A SIMPLE ACT OF CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE

ON Wednesday April 5, 2000 Tim Stowell, the National Coordinator for the USGenWeb Project, published Executive Order 2000E-1 and delinked the USGenWeb Census Project from the national webpages of the project. Tim's action was in clear violation of the bylaws [Arcticle VI, Section 5] which unequivocally give that responsibility to the Advisory Board. On Thursday 13 April 2000 the Board failed to overturn this illegal action. On May 1 2000, the Census Project announced that it had incorporated as the USGenWeb Census Project, Inc. [a non profit public benefit corporation in Michigan], and in response to this, on May 4 the Board voted to sever ties with the Census Project for "using the reserved term "USGenWeb" without the Advisory Board's knowledge or approval." As of this writing [Aug 11, 2000], the Census Project remains unlinked and its former URLs are now redirected to those of the new Archives Census Project formed to replace it. In July 2000 it was discovered that Linda Lewis, the Coordinator of the Archives Project, had applied for a service mark on the term "USGenWeb Archives" as her personal property and added three Board members [Barbara Dore, Maggie Stewart, and Joy Fisher] to the application as signatories without their knowledge or permission. The Board refuses to consider any sanctions against Linda for this action [see page 1 and page 2 of the application.]

In support of the USGenWeb Census Project, and in protest of this flagrant violation of the USGenWeb bylaws by the National Coordinator and the Board, all links to the USGenWeb Project have been removed from this site. They will be returned when the Census Project is relinked.