April 17th, 2012 IRC Meeting

Agenda

1. H.R. 3523: Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act of 2011

2. May 12th Film Fest Schedule

3. Election of new 1st Officer

4. Upcoming Events

5. Public policy questions to put on the Nov. 2012 ballot?

6. Anything else others want to bring up.

Quick Notes / Summaries Re Proposed Bills to be Discussed:

1. H.R. 3523: Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act of 2011

• A link to it: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/112/hr3523
• TechDirt's commentary: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120402/04425118325/forget-sopa-you-should-be-worried-about-this-cybersecurity-bill.shtml
• Draft statement at http://piratenpad.de/p/masscispastatement for comment. The text is:

Mass. Pirate Party statement on CISPA (H.R.3523) - DRAFT

The Massachusetts Pirate Party opposes the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) - H.R.3523 as a violation of our fundamental rights to privacy and freedom of speech.

CISPA is would allow federal and state governments to request detailed records of what we send over the Internet from telecommunications companies.   Since the bill is intended for:

    *  "the protection of a system or network from ... theft or misappropriation of private or government information, intellectual property"

we believe that CISPA would make it possible for telecommunications companies to actively monitor private communications over their networks in order to detect and censor transfers 
of copyrighted content.    Telecommunications companies would not be required to anonymize the information they gather and so the personal details of users would be handed over 
to governments to use as they wish.

Additionally, state and federal governments would be allowed to share such personal information with private companies.  Because such data would be used to protect against 
"cybersecurity" threats, should those governments or companies misuse this information, they and their employees would be protected from being sued.

CISPA would preempt state law and prevent states from imposing privacy protections on the data gathered or limiting what data can be gathered.

While this system is voluntary, since the introduction of the PATRIOT Act we have seen the increasing collusion between telecommunications companies and the federal government 
to spy on people.  Giving such broad powers to the government and the corporations helping them will undermine our rights to privacy and freedom of speech.

CISPA is so broad it would give the government and corporations access to what we read, watch or say on the Internet, and would destroy what little remaining privacy we have on the Internet.

We urge our members and supporters to contact their Congress members and Senators and urge them to oppose CISPA and other bills like it.

2. May 12th Film Fest

Link to page asking for suggestions: http://piratenpad.de/p/masspiratesfilmfest

3. Election of new 1st Officer

4. Upcoming events

• Get JP on the ballot
• April 28th - Extravaganja, Amherst
• May 5th - Wake Up The Earth, JP
• May 12th: Film Festival, see below
• June: Boston Pride

5. Public policy questions to put on the Nov. 2012 ballot? - Probably will be deferred

Attending

[Not the actual list, just posted the attendees from last meeting so there is less work to to]

• bsod - http://activepolitic.com:82/
• jokeefe - James O'Keefe, Somerville
• SplendidSpoon - Lauren Pespisa, Boxboro/Cambridge
• erixoltan - Erik Zoltan, Framingham
• GrimJack - Chicopee, near Spfld
• K`Tetch - Andrew Norton, Georgia Pirate Party
• passstab - kbenjamin sauerhaft coplon ,chester PA
• thetimface - tmccool

Summary

1. H.R. 3523: Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act of 2011

2. Film Fest

3. Election of new 1st Officer

4. Upcoming events

5. Public policy questions to put on the Nov. 2012 ballot?

Meeting Minutes

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