July 26th, 2026 Meeting
Meeting to be held via video conference: https://communitybridge.com/bbb-room/mass-pirates-member-meeting/
Recording:
Reports
Decisions/Endorsements
United States Pirate Party Issues?
Projects/Events
Pirate News
Leader: Joseph
- Pirate news recording scheduled for every other Sunday, 7pm with go-live at 7:30pm. Unless changed
2027 Campaigns & Voter Outreach
Leader: Jamie
A reconsideration of Member Meeting Articles
We haven't adhered to our Articles of Agreement's Member Meetings section strictly since we have existed, specifically the [ https://masspirates.org/wiki/Articles_of_Agreement#4.2_Form Form] and Time sections. Meetings have met weekly and bi-weekly (our current form) and not twice a year each over six weeks.
Rework them to:
- Have a section on conferences (possible spring/fall, at least one a year)
- Rework the member meetings to be on-line at least once a month
- Set when elections for the pirate council is and that we can elect people at a conference or on-line by secret ballot
Working on a draft document at https://etherpad.pp-international.net/p/MAPPRevisedMemberMeetingsArticles
Commonwealth Bills to Review
Other bills:
- An Act relative to unmanned aerial systems (H.3749 / S.2438)
- An Act relative to protecting Massachusetts residents against federal government surveillance (H.2687)
- Dignity Not Deportations Act (H.1588 / S.1122)
- Right to Repair Bills:
- Decrim Sex Work Bills from https://bswac.org/. Emailed Rikki and Desmond their thoughts on them as they are the most up to date on the issue:
- An Act to promote the health and safety of people in the sex trade (H.1980)
- An Act protecting children from addictive social media feeds S.3164
Here is an etherpad for people to offer suggestions.
Bills We Decided On
Massachusetts House data privacy bills - We urge supports to call and ask for multiple changes.
Endorsed:
- An Act to provide accountability in the use of biometric recognition technology and comprehensive enforcement (H.96/S.36)
- Civil Asset Forfeiture reform (H.1953)
- H.1973. An Act protecting personal security. We support the bill, and its senate counterpart.
- S.1731. An Act to promote transparency of facial recognition and driver's license photos. Not great, but we'll support it, because it sucks less than the status quo.
- H.1946/ An Act to implement the recommendations of the special commission on facial recognition technology. We support the warrant requirements, and the bills provisions for transparency and reporting.
- An Act to study the decriminalization of sex work (H.2467)
- An Act relative to safe reporting (H.1747)
- An Act relative to sexual assault by an officer (H.2634)
Federal Bills to Review
- Kids Online Safety Act (S.1748) - We opposed them.
- Anti-Section 230 bills - We opposed them
- Anti-File Sharing bills:
- Foreign Anti-Digital Piracy Act (H.R.791) - ...more
- American Copyright Protection Act (Not yet posted) ...more)
- ... more on the bills at https://torrentfreak.com/fears-of-overblocking-unite-critics-of-u-s-pirate-site-blocking-bill/
- Pro Codes Act (H.R.4009 ...more
- American Music Fairness Act (H.R.861)
Other To Do
Upcoming Events
Participants
- Jamie
- Joe
- Steve
Observers
Summary
USPP Update
- CA lost national voting rights due to a lack of attendance.
- AZ chapter moving forward.
Pirate news
- Are behind on uploading. Working to catch up
- Featuring music, in honor of public domain day.
We'll be helping out at B-Sides cambridge. To be held at Arts and the Armory.
Working on campaigns and voter outreach for 2027.
Act protecting children from social media feeds S.3164
- Senate is trying to address some of the issues in the house version
- masspirates.org would not meet the definition of "Addictive Social Media Feed" in the bill's text
- "Age signal" transmits age range/category. Not date of birth or personal identification
- "Social media platform" seems not to include thinks like blogs or wikis.
- AG's office to promulgate rules and regulations for how parental consent is to be obtained.
