From: on Sat, Sep 9 2006 5:22 pm

wrote:
wrote:
wrote:
Dave Heil wrote:

The ARRL's rules regarding candidacy for elected ARRL positions existed
decades before Carl's run.

They go all the way back to the very beginning of the League. They're
really very basic conflict-of-interest rules. Someone whose employment
is tied to parts of the radio industry that conflict with amateur
radio, or could conflict with amateur radio, are not allowed to hold
policy-making ARRL positions, such as Director and Vice-Director.

[to Jimmy the M:]
What "radio industry" "conflicts with amateur radio," Mr.
Professional in the Transportation Industry?

Yaesu? Kenwood? Icom? JRC? Harris? :-)

Seems to me that the ARRL has featured lots of nice news
squibs of radio industry folks GIVING equipment to ARRL
and W1AW. [not too long ago Harris unloaded a bunch of
TXs to W1AW]

How does WiFi "conflict" with ARRL interests? [Carl's
main work right now...on WiFi and WiMax Standards]

Since Carl Stevenson is Executive Director of No Code
International and the ARRL is against giving up any
morse code test for radio amateur license applicants,
I'd say that's a bona fide built-in CONFLICT of interest
right there.

[wait for the SPIN from the League Believers...]

["Heah come de spin, heah come de spin...:-) ]


It's not about whether someone is a "professional" or not, but whether
the person's "pecuniary interest" could present a conflict.

The problem is in the interpretation of those rules. The committee
which decides such things decided there could be a
conflict-of-interest. The BoD agreed with the committee.

Right...their conflict of interest with NCI... :-)


Carl's excellent work on interference-from-BPL speaks for itself.

WHAT is that "interference-from-BPL?"

Seems to me that Carl's work on WiFi was a lot more.

Wireless communications is allocated to different bands than
amateur bands, operating well above 30 MHz where "the bands"
exist for hams.


Director terms are not for life. The board, committees and officers
change over time. There will be other elections.

But why is it that the judicial system relies upon people seeing that
they have a conflict of interest and recuse themselves, but amateurs
cannot?

The judicial system does not rely primarily on people recusing
themselves. In fact, that's pretty much a last resort.

Yet, if the judge doesn't recuse him/herself where a conflict of
interest occurs, or a potential conflict of interest exists, then what
do you call it?

Funny!

On Friday I finished my 5th "tour of duty" as a jury member in
the Superior Court of the County of Los Angeles. Surrounded by
legal beagles of all types and hearing much barking in court,
the word "recuse" was not spoken. "Excuse," yes, on the
challenges of both prosecution and defense to jury panel
members (each can have a particular juror excused without
stating the full cause, up to 10 or 12 or whatever). A jury
panel member can excuse themselves (and should, by law here)
if they are on friendly or social or otherwise involved with
a defendant, an attorney, member of the court, etc.

Newspaper accounts have only lately featured "recuse" as a
fancy word and lots of folks have picked up on it to show
how much smarts they think they have. :-)

Take jury selection. Here in Pennsylvania, there are lots of
occupations and associations that will get someone eliminated from
different types of cases.

In L.A. Superior Court you CANNOT be a jury member if you
are in law enforcement or several other occupations
all spelled out in state LAW. There is no "excusing" there
if one isn't even in the jury pool. :-)

two paragraphs DELETED from J.M, LLd

OTOH, a potential jury member cannot recuse themselves. They can give
the jury commission reasons to not choose them, but ultimately it is
not their decision.

Bull****, sweetums. Not in this state which outnumbers
"EPA" (Eastern Pennsylvania, which NEEDS the other EPA)
considerably. Selected jury panel members here MUST
EXCUSE (not recuse) themselves if they find out they
know a defendant or members of the court.

In a jury case, it is ultimately the jury who decide the outcome, just
as in the ARRL BoD, it is the directors and vice directors who decide
policy. Neither depends on self-disqualification (recusing) to prevent
conflict of interest.

More bull**** from the self-proclaimed chief justice...

The ARRL is a PRIVATE ORGANIZATION. They are NOT bound
tightly to some government agency laws and restrictions
IN THE SAME WAY. If the ARRL wants to oust someone or
keep them off the private organization's ballot they CAN
and DO.

The jury pool contains a large number of potential jurors who remain in
the pool, eligible for duty on numerous other trials.

People who are eliminated from the ballot never get that chance.

