[MR] Another thought or three ... Re: Society Notice

[Cian of Storvik]

--- Vels inn Viggladi <velsthe1 at hotmail.com> wrote:
> "Welcome to the Society for Creative Anachronism, an
> educational 
> not-for-profit organization 
> "...Now would you mind waiting until we finish this
> standard security 
> background check before you can start doing
> anything."

I think Siegfried was simply suggesting that (assuming
background checks are instituted) Corpora handle the
background checks directly, and that the cost of
background checking youth instructors come from
memberships, not from baronial coffers. He was not
suggesting that everyone that comes into the SCA and
gets a membership be required to have a mandatory
background check.
As an aside;
I know that in our state, you can do background checks
through the state police, but you must be an
authorized agency to request the special "finger print
cards", and subsequently receive the results
(additional cost is incurred for background checks run
through the FBI system, still done through MD state
police). It costs nothing to request be an authorized
agent which has the ability to run background checks
(but you must provide them a letter with a valid
reasoning why you SHOULD be an authorized agent).
Fingerprint background checks also take a very long
time through State Police, sometimes taking weeks or
months to get the FBI results.
The fingerprint cards do cost, and then the state
check costs, and then the FBI portion costs. Having
said that, I totally agree that an ounce of prevention
is worth a pound of cure...BUT the situation does add
the dimension of also incuring some potential abuse of
information.

For those of us who are a bit paranoid, once you are
finger printed and submitted to the FBI, you are
there-after permanently in the system (not only with
matters in regards to the SCA). I happen to already be
in the FBI system, though I simply will say that it's
really no body's business why I'm in their system. I
wonder what legal ramifications could occure from
someone who believes their privacy has been violated
by a non-profit volunteer organization making
arbitrary decisions regarding a person's personal
history within the government system. (E.g. perhaps
someone concedes to the background check assuming that
the SCA is using the information to ensure they are
not a recorded child molestor, but the SCA at a later
date decides to use this new found knowledge to
prevent anyone ever charged of ANY felony (grand
theft, stolen car, check fraud, whether time is
served, or some such) from participating in events,
prehaps they must now bear a different color
membership card or may not hold any official office
(don't want someone arrested of embezzelment in charge
of the coffers do we?). This is completely
hypothetical, but once a skeleton is out of it's
closet, it rarely wants to go back in. And once you
have the means of opening the closet, it's hard to
resist opening the door to see what's in there.

I also would like to lodge a complaint against a local
fighter whom I feel harrased me in his continous
commentaries describing his prowess with his pole
weapon....Oh? There is such a thing as pole-weapon?
Are you sure? I believe he said it was wood....Ah!
Sorry for that. Please disregard my complaint. 
-Cian of Storvik (who's only harassment comes from
"the man"!)