for paying for our round trip
airfare and dinner Saturday night, as well as Mike Godwin for
picking up the tab at the bar, even if Atlanta doesn't stock
Shiner Bock.

+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+
| EFF-Austin contact information                            |
|                                                           |
| E-mail : eff-austin@tic.com  Snailmail : PO Box 18597     |
| VMB    : 512-465-7871                    Austin, TX 78760 |
|                                                           |
| Disclaimers :  You are encouraged to re-distribute this   |
| document electronically. Any opinions expressed belong to |
| the author and not the organization.  (c) 1993.           |
+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+