WA Verification Repeal Bill

r3naissanc3r

r3naissanc3r

TNPer
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World Assembly Verification Repeal Bill

1. Chapter 6, Section 6.2 of the Codified Law of The North Pacific is repealed.

2. Sections 6.3 to 6.7 of Chapter 6 of the Codified Law of The North Pacific are amended to be numbered 6.2 to 6.6, respectively.

3. Clauses 17 to 34 of Chapter 6 of the Codified Law of The North Pacific are amended to be numbered 13 to 30, respectively.
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This bill is co-sponsored by Speaker Crushing Our Enemies and myself. Its effect is simple: it removes the WA nation reporting requirements that apply to Regional Assembly members. This is achieved by repealing Section 6.2 of the Legal Code.

A bill to the same effect was proposed by Cormac in January, and was rejected by the Regional Assembly. The overarching concern at the time was that the repeal was removing the only essential requirement for participation in the region imposed on Regional Assembly members. It followed, then, that until an appropriate replacement was introduced, the repeal was premature and potentially dangerous, opening us up to external influence. This argument was indeed the reason for my own vote against the bill myself.

Since then, we have passed the Regional Assembly Membership Removal (Amendment) Act that implemented additional activity requirements. In the months following the act’s passage, these measures have been demonstrably effective, as immediately evidenced by comparing the Regional Assembly Membership Rolls now and then. The new measures have been more successful than anything we had in their dual objective: first, shielding us from outside influence in the form of “lurkers” maintaining membership only to be able to vote when critical for their own interests; and second, ensuring a decent level of participation among our members.

The existence currently of a robust set of activity requirements means that the argument used against this repeal back in January is no longer applicable. This repeal is no longer either premature or dangerous. In fact, the repeal is long overdue. Let me explain why: Section 6.2 is both intractable and unreasonable, and I will justify both adjectives in the following.

It is intractable because it cannot be enforced. It is impossible to know whether a member truly has a WA nation, meaning that a member can evade Section 6.2 simply by stating they have no such nation. There is no way to know at what point a member made a puppet with the purpose of admitting it in the WA, or at which point they decided they are going to admit an existing puppet to the WA---both pieces of information that Section 6.2 requires them to report faithfully. In many circumstances, it is also prohibitively inefficient to continuously verify that the puppets a member declares as their own actually belong to them. Simply put, unless one of our members is a NationStates moderator, Section 6.2 cannot be plausibly enforced.

It is unreasonable in that it selectively disenfranchises a very specific category of members for no apparent reason. Those are the members involved in military gameplay, including but not limited to raider/defender gameplay. Consider for example the recent incidents in The South Pacific and Osiris. Many of our members were involved in the respective liberation campaigns, an involvement which required routinely, day after day, creating switcher puppets and rotating them in and out of WA. Reporting all of these puppets in the way required by Section 6.2 is extremely cumbersome and very error-prone. Section 6.2 heavily penalizes those of our members attempting to aid our allies, for what in the overwhelming majority of cases are trivial oversights.

As explained by Great Bights Mum here, the WA reporting requirement is a vestige of a practice that has long been abandoned in The North Pacific. Ever since then, WA reporting has been maintained for various supposed security benefits. Yet, any claimed benefits are hardly tangible, for a reason I have already established: that Section 6.2 as not plausibly enforceable. Whatever negligible security benefits there may exist, they are out-balanced by the shortcomings I raised by a wide margin.

For these reasons, I believe we should proceed to promptly repeal Section 6.2.
 
I can't believe I'm actually saying this, and y'all should make a note in your diary here, but I'm with punk on this.

I really don't know how I feel about removing the WA reporting requirement. I understand the argument made by r3n but I just can't help feel this is a layer of security that can potentially be quite helpful.
 
