OK, as Judge Advocate, I am going to make an official statement here, as it is my duty to see that the laws of our Nation are carried out. I am going to try and distance myself from the issue and speak of it just as I have read it. First off, our Constitution:
Article F: The Judicial Branch will be formed of three leaders, one who is tasked with upholding the laws (Judge Advocate), one who is tasked with defending the citizenry (Public Defender) and headed by the Chief Justice. It shall be the main responsibility of the Judiciary to admit citizens into the game who shall have joined after February 16, 2003.
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This Article F is taken from the Re-vamp version, put together by our President, Octavian X, modifying the original version by donsig. The Re-vamped version was up for a while and discussed at length and Article F was never brought up, because I suppose, everyone thought it was a good idea, including Mods as they never raised an eyebrow to it. Next, our proposed "Final Constitution":
Article F: The Judicial Branch will be formed of three leaders, one who is tasked with upholding the laws (Judge Advocate), one who is tasked with defending the citizenry (Public Defender) and headed by the Chief Justice. It shall be the main responsibility of the Judiciary to admit citizens into the game who shall have joined after February 16, 2003.
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As you can see, on our final draft of the Constitution, Article F is untouched and remains with the same sense of security that it had in the original draft. This is because, I believe, as most people here are unsure about the actual procedures of the game, this Article brings a feeling of safety or security. And I agree.
This Article F was introduced by donsig on Feb 11th, and has been on the table for half of the days this sub-forum has been open. The general idea of the Article was discussed before that. No one has ever had a problem with it. One of the reasons for this is because we are not the Police or the FBI. We are gamers and we new this all along. We knew we didn't have the investigatory means to track down successfully prosecute spies. What we wanted was some means of protecting ourselves from knowledgeable people (or tricky ones) from other sites. And that's what Article F gave us.
In regards to this thread, Goonie was simply trying to protect the public from being scoped out by another site. He was actually just following procedure based on the Constitution (all of them). This is not paranoia. This is a responsible citizen. CT has claimed that Goonie is claiming EVERY new citizen is a spy, when it is obvious that the last two were accepted uncontested. eyrei, who seems to me to be on the virge of trolling Goonie, has claimed that there is NO way to prove a spy. Well that may be true, but Goonie didn't ask CT to prove SeVeS a spy. He asked her to compare IPs. This is something that CT and eyrei both have stated they can do (unless in their shyness they have neglected to say that user names are not listed next to the IP's). It was a simple request in an investigatory manner. It could even be looked at like it was 007ish or Sherlock Holmesish. He asked for a favor not a denounciation. I think everyone may be going a little overboard on this issue.
To back up Article F, here is Article A of the Final Constitution:
Article A: All Civfanatics Forum users who register in the Citizen Registry are citizens of Fanatikou, subject to the approval of the Judiciary. Citizens have the right to assemble, the right to free movement, the right to free speech, the right to a fair trial, the right to representation, the right to demand satisfaction and the right to vote.
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Obviously, the very first line of the very first Article states that each new citizen of Fanatikou is subject to the approval of the Judiciary. According to our Constitution, Goonie has done nothing wrong. Pure and simple. In fact, the arguements or reasonings he has brought up in this thread are quite interesting.
And now, finally, from our Constitution again:
Article K: The constitution, laws and standards of Fanatikou can never be contrary to the rules and regulations of the Civfanatics forums. Moderators may veto any such constitutional amendments, laws or standards.
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This Article, which seems to be a standard in all DG Constitutions, is a very good one. We don't want to bite the hand that feeds us. I would suggest that the easiest way for this problem to be solved, although maybe not the best, is for the Mods who are denying Goonie his investigation to physically prove (by posting here), that this kind of play investigating is contrary to the rules and regulations of the Civfanatics forums. Then they can just veto the parts of the Constitution that support this kind of thing. Other than that, we will have to wait until this Constitutional Poll is over, re-write the document (which we would have to do if vetoes slashed out the parts about this issue), and repoll it. Which both in my opinion require equal amounts of work as the Constitution in it present form seems just fine to the people of Fanatikou. As Goonie has stated, TF has also looked upon this sub-forum as private and encouraged us to keep it that way.
So, as Judge Advocate, in this official statement, I say that the Constitution does not HAVE to be changed, but if the Mods can prove that the writings of several Articles are contrary to the rules and regulations of the CFC Forums, then they can Veto those Articles.
As a side note, in the eyes of the Judge Advocate, Goonie has done nothing wrong by initiating this thread.
OK, I'm done.