Statements for and against Resolution 2024-07-GR1A: Improve Chapter Security, As Amended will be posted here.
IN FAVOR by JULIA P
This resolution presents a straightforward, common sense measure that will both safeguard Metro DC DSA against infiltration from bad actors (particularly of the far-right freelance variety) and build trust in our leadership.
As a relatively new member, I was surprised when I learned that vetting steering candidates was not already standard practice. While our steering committee is hardly a draconian bureaucratic cabal, they are our community leaders, and the level of data access they automatically gain through their position demands a level of scrutiny beyond a cursory vibe check - trust, but verify, as the saying goes. This is particularly salient in our current political climate. Regardless of the outcome of the upcoming presidential election, the rise of naked fascism has rapidly accelerated in recent years, and while I’m clinging like a barnacle to optimism of the will, it would be naive to ignore the threat facing us. Charismatic figures like Donald Trump are force multipliers for stochastic right-wing violence, and our chapter has experienced this kind of infiltration in the recent past. Introducing additional security measures to minimize the possibility of infiltrators accessing comprehensive member data, which steering members currently receive from National DSA before they undergo vetting for administrative tasks related to their position, is a wise response to our present material circumstances.
I can understand the argument that this process would contribute to distrust among chapter members or that it might be weaponized by steering incumbents to consolidate power, and I can understand why chapter members who are not politically aligned with current leadership would be particularly concerned about this. However, I believe this resolution, particularly as amended, takes every reasonable measure to control for bias and ensure that the general body is able to make informed decisions for themselves. The publication of vetting reports with the informed consent of steering candidates allows the general body to decide for themselves how they feel about any potential flags. Frankly, if a candidate were flagged for a transparently bullshit ideological reason, this would probably only boost their chances by placing them in a sympathetic position. As to the matter of distrust, most of us would agree that in the course of general chapter activities, it is generally best policy to assume other members are trustworthy and that, regardless of disagreement, they are acting in good faith. When it comes to electing our leadership, however, we instinctively exercise greater scrutiny, and the vetting process would prevent this from escalating to paranoia by providing concrete assurance that candidates are who they claim to be. Given the volatility of the contemporary political landscape and the low likelihood that things will cool off as long as the U.S. state continues to microwave the planet and gorge itself on innocent blood, it’s more important than ever for our chapter to maintain our integrity, and we are strongest and most effective when we can trust our leadership. This resolution goes a long way towards building that essential trust.
Please vote yes on this resolution!
IN FAVOR by JOSEPH M
This is a basic and wise action in the current climate.
IN FAVOR by TIM S
This is a very simple resolution that slightly extends a procedure we have used for years, without any controversy until the last few weeks. It moves the vetting procedures that all Steering members must already go through before getting access to privileged data, with or without this resolution, from after the election to before it, so that the general membership can take vetting reports into account when voting. It does not create an unelected bureaucracy that determines who can run for steering, it does not investigate peoples’ personal lives, it does not create an opportunity for badjacketing. It is the kind of membership-oriented, pro-transparency policy that this Steering committee was led to believe its critics wanted to see more of. To the extent that it will have any impact on chapter function, it will be to reduce an administrative bottleneck at the beginning of steering terms and to empower the membership to make informed decisions, by ensuring that any report on concerning information is designated to come from a neutral administrative committee, rather than candidates themselves. I urge you to join me, and the many comrades actually engaged in this work, and in related administrative work, who have written statements in support of the resolution, in voting yes.
AGAINST by SAM D
Comrades, I am against this resolution for the simple fact that it would not have the effect that its sponsors claim it would. I say this as a long-time privacy activist who has worked for and with Privacy International, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and the TAILS operating system. This resolution’s sponsor Carl R. admitted in Slack that no threat modeling—a basic element of developing a solid digital security plan—was conducted to bring this resolution. And the result is clear. There is already a vetting requirement for chapter data access and holding a seat on steering. All this resolution does is move vetting requirements to amid the election process and requiring public reporting. Without making any adjustments to an opaque process, this would make our electoral process more logistically complicated and actually introduce another point of potential election manipulation.
General chapter members are forbidden by steering from actually knowing what our chapter’s security guidelines are—a poor practice of “security through obscurity”. So, any reports produced by this process would introduce more confusion than clarity into our elections simply because the conditions of its creation are unclear. As a result, it would be easy for bad-faith actors or political factions to conduct deliberate misinformation campaigns against specific candidates if this resolution were to pass or to use the vetting process itself to influence chapter elections.
Rather than enhancing our chapter’s security and vetting process to meet potential infiltration this fall, this resolution is merely a minor tweak to procedure that has outsize risks. Chapter security is a serious matter that is done a disservice by a resolution that fails to make concrete improvements. And in a chapter that struggles to develop new leadership, we do not need to make it more difficult for interested members to run for steering. I ask that you vote this resolution down.
IN FAVOR by BEN M
I’m writing in support of Resolution to Improve Chapter Security, 2024-07-GR 1. As a steward of an AdCom department since vetting procedures were instituted years ago, I have requested many vettings for new AdCom members. While the procedure is generally not burdensome in my experience, it can take multiple weeks to complete, simply due to the nature of scheduling interviews. Given that Steering Committee members need vetting to perform their duties, it only makes sense for Steering candidates to be vetted before taking office. We shouldn’t squander limited capacity waiting for something that could have easily been done in advance. Additionally, Steering members get access to sensitive information from national regardless of vetting, so a vetting report, provided to chapter membership, makes sense as a way of closing this loophole in our policy. The option to allow candidates to withdraw, added by Amendment 2, is a good safeguard against the possibility of a false positive appearing in the report shared with the membership.