I'm co-sponsoring this bill primarily because of how easily this law can be dodged simply by saying "I have no WA nation." There's no way to tell who is really behind a nation unless they tell you, which makes 6.2 essentially opt-in. The ones who we don't have to worry about are the only ones who will tell us the truth. The ones this law targets will just lie, and there's nothing we can do about it.
 
I agree with Sanctaria's and Punk D's concerns about this. However, I also understand that there are practical issues with enforcing this and that there is no real way of proving that someone is lying if they say they do not have a World Assembly nation without a confession.
 
Don't look at me. I still hold the quaint archaic notion that the WA Delegate should be selected by the WA nations in the region. You know, like they do in that nationstates game. Failing that, I'd like to give everyone a blood test to make sure their blood flows TNP blue.

I suppose I'm just not understanding the benefits of this bill. I don't mind presenting nations with an ethical dilemma with respect to regional loyalties. The justification presented by COE could be applied similarly to the oath we all take. Should we dispense with that because it forces the unscrupulous nations to lie?
 
No, GBM, but that's because oath violation is something that can be proven by pointing to actions - short of, as r3n said, being a Game Moderator, nation ownership cannot be proven, not even in obvious cases, unless the person outright admits to it.

I really don't see the WA nation provision as providing even a trivial level of security - it's the largest hassle for active R/Ders, whose puppets represent no threat to TNP; it's an easy enough requirement for people who keep a stable WA elsewhere and represent no threat to TNP; and anybody who wants to try to wage war against TNP with their WA nation will, assuming any modicum of sense, simply remain in unprovable non-compliance, laughing and thumbing their noses at the law. It's security theater, and seeks to lull us into complacency.
 
Oath violations can be very difficult to prove, especially if one doesn't know if or where someone's WA nation is.

As per raiders an invaders who have WA nations elsewhere, reporting those nations would have no detriment to those individuals unless they were using those nations against our allies or our region itself. Also, under our long standing traditions involving the concept of "Duality", it would be no undue hardship for those nations if they stuck strictly to "Duality" and the "Independent and uncoordinated" action of those WA nations. I have seen any number of nations in TNP in the RA who have reported that they have no WA nation (which they are entitled to do if it is so) yet it is quite obvious that they do have a WA nation that may at times be in conflict with TNP as a region.

In other words, Duality is a principle that has traditionally been applied and used here in TNP as it pertains to one person being in control of two or more nations but yet those nations are treated as different 'people'/'entities' entirely unrelated. Duality is essentially a license to do what you want as long as you don't get caught if you know what I mean. And because of that, WA Verification is a safety valve in the event that someone gets caught abusing "Duality" (amongst other things) that can be opened should someone engage in "Duality" in a way that coordinates with their WA nation in TNP or elsewhere.

Under this proposed repeal of WA verification, an invader or infiltrator could simply get away with using their WA nation in an invasion of the region because the tool of WA verification would not apply. And, even if you discovered such a situation, it would not be actionable because the government would be denied the use of the WA Verification 'tool' in prosecuting for certain actions.

I am against the repeal of WA Verification.
 
punk d:
I don't know, given the cosmopolitan nature of our RA, I like the WA reporting requirement.
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Sanctaria:
I really don't know how I feel about removing the WA reporting requirement. I understand the argument made by r3n but I just can't help feel this is a layer of security that can potentially be quite helpful.
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Though Punk does not state why he likes the WA reporting requirement, I am going to assume that it is for the same security reasons as Sanc.

I addressed this point in the second to last paragraph of my post. In theory the WA reporting requirement could provide some security benefits. In practice those benefits are non-existent, because we have no way to tell if members have a nation in the WA, or practical way to tell if the one they provide is and remains under their control.

I will use an extreme yet accurate analogy, to illustrate this point: The WA verification requirement provides us with as much security as requiring members committing treason to show up before the court and declare so voluntarily. Nobody would expect such a requirement to be observed or provide any security benefits. Because of how trivial it is for members to bypass the WA verification requirement, the same holds for that.

