[extropy-chat] Unauthorized use of our name on your site

[Jose Cordeiro]

Dear Aubrey and Methuselah Foundation friends,
 
     Please remove any links to the WTA from the unfortunate personal statement of James Hughes. I have alreaday written to him several times to ask for an apology, but he has refused to do so since March, and the WTA Board might now be forced to take other actions.
 
     The WTA, and my personally, strongly support your work, but we are an apolitical organization and James Hughes had no right to use unlawfully our name and to further refuse withdrawing that offensive post to many of our members. It is interesting to note the Nick Bostrom, current Chair of the WTA, signed under his own name and personal webpage.
 
     Sincerely yours,
 
     José Luis Cordeiro

Harvey Newstrom <mail at HarveyNewstrom.com> wrote:
I am a member of the Board of Directors of the World Transhumanist 
Association. I have been appointed Liaison to other transhumanist 
organizations.

It has come to my attention that our secretary James Hughes has made 
the following donation: 
using the 
name of our organization. He did not have permission to use our 
organization's name, and has refused repeated requests from various 
Board members to remove it. He insists that this was a personal 
statement that doesn't involve the WTA. While the Board of Directors 
of WTA supports your work greatly, we have received complaints 
concerning the praise of "Michael Harrington" being submitted under our 
name, since our organization Constitution forbids corporate officers 
from endorsing any particular political viewpoints in connection with 
our organization's name.

Do you have a policy concerning private donors using organizational 
names without permission? Can you remove our organization name so that 
it just shows "James Hughes" as the donor instead of "World 
Transhumanist Association - James Hughes"? Can you also remove the 
link to our website that is included a the bottom of the signature? I 
appreciate your attention to this matter. I have included comments 
from six of our nine Board Members below to show you the opinions of 
the Board. James Hughes' own claim is at the bottom. (The other three 
have not commented on this issue.)

--
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC


Jose Cordeiro wrote:
> Please, kindly remove your links and any association to the WTA in 
> your personal comments to the Methuselah Prize. I don't personally 
> care if you were an admirer of Karl Marx and if you consider Michael 
> Harrington your political mentor, but those are certainly not the 
> views of the WTA.

Giulio Prisco wrote:
> not be that James gave 25$ of WTA money AS an official representative 
> of the
> WTA, but that James gave 25$ of his money AND he is a member of the 
> WTA.

Mike LaTorra wrote:
> He was speaking as a member of the WTA, not a spokesman for the WTA.

Bruce J. Klein wrote:
> Also, after repeated requests from a fellow board member, James Hughes 
> refuses to remove two "World Transhumanist Association" links from a 
> public statement where he expresses personal political inspirations. 
> http://www.methuselahfoundation.org/MMPDonors.asp?offset=75

Harvey Newstrom wrote:
> How can you use the WTA name without WTA authorization?

James Hughes wrote:
> I think Jose's annoyance at the Methuslaeh quote is bizarre, and that 
> it was
> a personal statement that made no particular political affirmation.

		
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