Ethical and Legal Violations by Bill Hall and the USCF Administration

[samsloan]

[quote="tanstaafl"]You're right, of course, Bill. And I do think
we've learned something in the process. Maybe there'll be a little
more hesitation before giving the website contract to an insider and
letting a politically active person gain system admin access so that
he can conduct his own private, unauthorized (as far as we know) witch
hunt. And maybe we'll not be so trusting when somebody offers to
"clean up" the USCF -- maybe we'll realize it'll be more like "clean
out". I still say, "a plague on both your houses" and wish that
Polgar's detractors would be shown the door just as thoroughly as she
was.

Maybe we'll even, eventually, get to the point where the people trying
to help the USCF spend their time helping each other and saying good
things about each other instead of conducting various "dirty tricks"
against each other. All we need to add to the past USCF melodrama is
a break-in at a psychiatrist's office to make the "plumbers" on both
sides truly complete![/quote]

I rarely visit the USCF Forums any more and hardly ever post there
because everything I post is immediately deleted anyway, but the
posting above I cannot ignore.

By far the biggest ethical and legal violation was committed by Bill
Hall when he allowed tanstaafl above a/k/a Herbert Rodney Vaugn to
come to the USCF's offices in Crossville and use the USCF's home
computer where everything on this forum is stored to browse and find
every posting by me to compile his 400-page "Ethics Complaint" against
me. Vaugns did not merely have admin access. He had access to the home
computer itself and thus could get everybody's messages, both public
and private, and their passwords and user names and everything else.

Bill Hall did this to help tanstaafl with his "witch hunt" against me,
Sam Sloan. Hall did this because I was critical of Hall's management
of the USCF and because $2 million dollars in membership money had
been lost, in part because of Hall.

The Real Sam Sloan

[samsloan]

[quote="SysAdmin"]The USCF website, including the Forums, is not
hosted on computers at the USCF office, Sam, and never has been.[/
quote]

I do not know the internal workings of the USCF, so I do not know
about this, but I do know that tanstaafl was allowed to come to the
USCF offices in Crossville and use the USCF's computer to compile his
400-page Ethics Complaint against me.

Vaughn himself has said this and it has never been disputed.

The Real Sam Sloan

[samsloan]

[quote="SysAdmin"]Why, then, would you make specific statements about
what occurred when you admit you have have no knowledge to support
that charge?

Actually, what Rodney did was come to the USCF office, bringing two
refurbished Lexmark C720 color laser printers with him, and stand
around while the copies of his ethics complaint, from a file he
brought with him, were printed out on those printers. He did not
access any non-public information on USCF computers to prepare that
complaint, nor did he have access to USCF computer records while at
the office. He left the laser printers in Tennessee when he was
done. (One of them is still there, thought it may not still work
without making a lot of noise.)

If you check the certified audited financial statements for 1997-1998
through 2003-2004, you will see that the losses in the USCF's life
membership assets you referred to occurred between 1998 and 2004.
Bill Hall was not hired as the Executive Director until June of 2005.[/
quote]

Your story is not credible. If Vaughn already had all the files and
the printer, why did he not just print them out on his own home
computer? Why come all the way to Crossville for this?

Why did Bill Hall allow him to use the USCF's Offices to print out his
"Ethics Complaint"? Were not Bill Hall's actions unethical?

The USCF has lost $2 million twice. The first as you say was between
1999 and 2004. The second has been since then. The USCF has lost money
every year that Bill Hall had been ED except for the one year I was in
the board and the most recent year. They are covering it up by
classifying the $600,000 windfall bequests in 2009 as regular income
whereas in reality it was extra-ordinary income.

The Real Sam Sloan

[samsloan]

[quote="SysAdmin"]Rodney offered to send the USCF printed copies of
his report, or to provide it on CD-ROM. He was told (probably by the
Ethics Committee chair) that the copies would have to be printed at
the office and that they would not accept the complaint on CD-ROM.

By bringing the document file and two laser printers to the office,
the copies could be printed 'at the office' without significant USCF
expense.