Great Bights Mum:
I suppose I'm just not understanding the benefits of this bill. I don't mind presenting nations with an ethical dilemma with respect to regional loyalties. The justification presented by COE could be applied similarly to the oath we all take. Should we dispense with that because it forces the unscrupulous nations to lie?
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The oath and WA verification are interwined to an extent, as a violation of the WA verification requirement can only be enforced through the oath. But, for the sake of this argument, I will disregard that.

The oath is nothing like the WA verification requirement. The oath can be enforced if you can prove to our regional court that a member has violated a regional law. The required evidence for that is observable by our members. On the other hand, the evidence for proving a violation for the WA verification requirement is not, unless one of our members is a NationStates moderator. In that regard, the oath is a lot more meaningful than the WA verification: the oath is enforceable and useful, the WA verification is not enforceable and is useless.

Therefore, the oath does not just impose an ethical dilemma. It is a very pragmatic commitment that RA applicants are asked to make: they are warned that their violations will be noticed and their membership removed. The WA verification poses no useful dilemma at all.

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Roman's comments largely prove my own argument. I will go through each one of them separately, except for the part about duality that I do not understand how it relates to the discussion.
Romanoffia:
Oath violations can be very difficult to prove, especially if one doesn't know if or where someone's WA nation is.
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Oath violations in general can be proven as easily as any other offence. Oath violations related to a violation of the WA requirement are generally impossible to prove, exactly because we cannot know where someone's WA nation is or if one even exists. I made similar arguments in my response to GBM above.

Romanoffia:
I have seen any number of nations in TNP in the RA who have reported that they have no WA nation (which they are entitled to do if it is so) yet it is quite obvious that they do have a WA nation that may at times be in conflict with TNP as a region.
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See, that's exactly what I have been saying. The members going against TNP will just declare that they have no WA nation. The WA verification requirement then is rendered useless and gives us nothing. If, then, it is indeed obvious that they have a WA nation, that would be obvious from other factors unrelated to the WA verification. In that event, said nations can be brought before the court for some offence; the WA verification requirement is once again useless.

Romanoffia:
And because of that, WA Verification is a safety valve in the event that someone gets caught abusing "Duality" (amongst other things) that can be opened should someone engage in "Duality" in a way that coordinates with their WA nation in TNP or elsewhere.
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As both you and I just said immediately before, the fact that members abusing duality can just declare that they have no WA nation means that the WA verification requirement is a useless safety valce. If people are abusing duality, they won't voluntarily declare so, and we will need to use other factors entirely unrelated to WA verification to discover that they have a WA nation working against TNP.

Romanoffia:
Under this proposed repeal of WA verification, an invader or infiltrator could simply get away with using their WA nation in an invasion of the region because the tool of WA verification would not apply. And, even if you discovered such a situation, it would not be actionable because the government would be denied the use of the WA Verification 'tool' in prosecuting for certain actions.
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No, that is not true, and I have already established in my two previous comments why it is not. I will repeat it for added effect ;) .

There are two things that you suggest we gain from the WA verification requirement: an evidence finding tool, and an additional charge to put before the court [through the oath violation clause]. Let's see how they apply to the scenario you describe.

If an infiltrator is going to use their WA nation to invade the region, then they are not going to voluntarily announce it to the region; instead, for the purposes of the WA verification requirement, they wil just say that they have no WA nation at all. So, the utility of WA verification as an evidence finding tool is zero.

If an infiltrator is indeed discovered to be trying to invade the region, by other means, then there is a wall of very serious offences that can be brought against them before the Court. Oath violation, as applicable because of the violation of the WA requirement, would be a very minor offence to add to the list and of negligible importance. Given that such infiltrators can already be very effectively prosecuted, the utility of the WA verification requirement as an additional charge is also zero.
 
