The Founding of CBS Incident Committee


Glossary

On May 19, 1994, 6:30pm, CBS Evening News aired an astonishing program alleging ordinary Chinese formed the biggest spy network in the U.S. The program enraged many in the CSS community. Within days, the Internet was surged with angry posts from netters, and flooded with protest letters. In the following week, on May 23, Vice President Shi Heping of the IFCSS, wrote a protest letter to the CBS President, Eric Ober.

Between May 24 to 26, after several telephone conversations between Mr. Huang Lin (a.k.a. Mr. Mi Mi Sr. of the lads-l committee) and Mr. Luo Ning, the editor of CCF, and Mr. Liu Chengyan, the Chair of IFCSS New Comers Committee, a consent was reached on the necessity of setting up a nation-wide coordination network to fight the unfair CBS report.

In order to facilitate the proposed network, several options were considered, ranging from using existing networks such as ccnl, lads-l, and Mi Mi Sr's personal account. Considering the original purposes of existing networks, Mi Mi Sr. suggested a new listserv be setup. Then the topic went on to decide which machine was to be used. Several options were discussed. Among them were cnd.org , spike.rice.edu, ifcss.org and one in the South. Finally a decision was reached to set up a new listserv and a committee mailing list on ifcss.org, since IFCSS has the credibility in dealing critical matters with U.S. mainstream, and, most importantly, as the only national CSS organization, IFCSS has the moral obligation to lend the general CSS whatever assistance it deems appropriate and is capable of. Mr. Liu then called Mr. Shi Heping about this proposal. Several minutes later, Mr. Shi Heping called Mr. Mi Mi Sr. to express his approval and appointed Mi Mi Sr. as the proposed coordinator of the task force.

Next day, May 27, Liu Zhendong (liu@cae.wisc.edu) sent a formal message to Mr. Huang Lin to confirm the appointment as Coordinator of IFCSS CBS Coordination Task Force.

On May 28th, at IFCSS Council 4th tele-conference, IFCSS Council approved IFCSS HQ's proposal to establish IFCSS CBS Incident Committee and Mr. Huang Lin as its coordinator. On May 29th, with help of CCIC, listserv account fcbs-l had been set up on ifcss.org. According to its announcement, its mission is to disseminate related information on the CBS incident, discuss appropriate strategies to protection of Chinese interest and organize protesting activities. Up to June 1st, there were 206 subscribers.

Between May 26 and 28, Mi Mi Sr. was screening through the Internet to locate prospective volunteers for this new committee. By the weekend, he had already reached 28 volunteers who were willing to participate in the fighting against CBS report. On May 27, when Mi Mi Sr. informed several key volunteers about the committee' name and affiliation, many expressed disapproval. The typical point of view was the displeasure of the radical moves that the IFCSS had been made such as Congress MFN hearing, White House hunger strike, just name a few. After several rounds of communication, it was believed that, in order to mobilize as many concerned CSS as possible, a neutral name was deemed necessary. It was then decided that, the new committee's name be modified to be the CBS Incident Committee, a neutral organization which invites all Chinese organizations to participate. Mi Mi Sr. then informed the Mr. Luo Ning and Mr. Liu Chengyan about this decision. On Saturday, May 28, with the help from Liu Chengyan, Zhang Yunfei, the name of the public network was decided as a listserv called fcbs-l, and the proposed committee network would be a mailing list called fcbs-c. About 11PM, May 28, the fcbs-l was functional and Mi Mi Sr. was the listserv owner. Mi Mi Sr. then wrote a statement announcing the establishment of the CBS Incident Committee, and posted it through the major networks.

Within 36 hours after the announcement and during the memorial weekend, 110 netters had already signed into the network. The responses from the netters was tremendous. During the first week, from May 29 to June 4, an average 300 messages each day were pouring into Mi Mi Sr.'s personal mailbox, most of them were postings to the fcbs-l network. It was then decided that a news release service was necessary. Mr. Miao Ye, a lads-l veteran, volunteered to be the first editor of the Editorial Board of CBS-IC. During the week, more and more volunteers were identified and were added to the committee network.


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