[dev65] Termination of Mailing List?

[Brett Wuth]

Hi,

You may have heard recent discussion of Bill C-30 in Canada.  If this
bill becomes law in its present form, it will likely require that this
mailing list be shut down.

Bill C-30 requires that all telecommunications service providers in
Canada install and report the capability for legal spying on the
communications of their clients.  Unfortunately the law will require
the same work of volunteer and amateur services provides such as the
ones that make this mailing list possible.

This mailing list relies on the e-mail domain cuug.ab.ca.  CUUG -- the
Calgary Unix Users' Group -- is an association of computer users and
administrators.  As a benefit to its members, volunteers within CUUG
provide a high-quality e-mail service.  In fact CUUG was one of the
first ways the public in Calgary could get e-mail.  I have been
happily extending this service to support mailing lists used by other
volunteer and non-profit communities, such as certain volunteer search
and rescue groups, peace groups, and technical discussion groups.

http://www.cuug.ab.ca

Bill C-30 will require CUUG volunteers to prepare reports to the
government and to install and configure spying software if they wish
to continue to offer e-mail services to and through their members.
This is a burden that CUUG and other volunteer organizations are
unlikely to be able to support.  I want to alert you that as a result,
this mailing list may have to be shut down.  A decision will be made
and you will be notified when and if the bill passes into law.

Although volunteer organizations in Canada may not be able to continue
to offer these types of services, commercial operations can build the
costs into their for-profit services.  Two common business models are
"pay for service" (costs about $5/month per mailing list) and
advertising (ads are inserted into the messages transmitted).

If anyone has the capability and wishes to take over this mailing list
in another venue, I'd be happy to support them with the transition
now.

You may wish to consider alternative commercial services which use the
same software we've provided.  A list can be found here:

http://wiki.list.org/display/COM/Mailman+hosting+services

If you feel that requiring volunteer and non-profit service providers
to report to the government and install spying software is
inappropriate, you are encouraged to contact your Member of
Parliament.  Here are some resources you may wish to review:

http://openmedia.ca/StopSpying

http://www.michaelgeist.ca/tags/c-30

http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/292611-bill-c-30.html

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2012/02/14/online-bill.html

http://openparliament.ca/bills/41-1/C-30/


Best Regards,
-- 
Brett Wuth  wuth at castrov.cuug.ab.ca wuth at acm.org
Box 1251-U, Pincher Creek, Alberta T0K 1W0, CANADA  Tel:+1 403 627-2460
OpenPGP FingerPrint=628F C9DA BDBC 2A0E 18F1  2F6A 3300 8422 BE6A 0E79
What is the meaning of life?!  Yes.