I found r3n's extreme example quite interesting. He said:

The WA verification requirement provides us with as much security as requiring members committing treason to show up before the court and declare so voluntarily.
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He's equating the security benefit received by the WA verification as the same as requiring traitors to plead guilty. In other words, the WA requirement provides us with little to no benefit as who would turn themselves in as a traitor?

I don't see it so black and white.

I ask myself this question, what is the security benefit gained via the WA requirement? Does it make TNP impenetrable to a coup? Definitely not.

My WA has been Punk Reloaded for nigh unto 3+ years. The WA verification for my nation is of little use since my WA nation doesn't change all that often. And unless I decided to multi or hand over my nation, it is unlikely Still, let's say that I decide to go rogue and coup the region. The WA requirement, and if I didn't announce the change of my WA nation would then be a useful factoid to enter into evidence against me in any court of law.

It didn't stop me or probably wouldn't stop anyone else, but it does help in the prosecution of anyone who tried funny business with their WA nation.

Also - because TNP is such a cosmopolitan region, having an almost-up-to-date listing of RA members WA nations can never hurt security. If someone was perceived as a potential threat, using r3n's situation, say they submitted that nation X was their WA nation on Day 0. On Day 45, our intel contacts suggest that this RA member might be trying to coup the region. Our intelligence org could ask the registrar to see if nation X still has WA status. If it doesn't well gee we might be on to something. And if it doesn't the registrar could also ask the person to update their WA and make sure to keep it updated.

That process right there is a benefit to our security - so long as it happens - that, in my opinion, can act as a deterrent to inside/out coups. So, no the person committing treason is not volunteering that they are, but by their actions we might be able to deduce the possibility.

By removing WA verification, we remove any possibility of having any clue as to the WA status of any member of the RA not in the security council or in the del/VD chairs. With dozens of members, I think that would be a step backwards in security.
 
I agree very much with Punk D here, and what Sanc, Roman, and GBM have said.

No surprise really as I've always been in favour of TNP's WA requirements, whether they are stringently enforced or not.
 
punk:
The WA requirement, and if I didn't announce the change of my WA nation would then be a useful factoid to enter into evidence against me in any court of law.

It didn't stop me or probably wouldn't stop anyone else, but it does help in the prosecution of anyone who tried funny business with their WA nation.
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As r3n said,

r3n:
Oath violation, as applicable because of the violation of the WA requirement, would be a very minor offence to add to the list and of negligible importance. Given that such infiltrators can already be very effectively prosecuted, the utility of the WA verification requirement as an additional charge is also zero.
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punk:
If someone was perceived as a potential threat, using r3n's situation, say they submitted that nation X was their WA nation on Day 0. On Day 45, our intel contacts suggest that this RA member might be trying to coup the region. Our intelligence org could ask the registrar to see if nation X still has WA status. If it doesn't well gee we might be on to something. And if it doesn't the registrar could also ask the person to update their WA and make sure to keep it updated.
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The registrar is not permitted to disclose someone's WA status or the identity of their WA, with the exception that the registrar must disclose the owner of a specific nation that is known to be engaged in war against TNP (or however the clause is phrased exactly).

The registrar may ask a person all they please - the person can simply say "I have no WA" and the point is entirely moot.

punk:
By removing WA verification, we remove any possibility of having any clue as to the WA status of any member of the RA not in the security council or in the del/VD chairs.
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And with it in place, we only have the possibility of knowing the WA nations of people who already mean us no harm.. That's not security, it's theater.
 
[My apologies for the late reply, this was a busy week in RL.]

The Deputy Speaker has already addressed most of the points raised by Punk and Chas. I will reiterate some of what she said, as well as add some more comments.

Punk:
My WA has been Punk Reloaded for nigh unto 3+ years. The WA verification for my nation is of little use since my WA nation doesn't change all that often. And unless I decided to multi or hand over my nation, it is unlikely Still, let's say that I decide to go rogue and coup the region. The WA requirement, and if I didn't announce the change of my WA nation would then be a useful factoid to enter into evidence against me in any court of law.

