The following is confidential and attorney-client privileged, limited to officers, directors and vice-directors only. Please excuse this unsolicited comment. It is neither my intention nor my place to attempt to tell Directors how to conduct their affairs, but it is my obligation to the Board to minimize possible liability to the organization, and therefore to express concern when an issue of potential liability exposure comes to my attention. Recently, the Federal Rules of Evidence, upon which many state evidentiary rules are based, were amended to deal with the advent of electronic messaging. The new rules are extremely broad with respect to what information is "discoverable" if someone, or some entity, is sued. The new rules include all information contained in servers, as well as in individual computer databases. And that is just the start of it. Two items have recently come up which, I believe, necessitate some caution. The first is the discussions about the E&E decision and the appeal of it by one of the candidates for the North Texas Section Manager position. It is inadvisable in my view to conduct electronic mail communication about this matter in particular, and an alternative means for Directors to converse about this should be sought. There are two reasons for this. One is that, based upon personal knowledge of and experience with one of the two parties, that party is extremely litigious. The second is that communications have been received from an attorney for one of the parties, which triggers concerns that litigation may follow, depending on the outcome of the Board's review of the matter and the decision reached. I fully agree that the Board must have an opportunity to debate matters properly before it, but the means by which this is done should reflect the potential for exposure to litigation and the best methods of protecting the organization, which is the fiduciary duty of all Directors anyway. The second item is this auxiliary database that Dick has created, referenced below. The policies and practicalities of G-mail and its use with the current ARRL server I will leave to those who know better than I do about such matters. However, Dick's message, below, indicates that the server is run by a private individual not associated with or employed by ARRL. I am sure Dick is correct, the sponsor is trustworthy. But information that finds its way to the server is discoverable if the organization is sued, and ARRL is apparently not in control of the handling of messages through this system. I would suggest, therefore, caution in using it for that reason. Specifically, I do not believe that it is advisable to route ARRL electronic communications through servers in addtion to that controlled by ARRL. I hope there is an alternative in the offing that accommodates all Directors so that they can conduct routine electronic communications within the ARRL server. 73, Chris W3KD -----Original Message----- From: richardjnorton@gmail.com To: ODjr@kkn.net Sent: Mon, 2 Apr 2007 4:14 PM Subject: [ODjr] Welcome to the ODjr E-Mail Reflector Welcome to the ODjr E-mail reflector, an ad hoc system set up by N6AA for the purpose of permitting those of us using G-Mail and similar ISPs to communicate with the rest of the ARRL-OD family without the content of our messages being overwhelmed by the results of incompatible settings apparently present on the ARRL's Lyris E-Mail server. The ARRL-OD reflector has been garbling G-Mail messages for nearly three months. It has been suggested that a new version of the Lyris software needed to solve the problem will be installed next week, but next week never seems to come. Although OD members now have the option of using this reflector to communicate, there is no requirement to use it. In fact, if you are not one of the affected G-Mail users, your messages will be received by all in presentable format using the existing OD and ODV reflectors. Lyris-impacted OD subscribers can send replies via ODjr by forwarding OD messages to ODjr@kkn.net, and then adding their comments. Note that if messages are received through ODjr, hitting "reply" will send the reply through ODjr. Since the system is not managed by ARRL, users might be cautious about using it for extremely sensitive issues. ODjr is hosted at no cost to the ARRL on a server that also assists the League with a number of services, and is run by an individual who is a loyal and trustworthy friend of the ARRL. Messages will not be archived. The existence of ODjr is not made available anywhere, not even on the summation of kkn.net lists. Members can verify the membership of the list only by using their passwords. The list-owner of ODjr, N6AA, does not intend to use ODjr for communication if next week ever arrives, and the ARRL OD reflector functions properly. However, the ODjr system will be kept active as a backup in the event that the OD reflector becomes inoperative. _______________________________________________ ODjr mailing list ODjr@kkn.net http://www.kkn.net/mailman/listinfo/odjr ________________________________________________________________________ AOL now offers free email to everyone. Find out more about what's free from AOL at AOL.com.