That's a really good question, thank you for asking it.  And for the record, I am not trying to accuse the idea of being anti-democratic, I appreciate the fact that you took pen to paper to try to give a voice to an idea other people wanted.  I will gladly support it and advocate for it's vote with the changes.

My opposition boils down to the fact that I can envision the original proposal to be a means for a controversial use of power.  And I think that situation could be avoided with the change I am advocating for.  Generally, when it comes to long term, regional decision making, I believe more input equals a better result.  TSP at it's best tries it's best to govern with some sort of a consensus. If the assembly on votes for PNG, this changes it from a cabinet decision to a regional one.  Which I think would result in it maybe being harder to get a PNG ruling, but the ones that would pass would be less controversial, have majority support from the region, and if there is a debate to be had, it would happen at the proper time.  I think the general idea of "if you don't like it, elect a new cabinet" is not one that I want the cabinet to operate with.

The 16th Delegate of The South Pacific

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Hmm...this could be used, in a worst-case scenario, for a purge...maybe I'm paranoid, but I see this being a tool for tyranny under the right circumstances...

Could you at least include a provision where even non-legislators can appeal? I feel everyone deserves a fair hearing, legislator or not

Deputy Regional Minister of the Planning and Development Agency(March 8-May 19, 2014)

Local Council Member(April 24-August 11)

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Generally, when it comes to long term, regional decision making, I believe more input equals a better result.  TSP at it's best tries it's best to govern with some sort of a consensus.

Maybe this is a "controversial" opinion of mine, but I think the past several years speaks against this. When we revert to demanding "consensus" then nothing ever actually happens. We have the Cabinet and the CRS, for example, unanimous in their belief that some group or another is a serious problem, but because things have to be run through an Assembly where maybe one-tenth of legislators actually participate, it's gridlock. Those who choose to participate in the discussion have strong feelings, and give the impression that it's a "controversial" move to blacklist a player or a group, when in reality it's just a couple loud people fighting back and forth. This has applied, across many years now, to literally everything from law amendments, to security actions, to foreign affairs moves.

If the assembly on votes for PNG, this changes it from a cabinet decision to a regional one.  Which I think would result in it maybe being harder to get a PNG ruling, but the ones that would pass would be less controversial, have majority support from the region, and if there is a debate to be had, it would happen at the proper time.  I think the general idea of "if you don't like it, elect a new cabinet" is not one that I want the cabinet to operate with.

What are you electing a Cabinet to do, then? I don't understand the tendency to prefer direct democracy-type decision making, but also electing a Cabinet we expect to be active and proactive in doing their jobs. To me, it's like the Assembly decides it's okay if the MoFA manages foreign affairs, but we'll pick and choose when an FA thing is "controversial" and is thus only something the Assembly can finally do. Cabinet members are elected every four months. If they make a decision you don't like, four months really isn't a long time. And it's not as if the Assembly isn't allowed to speak out against a Cabinet decision, show it's very unpopular, and use politics to get it reversed.

If the Cabinet is only allowed to do things when there's a consensus in the Assembly, then again... what really is the point of having a Cabinet? That's a bit of reducing the critique to absurdity, but really. This idea that "controversial" decisions should only happen through consensus in the Assembly can be applied to so many things, that I'm not sure where the line is drawn with what we elect the Cabinet to do and what we arbitrarily decide can only be done through an Assembly vote. The Assembly shouldn't be backseat driving, if we're spending literal weeks every 4 months voting on a group of people we entrust to lead the region.

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Hmm...this could be used, in a worst-case scenario, for a purge...maybe I'm paranoid, but I see this being a tool for tyranny under the right circumstances...

An Assembly vote and a legal appeals process exists for legislators who are targeted under this bill, and the qualifications for being declared PNG are limited. Those are strong protections against purges.

Could you at least include a provision where even non-legislators can appeal? I feel everyone deserves a fair hearing, legislator or not

Foreigners have no rights in TSP and we shouldn’t ever go down that road.


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Since when were Legislators the only TSPers Glen? Limiting civil rights to only a few dozen out of hundreds of players in the region seems... I'm honestly not sure of the right word. Are you suggesting that citizens are foreigners now, and the only "true" TSPers are people on these forums?

_{Minister of Media, Subversion and Sandwich Making}
^{Associate Justice of the High Court and Senior Moderator}

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I think it's massively unelegant to have a PGO law stuck in the criminal code, and a PNG law as a free standing law, and they are mostly the same semantically but with different syntax dressing. The comparisons between the PGO article and the proposed PNG draft by both Bel and Glen just underline this point.

