Proposed Constitutional Amendment - Defence of the Realm

As in the rest of Second Life there is a need for responsible citizens in the Government of Neualtenburg to be able to take swift action to prevent non-citizens from damaging the sim or engaging in activities we usually classify as 'griefing'. In addition N'burg should have some control over who can apply for citizenship; it would be crazy for us to admit avatars who do not support the Constitution and the ideal of a democratic republic and who would seek to undermine it. To balance that, we should avoid handing arbitrary power to public officials without methods for oversight and control.

This constitutional amendment would empower members of the SC, the RA and the Guildmaster to ban individual non-citizens from the sim if they believe they are griefing (for want of a better term). This decision to be ratified or overturned at the next RA meeting and a time-limit for review set. Secondly it would empower the Scientific Council to prevent non-citizens from acquiring citizenship for a specified duration if the SC believe they will not abide by the Constitution and founding documents. The SCs decision to be ratified, amended or overturned by the RA.

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Add to Article I The Representative Assembly Section 7 Powers of the RA

"In regards to non-citizens:

1. Members of the RA can ban non-citizens from the sim if they witness them engaged in griefing or have cause to believe that griefing is their intent.
   
   
2. Any such bans, whether imposed by members of the RA, the SC or the Guild Master will be considered at the subsequent RA meeting. The RA can overturn the ban or support it. The RA shall set a time limit for reconsideration of the ban by the RA."

Add to Article II The Artisanal Collective Section 4 Powers of the AC

"In regards to non-citizens:

1. The Guild Master can ban non-citizens from the sim if they witness them engaged in griefing or have cause to believe that griefing is their intent. Such bans are reviewed by the RA (as outlined in Article I, Section 7)."

Add to Article III The Philosophic Branch Section 8 Powers of the SC

"In regards to non-citizens:

1. Members of the SC can ban non-citizens from the sim if they witness them engaged in griefing or have cause to believe that griefing is their intent. Such bans are reviewed by the RA (as outlined in Article I, Section 7).
   
   
2. The SC can bar non-citizens from acquiring citizenship in Neualtenburg if they have cause to believe that will not abide by the Constitution, founding documents and laws of the City. Any such bar should be time-limited and can be ratified, amended or overturned by the RA at a subsequent meeting."

Why don't you just draft this as a bill and have it passed into law? I see no reason why it needs to be in the constitution at all. However, in the event I'm missing something, what are your criteria for making a bill worthy of a constitutional amendment and how does this bill satisfy those criteria?

~Ulrika~

If it works as well as a bill as constitutional amendment I'm happy to rework it.

My reason for putting it forward as a constitutional amendment rather than a bill is that I can't find any legal basis in the constitution for these type of powers. In their absence I thought it should appear there as one of the founding documents.

But I'd be interested in others views. As long as it achieves the same ends I'm not fussed about the vehicle.

Amendments are very difficult to pass (as they should be) and once they're in the constitution very difficult to amend. I think something such as this would work much better as a law.

The bill also contains punishment (banishment), which is unusual for city laws, and allows punishment for speculated intent, which is highly unusual. Only in instances of clear and present danger should preemptive action be taken. Given that griefing usually is nothing more than littering and pushing, does that meet a "clear and present danger" criteria?

Further there is no legal definition of "griefer" or "griefing" provided. Instead I'd avoid SL slang and state specifically what behavior is not permitted.

Just some suggestions.

~Ulrika~

Just thought I'd post a few thoughts, partly to bump the thread and get some debate going. Come on people, jump in! And also to say what I intend to do next with this.

1. I agree that this can probably be done better as a bill than a constitutional amendment. I'll redraft it. I think the legal basis for the sanctions is Linden Law and the Bill should make clear that the powers granted by Linden Law to the sim owner to ban avatars are assigned to government officials in Neualtenburg with oversight to prevent/correct abuses of power.

2. Several people made the point at yesterday's RA meeting that these have customarily been seen as the SCs prerogative but that my proposal would make the RA the ultimate arbiter. I'll redraft accordingly as the SC are the ulitmate arbiters of the Constitution.