AGAINST by KEELI M
Writing against the security resolution as proposed.
While I understand the intent behind this, I think the resolution, as written, lacks pieces that the one amendment helped but did not completely fix.
There is a lot of nuance to this process that was not captured or explained in the resolution, and I don’t think it’s best practice to leave something as detailed as vetting to assumptions of what will/can/should happen.
Most people wouldn’t abuse that lack of clarity, but I think it could easily be taken advantage of in the scuffle/capacity restraints, and a more outlined process is important
The lack of clarity of what vetting entails is widespread - even outside steering vets - and so not knowing even those basic flags and then publishing a widespread report could be harmful.
I’ve been vetted and didn’t really understand what was going on, what they were doing, and how it helped/what would happen if they found something - I also had access to a lot of information way before I was vetted, and I think a lot of that comes from an incomplete idea of best practices for security in the chapter that should be worked on in parallel to a resolution like this.
If something was found and then published in such a widespread way about a candidate and there wasn’t an avenue to explain/mediate - the damage done publicly by releasing it in this way with no constraints would harm that person indefinitely and would harm the sense of collective culture in the chapter and contentious steering elections. This isn’t something to change without very explicit guidelines outlined
I also think this puts a lot of pressure to happen during election season when capacity is already at its limits - we’re human, and things slip through the cracks - would be better to have a more prolonged timeline
I worry that creating an overly heightened security tool will drive us apart in ways that feels “police-y” even if that wasn’t the original intent of this resolution.
If you aren’t active on Slack, you were only notified of the resolution on July 9 and had 3.5 days to discuss it and submit amendments. Much of the discussion took place in the Steering channel before that, but the average member doesn’t even know they are allowed to post/should be in/monitor the steering channel for that and would have missed the entire first conversation on July 2nd by the time the email went out.
The DC and NoVA Abolition Working Groups both had individual meetings about this and almost 2 hours of talk about how concerning this was among members, but if our biweekly meetings hadn’t happened to fall on Tuesday, July 9, when this was emailed to us, we would’ve missed that opportunity to talk about it entirely.
In conclusion:
As it stands, if someone is put on blast via this report, I don’t think they would get a fair chance in the battle of public opinion to “appeal” the report—as we saw with this very resolution and how much of the debate took place in steering meetings that most folks don’t attend/can’t attend due to working group conflicts and in the steering channel, which hasn’t been made explicitly clear, is where we are supposed to battle things out.
So, I worry that this could accidentally or on purpose harm individuals and the chapter culture in general.
I urge folks to vote against this resolution and honestly continue workshopping this and security in the chapter in general with more time for open debate.
AGAINST by ALEX Y
I’m a against this general resolution for two main reasons.
It is poorly written regardless of its content and the subsequent effect from it. It makes many assumptions that may be clear to the current members of steering committee, but are not clear for a majority of the members due to its vague words. I think we as a chapter should base ourselves in good policy, but adopting poorly written policy like this is the opposite of that. That alone is reason to vote against it.
Despite mainly being referred to as an improvement to our chapter’s security, it only hypothetically, maybe improves it at best. If it said that it soley wanted to proactively vet sterring committee candidates so they’d have access immediately at the start of their term, I would whole heartedly agree with such a resolution. However, it’s not that and mainly claims to bolstering our security. Our chapter has never experienced an infiltrator seeking election to the chapter steering committee, let alone winning, and as such its security benefit is hypothetical. Furthermore, if such event occurred, this resolution would do nothing directly to stop that from happening, hence why it only maybe would help protect, again in this entirely hypothetical scenario. By disingenuously claiming that this improves our security, it lies to the whole of the chapter, making us think we’ll be safer than we really are.
Should this resolution fail to pass, I would strongly encourage its cosponsors to rethink their approach and write clearly in any succeeding resolutions.
AGAINST by BETH S
This statement is my case AGAINST Resolution 2024-07-GR1: Improve Chapter Security, as amended - at this time.
As I said in my last statements in support of Amendments 1 and 2, I feel the addition of Amendment 2 is the beginning of what makes this resolution eligible for discussion - not passage. I see this as a fine place to begin a discussion. I can be convinced to change my mind about things, given new information. I am competent enough to participate in evaluating complex tradeoffs. Some of my opinions are lightly held, and some are not. I’m sure the same is true for everyone who supports the original resolution or the resolution as amended.
This could and should be a more robust and collaborative process. I respect, for example, that many supporters of the original resolution wrote in favor of Amendment 2’s basement floor privacy protections around the vetters’ report, but I still haven’t seen an adequate defense of the underlying assumption that the report is necessary or desirable, and there’s no obvious way I can see to handle that now except by opposition to passage. Maybe there is, I’m no parliamentarian. I just want to talk about this like people who care about each other.
If this is important, then the final changes should be something we work on together in a meaningful way - and I would certainly hope to see more than 8.25% of our chapter membership even weigh in on it. Wouldn’t the original supporters want to see that too? To see our membership engaged and excited to define our norms and values? I’m saying we should take this seriously and that means way more legwork, for all of us.