I certainly agree with Bill regarding
sending premature and unproven messages of “the war is over” to our folks. In
the present case, I suggest that we shouldn’t leave the impression that all is
well between ARRL and RC when my read of the most recent exchange on
Lest it be misunderstood that I have
shifted 180 degrees and am saying we should not have made any announcement
about the RC letter, this is not the case. I still encourage and applaud early
communication with members on major issues; however, we need to be cautious
that the communication accurately reflects the situation. As it currently
stands, the takeaway from the Dayton release as I’ve heard it is that all is
well in the world and that RC and ARRL are again on the same page as loving
brothers and sisters.
So far as I now understand, we remain
unsure as to whether or not the sky is still falling.
Jim
Jim Weaver, K8JE,
Director
ARRL
E-mail: k8je@arrl.org; Tel.: 513-459-0142
ARRL -
The Reason Amateur Radio Is!
Members -
The Reason ARRL Is!
From: Bill Edgar
[mailto:n3llr@earthlink.net]
Sent: Monday, May 19, 2008 1:16 PM
To: arrl-odv
Cc: 'Dura,Dennis, K2DCD'
Subject: RE: [arrl-odv:16763]
Re:RE: Red Cross letter
Then why were we in
such a rush that we couldn’t wait to verify that what Mascelli’s letter offered
actually did meet the resolution passed by the board last year, and why did we
have to announce to our members at Dayton, lead story on our website, and in an
email to our section managers this morning, pointing out the story on our
website that:
‘With the background check issue apparently resolved, the ARRL will be
working with the ARC in the negotiation and creation of a draft for a new Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) or similar document to replace the
one which expired last year; Dura and Keith Robertory of the ARC will be
leading the effort.’
In my opinion, the
only comment to have been made at
In light of Chris’s
comments, it appears that the announcement is not only misleading to our
members, but premature.
Personally, I don’t
consider the background check issue resolved at this time, and until so I don’t
think that working on an MOU at this time is appropriate. What I find
offensive with ARC’s new policy as that it does not limit what the Red Cross
has access to once given permission.
I believe the
website posting needs corrected or withdrawn, and a notice sent to the section
managers letting them know of that action.
-
Bill
N3LLR
From: Sumner, Dave,
K1ZZ [mailto:dsumner@arrl.org]
Sent: Monday, May 19, 2008 12:18
PM
To: arrl-odv
Cc: Dura,Dennis, K2DCD
Subject: [arrl-odv:16763] Re:RE:
Red Cross letter
Joel was careful to say that the Red Cross
had addressed “some” of our concerns.
Dave
From: w3kd@aol.com
[mailto:w3kd@aol.com]
Sent: Monday, May 19, 2008 12:08
PM
To: arrl-odv
Cc: Dura,Dennis, K2DCD
Subject: [arrl-odv:16762] Re: Red
Cross letter
Perhaps I am falling
victim to the cynicism that comes to some people with age, or perhaps the Red
Cross has created it, but I have some residual concerns here. As of now,
these concerns are apparently water under the bridge, but since not
misleading members is a fairly high priority with any association and
especially with ARRL, it seems to me that we need to be careful not to
tell members that all is well necessarily if we aren't sure it is. I for
one am not sure it is.
I wish the Red Cross had attempted to work with us on the revised consent
form. They didn't, however, and it is important for the Board to know that
the second paragraph of Mascelli's May 8 letter responding to Joel's
November 28, 2007 letter is more than a bit misleading, because
it falsely implies that they did. Mascelli claims that
after Joel's letter was received, they "started to work" within
the ARC to address the concerns in Joel's letter. He says that this effort
"included a subsequent
meeting between our attorneys to fully explore each issue and implications
for both organizations." They say that following this
"session" they routinely kept Dennis Dura informed of their
progress.
In fact, there was no meeting subsequent to Joel's letter that involved my
office at all, of course. The "between our attorneys" reference
simply means apparently that their in-house counsel at ARC discussed the issues
internally among themselves. There were initial conversations between my
office and the GC's office at the ARC about the problem more than a year
ago, but those stopped long before Joel's letter to Mascelli, as
the Ad Hoc Background Check committee told the Board at the
last two Board meetings.
All that aside, they didn't HAVE to work with us to solve the problems
identified in Joel's letter; we didn't ask them to specifically. We just wanted
the problem of the background check consent form solved. It would have
been nice if they had worked with us on this, though. Here's why:
The new consent form (which I hope is complete as-sent and doesn't include
other language; the language that I saw that was attached to the Mascelli
letter isn't a complete consent form; it appears to be an excerpt from a
consent form) is better by a long shot than the old language, which was very
misleading, and which should have been fixed a year ago. But it still raises
questions. It surely enough itemizes the information that "may be
obtained" which includes basic criminal background check information. So
far, so good, although nowhere does it say that the information that "may
be obtained" is limited to that.
And that is a problem, because at the last paragraph, before "steps
for ARRL members", the consent form says that the consenter
acknowledges that "a background check report is a consumer report which is
covered under the Fair Credit Reporting Act ("FCRA")". Indeed,
it is. Here is the definition of a "consumer report" under 15 U.S.C.
§ 1681(a) (part of the FCRA) dealing with credit reporting agencies:
it means "any written, oral or other communication of any information
by a consumer reporting agency bearing on a consumer’s credit worthiness,
credit standing, credit capacity, character, general reputation, personal
characteristics, or mode of living which is used or expected to be used or
collected in whole or in part for the purpose of serving as a factor in
establishing the consumer’s eligibility for [credit or insurance, employment
purposes, or any other purpose authorized by 15 U.S.C. § 1681b. So, we are in
the position of having first sounded a cautionary signal to our members about
the old consent form, and now telling them that all is well. But the background
check consent form still says that the background check is a "consumer
report which is covered under the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act..."
I really don't want to prolong this tedious dispute, and I
certainly understand why Dave and Joel and Kay decided to make noise
about Mascelli's long-awaited letter at Dayton, but unfortunately, I
don't have a good comfort level about the consent form revision, and it seems
we are in a difficult position if anything goes wrong with one of our members hereafter.
I will look forward to possibly fixing this problem in the new SOU being
negotiated.
73, Chris W3KD
-----Original Message-----
From: Sumner, Dave, K1ZZ <dsumner@arrl.org>
To: arrl-odv <arrl-odv@reflector.arrl.org>
Sent: Mon, 19 May 2008 10:45 am
Subject: [arrl-odv:16761] Red Cross letter
On Saturday morning we received the attached copy of a letter that had been sent to President Harrison about a week earlier by Armond T. Mascelli, Vice President, Disaster Services, Response, American Red Cross. With the Dayton Hamvention ARES forum imminent, Joel, Kay Craigie and I reviewed the letter and determined that it was sufficiently responsive to our concerns that we should not miss the opportunity to announce this at the forum, and Dennis Dura did so to applause. So as not to be scooped on our own announcement, staff onsite at ARRL Expo put together the story that was posted on the ARRL Web site. I apologize for not getting the actual letter into your hands a bit sooner. Dave Sumner, K1ZZ Plan your
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