January 25th, 2026 Meeting

Meeting to be held via video conference: https://communitybridge.com/bbb-room/mass-pirates-member-meeting/

Recording:

Projects/Events

2026 Campaigns & Voter Outreach

Leader: Jamie

2026 Campaign Plan

Pirate News

Leader: Joseph

• Pirate news recording scheduled for every other Sunday, 7pm with go-live at 7:30pm. Unless changed

Commonwealth Bills to Review

We will review the current Massachusetts House and Senate data privacy bills. Digital 4th has reviewed both bills and suggested a number of amendments including:

• making it easier for individuals to sue when their data is shared in a way that is illegal;
• adding "philosophical beliefs" to the definition of sensitive data;
• strengthening protections for data on children;
• adding data derived from your genetic data to the definition of sensitive data.

Other bills:

• An Act relative to unmanned aerial systems (H.3749 / S.2438)
• An Act relative to protecting Massachusetts residents against federal government surveillance (H.2687)
• Dignity Not Deportations Act (H.1588 / S.1122)
• Right to Repair Bills:
  • H.433 & S.189
  • H.398
  • H.1278 (Hearing occurred)
• Decrim Sex Work Bills from https://bswac.org/. Emailed Rikki and Desmond their thoughts on them as they are the most up to date on the issue:
  • An Act to promote the health and safety of people in the sex trade (H.1980)

Here is an etherpad for people to offer suggestions.

Bills We Decided On

Endorsed:

• An Act to provide accountability in the use of biometric recognition technology and comprehensive enforcement (H.96/S.36)
• Civil Asset Forfeiture reform (H.1953)
• H.1973. An Act protecting personal security. We support the bill, and its senate counterpart.
• S.1731. An Act to promote transparency of facial recognition and driver's license photos. Not great, but we'll support it, because it sucks less than the status quo.
• H.1946/ An Act to implement the recommendations of the special commission on facial recognition technology. We support the warrant requirements, and the bills provisions for transparency and reporting.
• An Act to study the decriminalization of sex work (H.2467)
• An Act relative to safe reporting (H.1747)
• An Act relative to sexual assault by an officer (H.2634)

Federal Bills to Review

• Anti-File Sharing bills:
  • Foreign Anti-Digital Piracy Act (H.R.791) - ...more
  • American Copyright Protection Act (Not yet posted) ...more)
  • ... more on the bills at https://torrentfreak.com/fears-of-overblocking-unite-critics-of-u-s-pirate-site-blocking-bill/
• Kids Online Safety Act (S.1748)
• Pro Codes Act (H.R.4009 ...more
• American Music Fairness Act (H.R.861)

A reconsideration of Member Meeting Articles

We haven't adhered to our Articles of Agreement's Member Meetings section strictly since we have existed, specifically the [ https://masspirates.org/wiki/Articles_of_Agreement#4.2_Form Form] and Time sections. Meetings have met weekly and bi-weekly (our current form) and not twice a year each over six weeks.

Rework them to:

• Have a section on conferences (possible spring/fall, at least one a year)
• Rework the member meetings to be on-line at least once a month
• Set when elections for the pirate council is and that we can elect people at a conference or on-line by secret ballot

Working on a draft document at https://etherpad.pp-international.net/p/MAPPRevisedMemberMeetingsArticles

Upcoming Events

• Nomination form ready by 12/12/2025 (or earlier)
• Nominations and candidate statements due by 1/30/2026
• Ballots go out on Friday 2/13/2026 (or earlier)
• Elections closing on 2/27/2026.