[free-sklyarov] US ACM responds to publishers' statement, contact info

[Declan McCullagh]

I've had an email exchange with the US ACM folks. Barbara Simons wrote
to me: "ACM had not been consulted about the AAP's press release.  I
have raised the issue within ACM, but it's not clear what, if
anything, ACM will do. As you know, USACM has spoken out against the
DMCA, as have Gene Spafford and I as individuals.  (Spaf and I are
co-chairs of USACM).  But as of now neither ACM nor USACM has taken
any position on the Sylyarov prosecution."

Gene Spafford writes to me: "ACM is the member of AAP, not USACM.
While I think it is possible that Barbara (or other ACM members) might
want to contact Pat Schroeder to voice an opinion and educate her
about some of the problems, it is not our place to complain or
represent ACM's (non)position. I would hope that ACM as a whole would
begin to show concern now that we are beginning to hear from non-US
scientists who have announced that they will no longer submit to, or
attend, conferences in the US because they might be arrested either
for their work or for speaking about it.  That is a threat to the very
core of ACM's reason for being an international organization......  We
shall see."

Barbara and Gene are respected and intelligent and reasonable
people. Think twice, and thrice, before you flame them, and I urge you
to raise these points within ACM, if you're a member.

-Declan

PS: An informed source wrote the below to me and asked me to forward.

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fwd:

The people to whom they should all be writing are the following:
president at acm.org (ACM President Steve Bourne)
white at ACM.ORG (ACM CEO/Executive Director John White)

If they wanted to be ambitious, they could write to:
ACM_COUNCIL_MEMBERS at ACM.ORG (ACM Council,
the ultimate decision making body)

They could also write to the USACM co-chairs:
simons at acm.org (Barbara Simons, former ACM President)
spaf at cerias.purdue.edu (Gene Spafford)