Cyberspace Communications

Cyberspace Communications is a non-profit organization located in Ann Arbor, Michigan that promotes free speech through its anonymous access Unix system, Grex. The organization gained wide attention as the lead plaintiff in a successful suit to invalidate Michigan Public Act 33 of 1999 (The Child Online Protection Act).

History

Cyberspace Communications was formed to govern the public access Unix system Grex. Grex was based on M-Net, another public access Unix system located in Ann Arbor, currently operated by Arbornet. [Howard, James. "The Once and Future M-Net." RootPrompt, March 14, 2000. .] Based on collective management and group ownership, the system blossomed very quickly into community with hundreds of users. [Wolter, Jan. "A Partial History of Computer Conferencing in Ann Arbor." http://unixpapa.com/conf/history.html Retrieved Aug 1, 2005.]

Cyberspace Communications v. Engler

In the summer of 1999, Grex became party to a lawsuit seeking to nullify a Michigan law that would have jeopardized Grex's anonymous access and the privacy of its users. [Cyberspace Communications v. Engler, No. 99-2064 (6th Cir. Nov. 15, 2000).] In ruling, the court found that Michigan's Public Law 33 violated the commerce clause as well as the First Amendment to the US Constitution.

This decision would later on be widely cited in other cases litigating decency laws.

Organization & Governance

Board of Directors

Cyberspace Communications is governed by a Board of Directors made up of members who are elected by the membership to serve terms of two years, with a two (consecutive) term limit.

Members

Cyberspace Communications is a membership organization whose funding comes from dues paid by members. Members are afforded voting rights when it comes to policy decisions, and can run for the Board of Directors. Members also receive a higher level of access to Grex, the organization's public access Unix system.

Grex

Grex is the public access Unix system that is operated by Cyberspace Communications.

ervices

Grex's primary service is an electronic conferencing system. Accessible via the world wide web, or through an internal interface, it provides a forum for members to discuss a wide range of issues.Grex also provides limited Internet services, such as e-mail, usenet, text browsing of the world wide web, and text-only website hosting.

Technical Details

Until recently, Grex operated on hardware made by Sun Microsystems. The main system was a Sun SPARCserver 4/670MP. In December 2004, the system was moved to a modern x86 system. The operating system was also changed at this time, from SunOS to OpenBSD.

Member Governance in Action: A Censorship Issue

Member involvement in policy-making has been a core principle of Grexfrom the beginning. An incident from 2004 provides an illustration ofthe dynamics of Grex policy-making, and in particular the role ofmember proposals.

Historically, Grex culture has been anti-censorship: users are assumedto be responsible for what they post in bbs forums, with postingsremoved only if deemed to be illegal (e.g. credit card numbers) or forcontent-neutral reasons (e.g. the need to free disk space). Usershave always been allowed to delete their own posts. However, althoughthe prevailing culture was anti-censorship, no written policies werein place prior to 2004 regarding what forum moderators or others withadministrative powers may do regarding deletion of posts made bypeople other than themselves.

In early 2004, considerable controversy arose when Valerie Mates, a Grex staff member,invoked root privileges to delete an entire thread that she hadinitiated but contained posts by many other users. This actionsparked intense [http://cyberspace.org/cgi-bin/backtalk/abalone/read?conf=coop&csel=&isel=68,69-$&rsel=new&noskip=1 debate] in the [http://cyberspace.org/cgi-bin/backtalk/abalone/confhome?conf=coop Coop Conference] , the Grex forum devotedto governance issues. (Note: If certain postings are indicated as"erased" in the pages linked to above, it is because they were deletedby the users who posted them.) While the debate was in progress, another userrequested of this staff member that several long threads that he hadinitiated also be deleted. Despite the fact that the appropriatenessof such deletion was still under active discussion, the staff memberperformed the requested deletions, resigned from the staff, and leftthe Grex community.

At this point, the debate intensified. The Grex bylaws allow membersto propose policy resolutions, which are then decided by member vote.To resolve the censorship controversy, a member [http://cyberspace.org/cgi-bin/backtalk/abalone/read?conf=coop&csel=&isel=75,76-$&rsel=new&noskip=1 proposed] that thecensorship be undone by restoring the deleted items from tape backup,with users being given the opportunity to delete their own postingsfrom those items before making the items publicly accessible. Thisproposal was [http://www.grex.org/grexdoc/archives/votes/vote14 defeated] . Unwilling to accept this outcome, the memberwho proposed it immediately re-proposed essentially the same motion,forcing another vote, which again went against the proposal. Theproposal was voted on and defeated a third time as well.

This incident prompted two changes to Grex policy, [http://www.grex.org/grexdoc/archives/votes/vote18 one] to close aloophole in the bylaws that allowed immediate re-votes on an issuealready decided, and [http://www.grex.org/grexdoc/archives/votes/vote17 another] todisallow deletion of user posts by administratorsexcept under narrowly defined circumstances.Both of these measures were adopted democratically via member vote.

Several other policy issues on Grex have been settled by member vote, ascan be seen by consulting the [http://cyberspace.org/local/grex/votes.html log of member proposals] .

References

External links

* [http://www.cyberspace.org Cyberspace Communications Official Website]
* [http://www.hvcn.org/info/grex/ Grex Status Page]