3. The definition of 'griefing' needs work. I'll include reference to harrassing avatars in Neualtenburg; defacing or deleting parts of the city or private property; behaviour against the LL TOS etc. This bit is tricky! I'd be grateful for suggestions.

Apologies for not commenting Patroklus, but I for one am completely exhausted lately. The forum has been extrememely active and quite "trying" for many of us (slight bad pun intended) in recent weeks.

These suggestions seem quite sensible to me and could possibly have prevented the need for the recent hearing on Sudane, Ulrika and Aliasi in it's entirelty which I think is possibly your point.

On the one hand, changing the consitution to retroactively remove the problems caused by an unexpected and isolated difficulty like that can be seen as problematic as the motivation is to change the base law for a "one time scenario." On the other hand, it can obviously also be the case that it is through just such a crisis that we learn of a serious "loophole" in the law that needs to be plugged.

Overall I think these seem like sensible propositions that give more clarity to the role of the SC in the defense of the sim and extend that right to certain specific other members of the government. (If I am right in thinking they did not have this "right" currently). In any case these guidelines, or something similar should likely have been written in the founding documents from the start. I have many times thought it curious that with all the talk of law and order in the founding documents that there is little detail on outside attacks or griefing in general. Perhaps the founders were understandably more focussed on civil order than they were on attacks from without.

I don't see the definition of "griefing" as too much of a problem in that yes, it's going to be somewhat subjective but there is already subjective language in here in that it says "have cause to believe that griefing is their intent." If we accept that language we are IMO sort of saying that we are relying on the judgement of the individual doing the banning to determine the intent of the griefer before they commit any overt act. To read their mind sort of speak or at least to make a judgement call.

Even a fairly loose definition of "griefer" might be okay then as the person being banned is not necessarily a specific type of person that can be defined in so many words, nor can their actions be so easily defined as they may be banned from being a greifer before tehy in fact "cause the grief." It seems to me that they could be a person that the government official merely believes to be that type of person or a person they believe to be about to make an attack, but perhaps I am being too broad in that interpretation.

I think that makes sense...
Am I making sense? verrry tirredd.... (snore)

Thank you for your comments Dianne, you make perfect sense!

I'm inclined to agree that the definition is not so much of an issue and should be drawn quite widely. We are entrusting public officials to make a judgement call based on the available evidence. For example, if an SC member sees an avatar called 'Plasticus Duckus' and they say 'I'm gonna crash you melon farmers, I'm gonna crash you good!' then I'd say they'd be within their rights to tp them home and ban them. If it turns out they're not a griefer and this is just their normal mode of address the sanction can be rescinded. This is, in my opinion, a much fairer way of dealing with these issues than the 'sim owner is god' mode in the rest of SL.

Preamble
Estate owners in Second Life have tools available to them to defend their property against those who would do them harm. In Neualtenburg we allocate those powers to Government officials and responsible citizens to protect the sim and our citizens. We also allow for oversight of these powers to prevent abuse.

Definition
Griefing is defined here as behaviour designed to harrass others or to damage the sim. It includes inter alia harrassing avatars for racial, sexual or homophobic reasons; deleting or defacing public or private property in Neulatenburg; armed or unarmed combat with unwilling parties and attempts to crash the sim.

Powers
Members of the Representative Assembly, the Scientific Council and the Guild Master (and citizens temporarily empowered by these bodies) are empowered to ban avatars from Neualtenburg if they are griefing or if they have reasonable cause to believe they are intent on griefing.

The Scientific Council are empowered to deny citizenship to a non-citizen if they have cause to believe that the non-citizen will not abide by the Constitution, founding documents and laws of the City.

Oversight
Sim bans will be reviewed at the next Scientific Council meeting which must take place within 28 days. The Scientific Council can support, rescind or amend the ban and must set a time-limit for review by a future SC meeting.

Bars to citizenship must be time-limited and can be overturned by a 2/3 majority vote in the Representative Assembly.

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Rationale: I've finally got around to editing this into bill format (Wagner's 'Twilight of the Gods' took up most of Saturday, I'm afraid!)

