November 20th, 2019 IRC Meeting

Decisions/Endorsements

Platform

Topic a week starting in December?

1 Platform Discussion 1.1 Quality Health care for all including dental and mental health care (expanded medicare for all) 1.2 Education 1.3 Criminal Justice 1.4 No eminent domain for private profit 1.5 Workers Rights 1.6 Public Transportation 1.7 Government Funding and Taxation 1.8 Housing & Homelessness 1.9 Drugs 1.10 National Security 1.11 Data Privacy: Protecting the privacy of the individual, not the state. 1.12 Economy 1.13 Right of Repair/You own what you purchased 1.14 FOIA 1.15 Immigration 2 Adopted Resolution on Sex Worker Rights 3 What to focus on going forward? Discussion 3.1 networking with other organizing 3.2 open disc with rival interests 3.3 communications -- a platform milestone 3.4 observations: what do we focus on? 4 Attendance Statistics Platform Discussion We brainstormed platform ideas. These ideas will serve as the basis for further discussion and expansion.

Quality Health care for all including dental and mental health care (expanded medicare for all) Implement community based mental health and wellness programs for those who need it We are already paying for everyone Merge VA into Medicare for All Cuts administrative costs and profits of the private system Retrain administrative workers if needed Negotiate drug and other medical prices Impose consistent prices Using compulsive licensing of patents for drugs Ending evergreen patents Having better funding for drug research that shifts reward system to target health problems not profits Better research into the effectiveness of drugs Education Putting Students First Innovation in funding that reduces per student disparities in funding. Raising the bottom Encouraging critical thinking Maximizing the tools available to teachers Empowering teachers Criminal Justice Decriminalizing victimless crimes Focus on restoration, rehabilitation & education not punishment End Civil asset forfeiture Fair principles and wages for prison labor No disenfranchisement of prisoners. No taxation without representation Adequately fund pubic defenders Community policing & end arrest/citation quotas No private prisons Train police in conflict resolution, make them peace officers not police officers Make police files public automatically No privacy for police while on the job End cops being above the law Do not break the law to enforce the law No eminent domain for private profit Workers Rights Pro-union, card check not vote OSHA on every work site including government. Keep safe for all involved. Public Transportation Fund MBTA and other public bus systems so they can expand quality, reliability and service Maintain roads so they are safe End tolls & surveillance on the Pike, Tobin bridge and Boston tunnels Government Funding and Taxation Use systems thinking and true accounting Housing & Homelessness We have an affordability problem More cost effective to provide housing for people who are homeless Incentivize keeping housing owned by people in the community, not for use as a speculative investment Transaction tax paid by non-occupants? Improve renters rights: better recourse Fund outreach to renters and owners about their rights and obligations Drugs End the drug war: Decriminalize ala Portugal. Focus on addiction as a public health issue. Fund Needle exchange programs and programs to help people to deal with addiction Treat addiction as a disease not a crime Continue to support the legalization of cannabis and its use for those it helps End drug testing for government programs National Security End TSA: No more security theater End the wars Data Privacy: Protecting the privacy of the individual, not the state. Discard information once you are done processing it. What of GDPR should be here? Not right to be forgotten. Stop gathering of license plate/surveillance data or expire after X weeks. Do not share with private entities. Retain public data locally. Body/police surveillance camera data must be available by the accused at a minimum Economy People first; end corporate subsidies Measure the people’s economy, not the stockmarket Honest accounting that measures the true benefits and costs of the commonwealth Use these metrics to make better judgements about government policy Government policy should promote competition not monopoly Right of Repair/You own what you purchased Software/media you paid for and download cannot be revoked Cannot deny someone legal process using software. Lock you out of your house/reposes your car w/o legal decision Should not be a felony to modify or examine the software/hardware you purchased Companies should not be able to take back stuff you already paid for Copyrighted works should eventually become part of the public commons (No Mickey Mouse Law) FOIA All data paid for by the public should be on-line and machine readable/searchable (with personal privacy exceptions) That includes all branches of government No scanned documents without OCR Reduce the time for agencies to respond to requests to 10 days Consolidate oversight and enforcement of FOIA into one separate agency Under gov appointed by gov/elected by the people? (look at OCPF?) Change from legal process to automatic fines for when out of compliance of the law Use fines pay for bringing agencies into compliance technologically This saves tax payers money, simplifies the process Agency would have regulatory power and can set guidelines/rules (technologies/vendors that have worked) Agency can review rules/tech of other agencies and call them out accountable for non-compliance Immigration Make Massachusetts be a sanctuary state Abolish ICE Establish a path to citizenship for all immigrants No taxation without representation; limited voting rights Should be a judicial process for deportation with true due process Honor agreements regarding asylum seekers and treat them with dignity and due process Streamline process to move from one student to worker visa status Immunity (amnesty?) for immigrants reporting crime Adopted Resolution on Sex Worker Rights After making a presentation on the history of sex workers, Desmond Ravenstone proposed the following platform statement:

