An E-Mail list is now available to help lesbian, gay and bisexual law enforcement personnel around the world keep in touch with each other.

This document is intended to describe the basics of the list. When you first subscribe to the list, you will be sent a copy of the FAQ-Frequently Asked Questions-list. You may request a copy of the faq by email by writing to legalmn2@aol.com.

To Subscribe

If you wish to subscribe to the list, please mail a brief request to LEGALemail@aol.com.

Incoming mail to "LEGALemail" from non-list members will be broadcast to the list unless it very clearly would not be of interest to list members.

List members can also use the list for many other purposes; for example:

• To post information about events which their group is organizing or taking part in,
• To post anything which they find on the 'net that might be of interest or use to other list members,
• To offer or ask for advice or accommodation when travelling to different parts of the world,
• To find solutions which others may have, to difficulties that their group is facing.

  Confidentiality

  Here are some notes on confidentiality which is an issue for some list subscribers -

  • If you subscribe to the list, please follow the basic courtesy of not forwarding or showing a non-list member any item from the list without the express permission of the original poster. This will help ensure that the list is maintained as safe space for glb-police and law enforcement personnel to discuss issues of importance to us without worrying about where our comments might end up! If you are posting something to the list which you want as many people as possible to see, please simply include a note to that effect within the posting, so that those reading it will know that it's OK to distribute beyond the list.
  • Some subscribers to the list will be accessing their mail in work environments which may not be very supportive. Please try to use "discrete" subject headers when posting to the list to avoid creating difficulty for them.
  • To reassure anyone concerned about the confidentiality of their E-mail addresses, a number of steps have been taken to prevent unauthorized access to the actual list. The machine that the list runs on is a dial-up machine which does not have unsupervised access to the 'net. The modem is set to reject incoming calls. Features like incoming Ftp and Telnet are disabled in the software. And in the very rare circumstance where the address list itself might have to be transmitted across the Internet, it will be encoded first.
  • If you subscribe to the list your E-mail address will be hidden on the headers of postings so no one else subscribing to the list will be able to see the names of subscribers. Your name shows on the "CC:" line of your mail only.
  • If you post to the list, your email address (and name if you have it set to automatically send) are sent with the post when it is forwarded to the rest of the mailing list. If you do NOT wish to have your name forwarded, with your post, type "REMOVE HEADINGS" or a similar request on the first line of your post and the message will be edited to removed before the post is forwarded.

  At the moment there are no "vetting procedures" for subscribers to the list. We'd very much like to hear list members' views on this issue. Do you feel that such measures are necessary or not? If yes, what form should these take?

  Nuts And Bolts

  Some technical issues for those interested in that sort of thing -

  • The list is currently operating manually using an alias file on a normal America Online software. Incoming mail to the address "LEGALemail" is simply downloaded and forwarded back out to the entire list. The list information is not available to anyone else on AOL or elsewhere and is stored on a private computer--not on AOL. We are looking for good, simple to use, PC based, list-server software so that we can get the list running fully automatically. If you have any suggestions please let us know.
  • Also, the list is currently being run from a machine with dial-up Internet access rather than permanently on-line. This means that mail will only be processed once or twice a day whilst the computer is on-line. This won't really cause a problem whilst the list has a fairly low volume of traffic - at worst it would only mean a 24 hour delay between original posting and re-transmission to everyone else. However, as the list grows and gets busier, we will need a more suitable home for it - so again, if anyone has any ideas where we could house it longer term, please let us know.

    Please feel free to distribute the text of this posting in any way you wish. If you are a lebian, gay or bisexual criminal justice professional, we hope you will subscribe, and that you'll find the list of use.

    We look forward to hearing from you!

    Document Produced By: PC Tony Murphy, Lesbian & Gay Police Association, LONDON, UK Maintained by: John Israel, LEGAL International (Law Enforcement Gays and Lesbians)

    Last Updated: March 9, 1996

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