[KLUG Members] Linux in the Kalamazoo Country Government

[Robert G. Brown]

On Wed, 04 Aug 2004 08:55:33 -0700, Rusty Yonkers <therustycook at yahoo.com> wrote:
>Does this also prohibit such discussions on the elist?  Can members
>still talk about the ideas on list as ad-hoc discussions?  I guess I
>am asking if this falls in line with the same prohibitions as
>soliciting work kind of stuff or if it is different. 

Not the same thing at all. There is no prohibition against holding discussions
ABOUT politics, politicians, etc. on these lists. What I was addressing rather
specifically was lobbying activity; A 501C3 organization cannot take sides in
a politcal debate, nor can it butonhole or attempt to influence politicians to 
vote one way or another regarding particular bits of legislation.

HOWEVER....
   A number of 501C3's come VERY close to this. For example, ACM has an 
office in Washington, and they communicate (but don't "lobby") members of 
Congress and their staffs regarding issues of interest to the ACM membership
in particular and computing proferssionals in general.

   A good exampe of this is in "educating" our representatives about the 
effects of the DMCA and similar laws that may not have been intended, or
effects that inhibit the pusuit of research and development. When does
"education" morph into "lobbying"? I know, since I've spent time with the 
folks in the ACM office there, but for the moment I'll leave that as an 
exercise for the reader.

>On another note does anyone know of other groups like this in
>Michigan that have websites and email lists too?
What do you mean by "like this"? If you mean a Linux Users Group, then yes.

>Or maybe a website that has a list of lugs?
There are lots of those, please take a look at out links pages.

>I would like to find ways to be able to
>contact more like minded people to try to start developing a
>grassroots movement for the open standards data proposal.

Have at it!

KLUG can play a critical and helpful role here, as you may be able to tell 
from the above remarks. All we need to do is get some people together for
this activity and come up with a good plan -- which we and others can execute.
KLUG can certainly serve as a platform for a lot of that, without violating 
any regulations.
							Regards,
							---> RGB <---