Consistent with our belief in an open society and individual autonomy, the Massachusetts Pirate Party supports the full decriminalization of consensual sex work, with commercial sex enterprises to be treated like other businesses, and sex workers assured of free expression and free association to organize for their rights, safety and dignity.

We oppose both sex trafficking and the conflation of sex work with trafficking and other forms of coercion, and agree that sex worker organizations need to be involved in efforts to address trafficking.

This proposal was adopted without objection.

What to focus on going forward? Discussion networking with other organizing masscann / aclu massmesh open disc with rival interests healthy debate who dont agree who agree focus on: discussion vs. an argument communications -- a platform milestone not just irc.. get on and become members, and discuss. is it riot chat? is it tech? geography is important, using librarys (or other) for meetups Proposed: October Democracy tech meet evaluate catagories/features of a given solution discord hangouts riot catagories voting video/voice conference streaming barrier to participate observations: what do we focus on? most pressuring issue concerning you net neutrality, housing drm sex worker rights && expanding pirate party immigration, school, community housing policing, accountability, body cams inequality, fair access to resources re: food justice

Projects

Goals for Q1 2020:

• Organize meetups
• Organize election
• Organize Fundraiser(s)
• Organize candidate trainings
• Revise platform

Regional Meetings/Events

Leader: jokeefe

• Holyoke Meetup canceled
• Worcester meetup moved to Spring 2020.

Video Newsletter

Leader: Joseph

• Next pirate news recording?

Democracy and Dogfood (Tech)

Next meeting will be December 8th, 11am-1pm, Diesel Cafe, Somerville. Topics are:

• find discussion/voting system;
• update CCTV cameras to include older cameras outside North America we didn't include;
• write an app to record the location/ownership of CCTV cameras;
• set up torrents for PirateCon videos (creynolds);
• post remaining audio for PirateCon talks (srevilak).

Tabled Projects

Computer Donations

• jokeefe contacted friend who refurbishes computers for a non-profit
• Archived https://piratenpad.de/p/MassPiratesComputerDonations - move to wiki

FOSS Tutorials

Worcester farm group is interested in having some FOSS tutorials. Perhaps:

• how to do basic labels in GIMP,
• work through a few sample spreadsheets related to seed cost and
• similarly applicable real-world situations, depending on the needs of the group

Basically how to do graph design & product management with open source tools. Malt will put together a one paragraph description of what we need and we can mail it out to ask pirates to help.

Fight bills to make the Film Credit Permanent

H.2419 would make the film tax credit permanent. It is supposed to expire in 2023. The bill has 100+ signatures this time around. jokeefe will submit testimony.

Upcoming Events

• 11/24, 10:30am-3:30pm, Holyoke Pirate Meetup, Board Room, Holyoke Public Library, 250 Chestnut Street, Holyoke
• 11/26, 7-9pm, Mass MeshNet Tech Meeting
• 12/8, 11am-1pm, Democracy and Dogfood (Tech) Meeting, Diesel Cafe, Somerville
• 12/3, 7-9pm, Mass MeshNet Tech Meeting,
• 12/10, 7-9pm, Mass MeshNet Tech Meeting, Democracy Center, Cambridge
• 12/17, 7-9pm, Mass MeshNet Tech Meeting, Encuentro 5, Boston
• 12/24, 7-9pm, Mass MeshNet Tech Meeting
• 1/?, 11am-1pm, Democracy and Dogfood (Tech) Meeting, ?
• 1/7, 7-9pm, Mass MeshNet Tech Meeting, ?
• 1/14, 7-9pm, Mass MeshNet Tech Meeting, Democracy Center, Cambridge
• 1/21, 7-9pm, Mass MeshNet Tech Meeting, Encuentro 5, Boston
• Spring 2020, ?, Worcester Meetup
• Spring 2020, ?, Springfield Meetup
• Spring 2020, ?, Boston Meetup

Participants

Observers

• igel[m]
• davidd
• hvxgr
• Deffy
• haskal[m]
• MikaelaSuomalainen
• ChanServ