It didn't stop me or probably wouldn't stop anyone else, but it does help in the prosecution of anyone who tried funny business with their WA nation.
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The factoid is not at all useful to the prosecution. I will again use an extreme example, in the form of an analogy from RL, to explain why.

Say a robbery is commited in downtown Boston at 9pm. If I can prove that at 9pm I was in Cambridge, then I can use that in my defence. But, if the prosecution can prove that I was not in Cambridge at 9pm, but without any other knowledge of where I was at 9pm, then that does not contribute anything to their case. The only thing that would be useful for them is if they could prove that at 9pm I was actually in Boston.

Let's compare this to our case. Proving that the nation the defendant declared is no longer in the WA is the analogous of proving that I was not in Cambridge. It contributes nothing to the prosecution's case. The prosecution will need to obtain evidence that the defendant had another WA nation that they used against TNP, the analogous in the example to proving I was in Boston. This sort of evidence is not something that we get from the WA verification. If the prosecution indeed manages to obtain this evidence through other means, then the "factoid" they learned thanks to the WA verification is again useless, because it is redundant. So, overall, the WA verification contributes nothing to the prosecution's case.
Punk:
Also - because TNP is such a cosmopolitan region, having an almost-up-to-date listing of RA members WA nations can never hurt security. If someone was perceived as a potential threat, using r3n's situation, say they submitted that nation X was their WA nation on Day 0. On Day 45, our intel contacts suggest that this RA member might be trying to coup the region. Our intelligence org could ask the registrar to see if nation X still has WA status. If it doesn't well gee we might be on to something. And if it doesn't the registrar could also ask the person to update their WA and make sure to keep it updated.
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No, this is entirely inaccurate. First of all, the registrar is not allowed to disclose this information, either to our intelligence org or to anyone else.

Secondly, if the registrar asks on their own initiative the person to update their WA then, as has already been mentioned several times now, that person can just lie and say they do not own a WA nation.

The WA verification provides absolutely no security benefit in the scenario Punk mentioned.

Chas:
If they say "I have no WA" when they have, then they would be lying.
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Yes, they will. And we will not be able to do anything about it, exactly because we will not be able to prove that they are lying. Once again we get to what has been said several times in this thread, that the WA verification requirement cannot be enforced.

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Both the Deputy Speaker and I have already brought up these points in previous post. So I will move on to another aspect of this discussion. Punk says:

Punk:
Also - because TNP is such a cosmopolitan region, having an almost-up-to-date listing of RA members WA nations can never hurt security.

[...]

By removing WA verification, we remove any possibility of having any clue as to the WA status of any member of the RA not in the security council or in the del/VD chairs. With dozens of members, I think that would be a step backwards in security.
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Punk's argument here is that this clause can do no harm. It may only have negligible to no security benefits, but since it is not otherwise harmful, we may as well keep it. This however is incorrect. The presence of this clause is not without consequences, as I explained in my opening post: it selectively disenfranchises all of our members that choose to be involved in military gameplay.

This is not about raiders and defenders. Many of us are involved in regional militaries outside R/D. This includes our own military, the NPA, and militaries of our close allies. The WA verification requirement is extremely cumbersome for those members, and heavily penalizes them for such serious offences as forgetting to report in advance one of the dozens of expendable switchers they are routinely required to rotate in and out of the WA. These issues aggravate exactly when the military contributions of our members are most needed, in incidents such as the recent coups against our allies in The South Pacific and Osiris.

--

The WA verification clause is both of negligible value for security purposes and otherwise harmful. It is also a law that is impossible to enforce, and such laws are absurdities that should not be in our Legal Code. This is why, as I said in the opening post, this repeal is now long overdue.
 
I do not support this bill. Just because there are ways to get around this law by those who choose to violate the law doesn't mean that the law should be abolished. Abolishing a law because it cannot be enforced in certain instances (by those who have found a loop-hole or means of evasion) is like saying we should abolish all laws because, in the long run, everyone of those laws can be successfully evaded without detection if one is creative enough.

