Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!sun-barr!ccut!twics!jefu
From: jefu@twics.co.jp (Jeffrey Shapard)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Re: EFF Chapters
Message-ID: <3499@twics.co.jp>
Date: 6 Apr 91 11:02:10 GMT
References: <1991Mar18.214218.29444@vpnet.chi.il.us> <18668@milton.u.washington.edu> <1991Mar19.211732.14152@vpnet.chi.il.us> <1991Mar19.213148.14254@vpnet.chi.il.us>
Organization: TWICS, Tokyo, Japan
Lines: 44

While one approach would be to set up EFF chapters whenever
you have enough people to call it such (how many is that?),
it seems to me to be appropriate to AFFILIATE with other
groups and organizations, professional and otherwise, which
have members that share common concerns. And the concerns
of the EFF _should_ be the concerns of all of us in this
medium and all of those associated with computers or telecom
in any capacity. And whether you are on the "right" side
or the "wrong" side -- supply your own definitions of these
values.

The relationship betwee the EFF and the CPSR, and their
cooperation in pulling together one helluva conference in
San Francisco -- and one which brought together folks from
almost all sides of the issues, cops and hackers, DAs and
lawyers, sysops and users, law-makers and law-breakers,
the whole range -- is a good model. If you personally do
not like the overall tone or agenda of the CPSR chapters,
then what about other organizations you are involved in?
What about appropriate SIGs of the ACM? What about the EMA,
the ENA, the VIA and all those other acronym orgs out there?

I always feel a bit distraught when I see a new group arise
and calls for yet another organization (I call it the UN
Syndrome), when it may be more appropriate to work with
and between other existing groups with shared concerns.
Hey, isn't that what networking is all about?

I would like to see the EFF here in Tokyo, but it would be
a lot more effective if we could involve folks in/from
other groups, rather than just having a dozen of us off in
the back booth of a coffee shop talking into the wind.

This newsgroup, by the way, is carried on major nodes of
JUNET, Japan's largest internet, but I have yet to see
anyone else fro other sites here say a thing... though
the issues raised are certainly relevant to the Japanese
context as well. The electronic frontier is booming in
the land of the rising sun.

--jefu

* Jeffrey Shapard <jefu@twics.co.jp>                       "Connectivity   *
* Connect-activist and Operations Director, TWICS, Tokyo    is our biz..." *