TRUE. In the L.A. Superior Court all selected for the
"jury pool" are referred to as jurors or jury members.
We are selected to go to a particular courtroom by a
small random-chance tumbler machine holding our ID
numbers (names are not used, Superior Court assigns
individual ID numbers ahead of time). This forms what
L.A. calls the "jury pool" and in each courtroom the
court clerk selects ID numbers from a similar random-
chance machine to be on a jury (here 12 regular plus
3 alternates). Only after the selection from the pool
do jurors find out about a case. At that point the
judge recites the law on jury members associations
with the case which requires that affected jurors must
excuse themselves, giving reasons to the court. The
jury pool has to remain until prosecution and defense
are finished with their challenges since, if jurors
are excused, one from the pool takes their place.

All of that is for the criminal court. Civil court
has a carbon copy of the LAW, only certain terms
changing from criminal to civil cases.

Elections in a PRIVATE ORGANIZATION are NOWHERE NEAR
having to obey that same, established long ago LAW!

Anyone trying to equate legal court actions to some
private organization elections is way TOTALLY CONFUSED.

Similar rules apply to judges. Usually a judge will recuse himself or
herself if there is an apparent conflict of interest, because to not do
so makes the judge look incompetent.

Do the ARRL BoD not concern themselves with looking incopetent?

Perhaps the ARRL BoD consider themselves as SUPERIOR?

They are the "superior court" of US amateur radio? :-)

The judges all know that the
various sides in a case will make a lot of noise about such a conflict,
too, and have legal recourse. The methods of deciding which judge gets
which case are another safeguard against conflicts of interest.

On top of all this, a judge doesn't usually have any other job, while
directors and vice directors often do.

Or they're retired.

What are the FULL-TIME JOBS of the ARRL BoD members?
Anyone know?


The point of all this is that the judicial system does not depend
primarily on self-disqualification to prevent conflicts of interest.
Nor should it!

Then you advocate that the judicial system take away the ability of a
judge to recuse him or herself?

Hardly. Its an important safeguard that is absolutely needed.

Jimmy is trying to equate apples and oranges and getting
fruity there. He wants to make a DIRECT COMPARISON of
the ARRL to some government judicial organization and that
DOES NOT EQUATE!


Carl may be top-notch in his specific technical fields. But whether he
is top-notch in dealing with the issues of the ARRL BoD is another
matter, and open to opinion.

We'll never know.

Brian, in a way we DO know. Carl Stevenson is exec director
of NCI. ARRL is still plugging for code testing. DIRECT
CONFLICT OF INTEREST within the ARRL right there. There
wasn't a snowball's chance in hell of Carl getting on an
ARRL ballot.


Some make the mistake of assuming that a person who is technically
knowledgeable in one area is automatically knowledgeable in all related
areas.

Some make the mistake of assuming that a person who has no technical
knowledge is automatically knowledgeable in all technical areas because
they hold an Extra license.

Brian, Jimmy is still walking wounded from other industry
professionals pummeling his textual hide in here. :-)
Especially the no-code-test advocates. :-)

None of that is a given - in
fact, it's an extreme rarity. We've seen examples of how
self-proclaimed "PROFESSIONALS" can behave very poorly on newsgroups...

Yes. I understand that you are in the industry.

We only know that it's the "transportation industry." :-)


In Carl's case, I think the ARRL BoD erred on the side of caution.

I think they erred on the side of self-preservation.

I vote with you, Brian, the Good 'ol Boys of the BoD
and offices within the ARRL want "company men" who
think like they do. None of this brash upsetting of
their traditional applecart.

btw, the ARRL BoD is a widely varied group, not just a bunch of retired
guys.

Working guys not from industry (and probably lacking in technical
knowledge), and retired guys from industry (whose retirement plans and
401ks couldn't possibly present a conflict of interest).

One can research the TRUE facts of the conclave of
wirepullers in the ARRL but it really isn't worth the
time and trouble. The ARRL will deny any negative
charges, however slight, and SPIN the hell out of it
to make them all Knights in Shining Wonderwear. :-)


Their opinions are all over the map - that's why their proposals
are obviously compromises between the various groups.

Regardless of all of the maps and all of the compromises, when their
opinions are distilled into policy, they always advocate the Morse Code
Exam.

That's the final distillate, Brian. :-) Sort of the
"kickapoo joy juice" that keeps US amateur radio
retrograde to the days of H.P.M.