Hi Tracy,
If it's a choice between the two, then definitely I vote for waiting to meet until after the New Year rather than meeting on December 17th. But I think we could perhaps find another date before then, and in the meantime those who are free on the 17th can go to the Oakland Privacy Working Group meeting.
An umbrella group by its nature will find its work intersecting with the work of its component member groups. If that were not so, it would not really be functioning as an umbrella group. As I said at our last meeting, I think the unique value that the Bay Area Civil Liberties Coalition brings to the table is in filling this niche.
Building a coalition can be a delicate matter, however -- trying to get a number of groups working harmoniously together adds another level of complexity to the already challenging proposition of getting a number of individuals working harmoniously together. On reflection, holding a joint meeting at this point in time when the Bay Area Civil Liberties Coalition itself is still somewhat fuzzy on its scope and procedures seems like it would be inviting further confusion about our role.
Speaking of which, the subject line identifies one of the lists copied on this message as SFCLC, while the name of the list shows as SF vs NDAA. As I understand it, there is no "SFCLC" -- that's just another name for the BACLC, which has taken on a Bay Area wide scope and a broader mission than simply focusing on the NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act). To reduce confusion, I suggest we have a dedicated BACLC list, named and tagged accordingly, either by modifying the identifiers of the existing list or if this is undesirable or infeasible for some reason, starting a new one.
Love & Liberty,
((( starchild )))