I've made the changes as discussed in previous posts. The one difference is that I've added the potential for the RA, SC or Guildmaster to temporarily grant ban powers to other citizens. I thought this might be useful when we want to have 'security' at events without relying on a member of the government to be there and be prepared to eject people if need's be.

BTW, anyone got a better name than 'Defence of the Realm'? Realm implies royalty and I'm pretty sure we're not a constitutional monarchy so it's probably not appropriate.

I suppose 'Defense of the City' or perhaps something related to public order.

Patroklus, please remember to drop this to me on a notecard at your earliest convenience.

Looks good to me. Funny enough, I suggested something very similar (in relation to "Sim Manager" status) back when it was first introduced as a feature and was greeted by a round of silence. Guess this drama was good for SOMETHING after all...

This section of the law is what's known as a "rider". It has absolutely nothing to do with griefing and requires only a "belief" to enact an unlimited (limits are still not defined) ban. This is just terrible legislation -- keep it out of the griefing bill.

Twenty eight days is absurdly large for SL. Please justify how you arrived upon this time limit.

Why is the RA allowed to overrule the SC? It looks like the creation of a legislative-branch pardon. Why does it only apply to banning? Will this apply to other crimes as well? Is this constitutional? Why is a supermajority vote chosen to overturn a ban? What is the time limit for a ban?

Finally, it is not stated why existing abuse tools are insufficient. As far as I know, N'burg in two years has never been the victim of griefing. It seems to me that the real purpose of this anti-griefing bill is to attach a "ban on belief" rider -- a rider with huge delays in review, no specified time limit, the creation of an RA pardon, and no mention of actual need. Absolutely icky.

~Ulrika~

Thanks for your comments and analysis Ulrika. It's useful to have a discussion, especially where there is controversy and concern about intended and unintended effects.

On the points you raise:
The SC are the defenders and arbiters of the Constitution. If Neualtenburg is to have any control over who can become a citizen then it is surely right that this power is given to the Scientific Council. Are you arguing that nobody should be denied citizenship? Or that the SC should use some other grounds for making these decisions? Or that some other body is better qualified to judge? Such bans are time limited, this is covered in the Oversight section.

I chose 28 days because I thought a time limit was necessary. It would be unacceptable, for example, that a banning order should remain in place for months because the SC had failed to meet. I don't know how often the SC meets, perhaps a member could advise and confirm whether this is a reasonable time frame or not.

There's a means for the RA to overturn a bar to citizenship to provide redress in the event that an unreasonable SC decides to bar citizenship for personal reasons indefinitely. We could take that out but would it really be a good idea to give the SC the power to bar someone from citizenship with no way to overturn the decision?

Exisiting tools are insufficient because, in a democratic republic, these powers need to be spelled out and a means for redress provided. It is precisely this lack of clarity which has been (partly) the cause of (some of) our recent difficulties. The rarity of griefing incidents in N'burg to date is not a reliable guide to what may happen in the future and it would be imprudent not to clarify what is and is not acceptable.

Is that a legal term?

FYI. The SC is constitutionally required to meet once per month.

My issue was that someone could be banned on the "belief" that they might "not abide by the Constitution, founding documents and laws of the City". This second part of the bill has nothing to do with griefing. Thus you have two incongruous pieces to the bill, one related to "griefers" and the other related to "non abiders". The latter section is especially insidious as it allows preemptive banning on "belief" for the ill-defined act of "failing to abide". Also unappealing is that it does not apply to citizens equally, which a good law should.

I agree but 28 days is excessively long. Additionally, there was no time limit provided for a ban. Why not?

It doesn't matter if the idea is good or not, if it's unconstitutional. Allowing the RA to pardon an individual is a check on the SC's power and should be introduced separately with a constitutional amendment. Also, why have you chosen a supermajority for the proposed pardon?

In regards to griefing, the tools provided by LL are quite sufficient. Most griefing amounts to pushing and littering. Since objects have owners, one can easily file an abuse report. Additionally, most who engage in random griefing have no interest in becoming a citizen anyway, thus the (weak) linkage between griefing and the ban are confusing, unless there are really two laws here masquerading as one.

