September 28th, 2025 Member Meeting

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

Recording:

Decisions/Endorsements

Massachusetts Data Privacy Bill

A Massachusetts Data Privacy Bill (S.2619) passed the Mass. Senate unanimously. It:

• Bans the sale of sensitive data, including location data; and
• Imposes meaningful data minimization on companies collecting our personal information.

However, the amendments on the following issues failed:

• A private right of action;
• Shore up worker protections;
• Expand the sensitive data provisions.

Industry tried to remove the data minimization provisions, but those amendments failed.

The bill goes to the House for consideration where it could die, be watered down or even flipped to be worse than now.

Do we want to advocate for this bill, and if so, are there changes we would like introduced?

Projects/Events

Pirate News

Leader: Joseph

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

2026 Campaigns & Voter Outreach

Leader: Jamie

Based on Mass. Election Division data, we have 721 voters. Alec is contacting all of the municipalities that have not fulfilled our public records request.

Jamie and Alec drafted a 2026 Campaign Plan for review and approval. Final version will be done this week.

Commonwealth Bills to Review

• 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

• 10-3-5, Abolition and Alternatives Conference (AAC) 2025