Anyway, a bunch of questions:

@Belschaft - You originally wrote the PGO law that we have now (then titled "Criminal Regions and Organisations"), back in early 2014. In it, the penalty imposed for proscription was simply not allowing citizenship status. When the law was transcribed from the old Code of Laws to its new home currently in the Criminal Code, "citizen" was replaced with its near-equivalent "legislator". A few questions:

• Why did your proposal at the time only restrict citizenship status and not include a prohibition on having a nation in the region?
  
• Considering that a non-legislator nation in TSP today has more power over the workings over the Coalition than non-citizen nations did in 2014, would you consider it reasonable that such a prohibition is included these days?
  
• Would you consider such a prohibition reasonable for individuals (as the draft specifies)?
  
• If you answered Yes to the previous question, do you think this should apply to other official TSP off-site communication platforms, such as Discord, as well?
  
• Riffing on your point regarding the 1 to 1 correlation between requirements for proscription and defined crimes, consider this: Legislators may not be declared PNG outright, but may be charged with a crime. When they are, the court has the permission to order reasonable preemptive measures upon request. Would you consider that a viable alternative?
  
• If you answered yes to the previous point, what standard of evidence do you think should be required before the court may do such a thing?
  
• What, specifically, is meant by "have or have attempted to sabotage The South Pacific's military operations"?
  

@sandaoguo :

• Riffing on Bel's point regarding the 1 to 1 correlation between requirements for proscription and defined crimes, consider this: Instead of having a separate process for indivdiual legislators, have none for them at all and instead charge them with a crime as Bel said, but grant the court the permission to order reasonable preemptive measures upon request. Would you consider that a viable alternative?
  
• If you answered yes to the previous point, what standard of evidence do you think should be required before the court may do such a thing?
  
• In your PNG draft, you suggested that PNG'd individuals shall not have forum access. Do you think this should apply to other official TSP off-site communication platforms, such as Discord, as well?
  

@southern bellz - Questions for you:

• How about instead of direct approval, we have a grace period and in that time, a legislator can motion for a disapproval/approval vote? Would that fulfill your requirements?
  

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Since when were Legislators the only TSPers Glen? Limiting civil rights to only a few dozen out of hundreds of players in the region seems... I'm honestly not sure of the right word. Are you suggesting that citizens are foreigners now, and the only "true" TSPers are people on these forums?

I think it's pretty stupid, for lack of a better word, to try to apply this kind of intellectual framework to NationStates and TSP as a GCR. We have no power over immigration to our region. We can't password or pre-screen or anything like that. So an enemy can create a nation, and either appear in TSP automatically or move here with zero barriers at all, and suddenly they're afforded "citizen" status with a plethora of rights. I think that's a disaster waiting to happen. It's no way to run TSP as a GCR in NationStates.

These debates about democratic principles, civil rights, and whatnot, always happen without any context of what TSP is in this game. So it's useless intellectual exercise to sit here and debate about who is and isn't a "citizen", when the other side doesn't have a reasonable definition themselves. I think it's fairly easy to tell when somebody is a foreigner in TSP. Can that be objectively written into law with technical legal language, or some kind of legalese-based algorithm? Obviously not. Objectivity is not superior.

Riffing on Bel's point regarding the 1 to 1 correlation between requirements for proscription and defined crimes, consider this: Instead of having a separate process for indivdiual legislators, have none for them at all and instead charge them with a crime as Bel said, but grant the court the permission to order reasonable preemptive measures upon request. Would you consider that a viable alternative?

No, I don't support anything like that. That is opposite of viable. Belschaft had zero problems with the Prohibited Groups law when he wrote it, but suddenly thinks the same process is an affront to constitutional rights when applying a scalpel to individuals, rather than taking a sledgehammer to entire groups? No thank you, ma'am.

I think our criminal law system is still a mess and has been for years. I don't think anybody should be looking at the ridiculous Cormac trial and go, "Oh geez, that's how we should handle everything!" I look at our history of criminal trials, with Cormac's being held up as some shining ideal, and think, "Jesus Christ, that's a ridiculous process for a game. It's horrendously inefficient, clearly susceptible to abuse, and doesn't do anything to actually address problematic people in the months a trial takes."

We have a law that's been on the books for years, that has been ratified more than once in the Assembly, that works the exact same way for groups as I'm proposing for individuals. It bans them from our political system without a trial, while still having a process that allows them to defend themselves and prevent getting banned. Nobody's had any moral quandaries with it so far. It's protected us against Empire players all that time, too.