In fact, past trends are exceptional predictors of future happenings. Unless there's been an increase in griefing in SL over the past few months, it seems like this law is addressing something that is not particularly harmful to the city (littering and pushing), already has tools to address it (returning, ARing), and happens very infrequently.

So to me, before such a law could pass, I'd have to see:

1. A removal of preemptive bans based on subjective qualifiers such as "belief" of "not abiding".
   
2. Removal of the RA pardon unless it is passed separately as an amendment.
   
3. Shorter waits and well-defined durations.
   
4. Rewriting the bill to only address punishment for griefing (littering, pushing) after the event.

However, I'm no longer a member of the SC, so who knows what might happen. Nonetheless, just to keep the standard high, I'd recommend reworking and reposting it.

~Ulrika~

I agree for the most part. I certainly don't think people should be banned for a perceived threat, except in special cases, like if a person makes threats of specific action against the city. A threat that is credible, knowing the person has the power to carry out the threat.

I'll be voting "No"

I just realized what is troubling me about the constitution. "In regards to" is grammatically incorrect! It should be either "in regard to," "with regard to" or "as regards to."

The twenty eight day figure is in line with the constitutional requirement that the SC meet once per month, unless you wish such an action to trigger an emergency meeting of the SC, Because the SC meets monthly, 28 or perhaps 29 days is the longest time that could elapse between the action and a regular SC meeting.

Yes! That's exactly what this law is missing, a detailed description of what constitutes a credible threat. Replace the "belief" that someone might be a "non-abider" with a description of what constitutes a clear-and-present danger and the bill will be much improved.

~Ulrika~

It's not grammatically incorrect, however I see how one could be uncomfortable with it based on their regional dialect. From Google:

1. in regards to - 23 M
   
2. in regard to - 30 M
   
3. with regards to - 19 M
   
4. with regard to - 116 M
   
5. as regards to - 0.5 M

~Ulrika~

I never envisioned having to wait 28 days to have a meeting with the SC but now that you mention it, that's about their speed.

~Ulrika~

US:
http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/regard.html
and
http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/regards.html


UK:

(edit: er sorry, I just saw Oxford Dictionary of *American* Usage... so the entry below is not UK style and usage. However, the Oxford English Dictionary *does* prescribe the singular form, when used with "in," "with," or "having"

http://www.drgrammar.org/faqs/


Canada:
http://web.uvic.ca/wguide/Pages/UsInRegardsTo.html



I must say my post on the grammar thing was also wrong, it should be "as regards," not "as regards to." Not that I'm a grammar Nazi or anything.

Fascinating. Given that neither the construction nor the prepositions require a singular or plural object, there is no grammatical error, and that the phrase itself is idiomatic, the aforementioned prescriptions are simply arguments from authority. To me that's the worst kind of grammar.

~Ulrika~

I want to separate out a couple of sets of issues in relation to this bill. The first is whether Neualtenburg should allow anyone who wants to apply for membership to join and, if there are to be controls, who should apply them and on what grounds.

It's difficult to see what other grounds could be used apart from the necessarily subjective belief that the prospective non-citizen would not abide by our rules. Perhaps someone else could provide some ideas for objective criteria that could be used?

A second set of issues relates to whether those granted certain powers by the City should be able to take pre-emptive action or not.

First of all, I think that Ulrika's characterisation of griefing as 'just pushing and littering' plays down the issue. The kind of scenario I'm considering is the active disruption of N'burg events or an attack on the city e.g. machine-gunning a crowd of revellers at the Oktoberfest or nuking the sim. I think that we should be able to take action to prevent such activities before the fact not just after an event has been ruined.

The current N'burg Code and Constitution provide no legal basis for tackling these issues either before or after the fact. The bans imposed by the City to date, derive solely from the powers granted by Linden Labs to sim owners. It is not clear (at least to me) who has them, on what basis they are used and how one might appeal against their use. This bill is an attempt to make all of that clear.