[Proposal] Hostile Entities and Persons Act

[Cormac]

Hostile Entities and Persons Act (December 2018)

Proposed by:Section 1. Hostile EntitiesSection 2. Hostile Persons

(1) The Assembly may, at the request of the Delegate or the Council on Lazarene Security, designate any person as a hostile person. Such designation will require a two-thirds vote of the Assembly to approve or rescind. The Assembly may rescind such designation on its own initiative.

(2) Designation as a hostile person will prohibit a person, under any alias, from residing gameside or being admitted to citizenship in Lazarus.

(3) No citizen of Lazarus may be designated as a hostile person while maintaining citizenship in Lazarus.

Section 3. Records of Hostile Entities and Persons

(1) The Assembly Speaker will maintain publicly accessible records of all regions and organizations designated as hostile entities and all persons designated as hostile persons.​

 

[New Rogernomics]

My one recommendation, if the above act is considered too harsh. Effectively provides a temporary provision for existing citizens.

 

[Cormac]

I'm against exemptions for people who are participating in hostile entities. I think it has the dual effect of leaving us open to people who may well wish to do us harm, as well as encouraging frivolous designations of hostility because we know we can protect our friends. I realize these provisions you've proposed would expire in a month, but once someone is exempted now, later people will want an exemption the next time a region has to be designated as hostile.

Honestly, if we have to designate a region as hostile, anyone participating there can leave the hostile region and participate in Lazarus. If they choose not to leave the hostile region, then it's pretty hard to believe they're going to put our security first if asked to do something against our security by the hostile region. Because by choosing not to leave the hostile region, they're already indicating their preference for that region and that their loyalty lies there, not here.

So, I'm not going to be including this in the legislation. But thank you for the feedback nonetheless.

 

[New Rogernomics]

I realize these provisions you've proposed would expire in a month, but once someone is exempted now, later people will want an exemption the next time a region has to be designated as hostile.

No. I mean for the provision to expire, meaning it will be removed from the act entirely after 1 month, so it won't apply to other regions.

I have edited it to have some clearer language on that.

 

[Cormac]

I realize these provisions you've proposed would expire in a month, but once someone is exempted now, later people will want an exemption the next time a region has to be designated as hostile.

I understand, but my point is that if we exempt people this time, even though these provisions expire people are still going to want exemptions next time we have to designate a region as hostile and existing citizens are involved in the hostile region. Essentially, someone will say, "We exempted Milograd last time, so we need to amend it with a new provision allowing us to exempt X, Y, and Z this time." And it will be hard to argue with that if we allowed an exemption this time.

 

[Galiantus]

I support the full act, as proposed. We cannot allow any amount of tolerance for enemies of the region to subvert, destroy, or spy on us.

 

[Sheepshape]

I guess my concern is that this law, as passed, could result in citizens losing their citizenship here based on the actions of an outside party to which they may not have been privy, without Lazarus actually agreeing to that. I can think of some silly and serious ways for this to manifest. In no particular order:

1) A region declares war on Lazarus and is serious, during a time where someone who is a citizen in both regions is away from the game. They are not back in time to meet the 72 hour deadline and they are kicked out.

2) Through assorted machinations, an anti-Lazarus faction in a region is able to enact a declaration of war. a dual citizen is put in a difficult political position where 72 hours is not sufficient time for them to resolve their situation - for example, if they had been elected delegate in Lazarus and were the root admin of the forum for the other region. They could reasonably need more than 72 hours to either find a new root admin or begin the process for a peaceful delegacy transfer.

3) The founder of a new UCR decides to be silly and declares war on Lazarus, without ever intending to do any harm. Nevertheless, any dual citizens in both regions are forced to choose where to stay.

4) An annoying UCR trying to make a name for itself by bothering larger regions declares war on Lazarus, so that it can hype up how dangerous it is as a "hostile entity" and try to boost recruitment numbers. Lazarenes' overwhelming reaction to the actual threat posed by this pest is "meh".

In general, I take the stance that revocation of a citizen's status and rights is a major step that should not be triggered automatically, and I think it would be a better approach for approval of the Assembly to be required to actually invoke this act when a sufficient threat arises that it makes sense to do so.

 

[Arlo]

Agree with Sheep. I would remove the automatic designation following a declaration of war. Otherwise I support this.

 

[Cormac]

I don't think it ever makes sense not to proscribe a region in an official state of war with Lazarus. I don't care if they are some small UCR and our reaction is "meh," their citizens still shouldn't be involved here. That said, in the interest of compromise, I've removed the provision for automatic designation of a region or organization in an official state of war with Lazarus. But I hope this doesn't lead to some absurd decision in the future not to proscribe a region or organization that is in an official war with us. We have to start getting more serious about security in Lazarus than has been the case in the past.

At Ryccia's suggestion, I have also increased the threshold to two-thirds vote to approve or rescind a hostile entity or hostile person designation. That, combined with the provision that these designations require the Delegate or CLS to request them, should further assuage the concerns some have that this legislation will be frivolously used or abused. This is by no means a process that would be easy to abuse. It's a commonsense security measure.

 

[TempestShadow]

I am rather inclined to support.

 

[Lukatonia]

I support ^_^

 

[DaddyStalin]

Full support.

 

[Cormac]

Looks like discussion has settled down, and we need to get this rolling sooner rather than later.

I move for a vote.

 

[joWhatup]

I second the motion of Cormac to vote.

 

[McChimp]

here.

Voting will end on Thursday the 6th of December at 7:35 a.m. EST.