If nothing else, the law is statement of regional ethics and moral position and should stand as such.
 
Romanoffia:
Abolishing a law because it cannot be enforced in certain instances (by those who have found a loop-hole or means of evasion)
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There's a massive difference between laws which cannot be enforced in certain instances and laws which cannot be enforced in any instances.

Laws which are structurally incapable of being enforced should absolutely not be laws.
 
Romanoffia:
I do not support this bill. Just because there are ways to get around this law by those who choose to violate the law doesn't mean that the law should be abolished. Abolishing a law because it cannot be enforced in certain instances (by those who have found a loop-hole or means of evasion) is like saying we should abolish all laws because, in the long run, everyone of those laws can be successfully evaded without detection if one is creative enough.

If nothing else, the law is statement of regional ethics and moral position and should stand as such.
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I agree with your general statements regarding not abolishing laws that can potentially be evaded. The problem is that they are not applicable here, as this is a fundamentally different situation.

This is not a law that it takes any creativity to evade. It can be evaded trivially, and especially so in the circumstances where the law would actually be the most useful. It is also a law that there is absolutely no way for us to tell is being evaded. This is unlike other laws, for which usually it is possible (even if it is hard) to detect violations.

I will reiterate the analogy I made earlier in this thread---it is extreme but apt:
The WA verification requirement provides us with as much security as requiring members committing treason to show up before the court and declare so voluntarily.
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The same analogy can be made for the enforceability of this law:

We can expect the WA verification requirement to be observed and enforced as much as we would expect a provision requiring members committing treason to show up before the court and declare so voluntarily to be observed and enforced.
 
I won't vote AGAINST because WA requirements, as they are now, are easily evaded.
I won't vote FOR because it would be a step towards a RA which members' WA status cannot be tracked.

We should require every RA member to report which his/her WA nation is, but simply not accept "I don't have a WA nation" as an answer. If she/he doesn't have any and why is not our business, we must require one as a measure of security, so she/he must join the WA and/or create a new nation if needed. And maybe even show a symbol or code in their mottoes or factbooks or whatever... So we can track'em. All the time.

And that's me being moderate; I would gladly vote FOR an "only WA (in TNP)" requirement bill.


edit:voting against because I feel it's the lesser of two evils.
 
Lennart:
If she/he doesn't have any and why is not our business, we must require one as a measure of security, so she/he must join the WA and/or create a new nation if needed.
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That would be highly illegal.

Bill of Rights:
1. All Nations of The North Pacific are sovereign. Each Nation has the right of self-determination in that Nation's domestic policies, including, but not limited to, issue selection and WA membership.
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Bill of Rights:
3. Participation in the governmental authorities of the region is voluntary. Participation in the World Assembly shall not be a condition of participation in the governmental authorities of the region.
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I know. And I don't like the fact.

WA membership and revealing one's WA nation is by no means a high price to pay for participation in the RA.
 
I am very much against this bill. There is a difference between being a cosmopolitan region and having no border controls whatsoever.
 
I agree with Lennart and Flem. Ideally, we need more control over who can be admitted and requiring a WA nation (somewhere in the world) doesn't seem like a huge deal to me. An amendment to the bill of rights would be quite an interesting debate I am sure.
 
SillyString:
Romanoffia:
Abolishing a law because it cannot be enforced in certain instances (by those who have found a loop-hole or means of evasion)
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There's a massive difference between laws which cannot be enforced in certain instances and laws which cannot be enforced in any instances.

Laws which are structurally incapable of being enforced should absolutely not be laws.
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I have to agree with Asta on that point. If the law is completely unenforceable then it should take on another form, perhaps as an ethical standard.
 
As I said, if a player says "I have no WA nation" when they do, they would be lying.

As r3n said, they would indeed. R3n says there is nothing we can do about this.