In your PNG draft, you suggested that PNG'd individuals shall not have forum access. Do you think this should apply to other official TSP off-site communication platforms, such as Discord, as well?

I don't think they should have access to anything TSP. If we're blacklisting players because they've fucked us over, there's no reason to keep them around anywhere that's TSP. Whether or not the Discord admins want to do that is up to them. As far as I'm aware, there's been a long tradition in TSP of the forum government not legislating off-site chats.

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Brief answers, but much of this relates to what I was thinking/had in mind four years ago;
 

@Belschaft - You originally wrote the PGO law that we have now (then titled "Criminal Regions and Organisations"), back in early 2014. In it, the penalty imposed for proscription was simply not allowing citizenship status. When the law was transcribed from the old Code of Laws to its new home currently in the Criminal Code, "citizen" was replaced with its near-equivalent "legislator". A few questions:

• Why did your proposal at the time only restrict citizenship status and not include a prohibition on having a nation in the region?
  

Back in 2014 we didn't have the same in-game offices, powers and roles that are now a thing thanks to polls/dispatches/RO's etc - when I wrote CRO in 2014 it was on the basis of the game back then, and in TSP governance and power was far more centralised on the forums. Were I writing the same law today it would likely be different in several ways, this being one of them
 

• Considering that a non-legislator nation in TSP today has more power over the workings over the Coalition than non-citizen nations did in 2014, would you consider it reasonable that such a prohibition is included these days?
  

Very much so - the idea of CRO was to limit the ability of those with loyalties to hostile groups to interact with and harm TSP. Back then that meant access to the forums and citizenship; now that's not necessarily the case.
 

• Would you consider such a prohibition reasonable for individuals (as the draft specifies)?
  

Assuming it was handled correctly and with due process, yes.

• If you answered Yes to the previous question, do you think this should apply to other official TSP off-site communication platforms, such as Discord, as well?
  

Potentially - I think there is room for nuance, and there may people we wouldn't want in our region who might not be a problem in the public areas of our Discord. I think there is a difference between the two, due to the direct Gameplay elements of of having a nation physically in TSP that being able to talk on our Discord doesn't have.
 

• Riffing on your point regarding the 1 to 1 correlation between requirements for proscription and defined crimes, consider this: Legislators may not be declared PNG outright, but may be charged with a crime. When they are, the court has the permission to order reasonable preemptive measures upon request. Would you consider that a viable alternative?
  

I'd consider it not only a "viable" alternative for Legislators, but the sole legal mechanism for something like this when dealing with Citizens and Legislators of TSP. The Bill of Rights prohibits extra-judicial actions such as the ones proposed, but it is eminently reasonable for preemptive measures to be imposed during investigation and/or trial. I've always made a distinction between "security measures" imposed temporarily and permanently when it comes to their legality.
 

• If you answered yes to the previous point, what standard of evidence do you think should be required before the court may do such a thing?
  

I don't think the court needs a specific standard of evidence for preemptive measures during investigation and/or trial, as they are by definition temporary and only imposed whilst the matter is under consideration. If a matter is serious enough to warrant trial or criminal investigation - and thus with suffice evidentiary basis to proceed to these steps - the such measures would also be justified.
 

• What, specifically, is meant by "have or have attempted to sabotage The South Pacific's military operations"?
  

I honestly couldn't tell you the exact definition we/I had in mind back then, but something along the lines of leaking operational details or otherwise compromising military actions from within was what I had in mind. Large sections of the CRO were written with the activities of UDL in mind, and their penchant for having their members joining GCR military groups - the Ravina affair in TNP in particular. I don't think any reasonable person would consider this clause to cover defending against a TSP raid or such like, but a member of the designated group acquiring knowledge of TSP military operations via membership or access to IRC/MSN/Skype/etc channels and then passing that on to opposing forces would be included.

_{Minister of Media, Subversion and Sandwich Making}
^{Associate Justice of the High Court and Senior Moderator}

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"How about instead of direct approval, we have a grace period and in that time, a legislator can motion for a disapproval/approval vote? Would that fulfill your requirements?"

Do you think that would make the law better?

The 16th Delegate of The South Pacific

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In my opinion there is a reason we have a CRS. We can't continue to clip at the institutions responsible for safety.


If the CRS deems a person or entity PNG then they should be able to make that call with maybe some option like having ""...a grace period and in that time, a legislator can motion for a disapproval/approval vote."

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