As Gandhi said, Truth is God.

If the law forces you to lie in order to evade the controls, that is not powerless, that is a deterrent, even if you cannot understand how to implement and enforce that deterrent.

and the truth shall set you free.
 
Chasmanthe:
As I said, if a player says "I have no WA nation" when they do, they would be lying.

As r3n said, they would indeed. R3n says there is nothing we can do about this.

As Gandhi said, Truth is God.

If the law forces you to lie in order to evade the controls, that is not powerless, that is a deterrent, even if you cannot understand how to implement and enforce that deterrent.

and the truth shall set you free.
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Can I get an "Amen," brothers!
 
flemingovia:
I am very much against this bill. There is a difference between being a cosmopolitan region and having no border controls whatsoever.
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I will repeat myself, for the umpteenth time.

This law offers no effective border control whatsoever. Everyone can evade it trivially. And, in conjunction with the restrictions on release of information by the Registrar, this law is thoroughly useless.

I have elaborated on this in my several previous posts. So have others. I will refer you to the first page of this thread.
Pasargad:
I am against this bill, instead we need to introduce conflict of interest bill for elected members of TNP government
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A system of conflict of interest declarations is an issue completely orthogonal to what we are discussing. So, I am not sure where your disagreement is coming from.

Chasmanthe:
As I said, if a player says "I have no WA nation" when they do, they would be lying.

As r3n said, they would indeed. R3n says there is nothing we can do about this.

As Gandhi said, Truth is God.

If the law forces you to lie in order to evade the controls, that is not powerless, that is a deterrent, even if you cannot understand how to implement and enforce that deterrent.

and the truth shall set you free.
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This is just wishful thinking. The law is absolutely powerless as a deterrent against those who decide to be deceitful. Believing that someone on their way to betray the region will think twice because of the WA verification is at best naive.

Let me put it another way. What you are saying is that, with this law in the books, we can realistically expect the following to happen:

"OMG you are couping TNP? I will totally move in and endorse you for fun. Oh wait, this means I would need to lie about my WA nation. Even though they have no way to detect it, lying is bad and wrong. Sorry :( ."

While we are in the business of legislating make-believe deterrents, how about we pass a law that you have to pay a fine to my bank account if you lie about your WA nation? Or, how about we make lying a sin under Flemingovianism? Both of these are just as effective deterrents as the WA verification; if you find them ridiculous, then so should you find the WA verification.

If you find these ridiculous, then you ought to find ridiculous the notion that the WA verification law is any more effective as a deterrent.

This is a law we cannot enforce. This alone should be enough of a reason to repeal it. Unenforceable laws are absurd laws. They should not be in our books.

But this is not the only reason to repeal this law. While the law has no effect on the people it is supposed to protect us from, it does affect those others who are already well-intentioned. And it affects them in a negative way, penalizing them for trivialities. If you are looking for a real deterring effect this law has, here is one: it deters members from contributing to the NPA, because of the reporting burdens that will befall them if they do.

So we have useless, unenforceable, and damaging. This is a long list of reasons for repeal. As I said in my opening post, the repeal of this law is long overdue.
 
Oh my gosh, you've hit on it! It should be a sin. One ought to be obligated to confess to Flemingovia so they can be cleansed of their deceitfulness, go on their way, and sin no more.
 
OK, I was about to abstain but I can't, it's a step in the wrong direction. So even if I'm not at all happy with the current state of things, I must vote against.
 
I am very concerned that a number of my fellow representatives are supporting this bill.

You all realize that should we pass this legislation and a member of this body tries to perform some cloak and dagger against the region, it will be that much more difficult to prosecute said member.

How?

Because is we do not force said member to lie to the RA then we will have no record of said member's WA activity, true or otherwise. Instead we will have to piece together this information through other sources and hope we are correct.

I ask members to not allow their disdain for this practice to cloud the practical benefits thereof.
 
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