The Ethics Committee's procedures (eg, requiring that the complaint be
printed 'at the office') are arguably somewhat archaic, but for most
ethics complaints there is not a significant amount of time or expense
to print out the copies of the complaint.[/quote]

I believe that every reader here will realize that your explanation
makes no sense and is utter nonsense.

Vaughn could have used his computer at home to print out his files, if
indeed he had them.

However, the actual printouts that he had, which I have preserved and
are sitting next to me right now, could not have come from his home
computer. For example, try printing out this very posting that I am
making right now and see what happens. You will not be able to do it
and have it look like the submission made by Vaughn. The only way that
he could have compiled his 400 page "Ethics Complaint" in color that
consisted almost entirely of postings made by me to the forum was have
access to the home computer of this Forum.

Vaughn insisted on submitting his ethics complaint in color because
this forum is in color. The USCF staff then had to make 400-page color
copies for each of the members of the Ethics Committee. Thus, the USCF
Executive Director, Bill Hall, used staff time and money and desk
space to enable Herbert Rodney Vaughn, an outspoken political opponent
of me, Sam Sloan, so as to bring about my defeat in the coming
election.

These acts by Bill Hall and Herbert Rodney Vaughn were, in my opinion,
not merely unethical. They were possibly illegal too, as they gave
Vaughn access to private personal matters involving all USCF members
and all 600,000 former members.

Sam Sloan

[samsloan]

New postby Hal Terrie on Mon Apr 02, 2012 12:39 pm #233548

samsloan wrote:

SysAdmin wrote:Rodney offered to send the USCF printed copies
of his report, or to provide it on CD-ROM. He was told (probably by
the Ethics Committee chair) that the copies would have to be printed
at the office and that they would not accept the complaint on CD-ROM.

By bringing the document file and two laser printers to the
office, the copies could be printed 'at the office' without
significant USCF expense.

The Ethics Committee's procedures (eg, requiring that the
complaint be printed 'at the office') are arguably somewhat archaic,
but for most ethics complaints there is not a significant amount of
time or expense to print out the copies of the complaint.



(SNIP)

Vaughn could have used his computer at home to print out his
files, if indeed he had them.

(SNIP)

Sam Sloan



Let me offer some clarification, as I was Ethics Chair during that
case.

Most ethics complaints are no more than 5-10 pages. Normally, the
plaintiff sends a single copy to the office where additional copies
are made for transmission to the members of the committee and to the
defendant. As Mike notes, this is usually a minor expense. Rodney's
400 page complaint was another matter.

It was entirely appropriate that Rodney assumed the cost of making the
copies but we could not allow him to make those copies at home (as Sam
suggests) because of the issue of verification. The committee needed
to be certain that all the copies being sent out were actually
identical. If he had been allowed to print them at home and send them
to the office, someone would have had to go through all the copies,
page by page, to make certain they were all the same. So printing them
at the office, under the supervision of USCF staff, was the best
solution.

As for the issue of using electronic files or a CD-ROM, we discussed
that but in the end voted to stick with printed copies and U.S. Mail
transmission, in part because we did not want to make it easy for
potential future plaintiffs to submit such lengthy complaints. The
members of the Ethics Committee are all volunteers whose time is
limited; we agreed that it was better to use procedures which
encouraged the parties to make their submissions brief and to the
point.

Also, as we all know it is possible that an e-mail supposedly from one
person may actually be from another. This is less of a problem with
U.S. Mail. During my time on the committee, we did occasionally
transmit some documents by e-mail but voted to stick with our usual
procedures for that 2007 case. It is possible that in the years since
I left the committee this whole question has been revisited but I do
not know.

-- Hal Terrie

[samsloan]

[quote="Hal Terrie"][quote="samsloan"][quote="SysAdmin"]Rodney offered
to send the USCF printed copies of his report, or to provide it on CD-
ROM. He was told (probably by the Ethics Committee chair) that the
copies would have to be printed at the office and that they would not
accept the complaint on CD-ROM.

By bringing the document file and two laser printers to the office,
the copies could be printed 'at the office' without significant USCF
expense.

The Ethics Committee's procedures (eg, requiring that the complaint be
printed 'at the office') are arguably somewhat archaic, but for most
ethics complaints there is not a significant amount of time or expense
to print out the copies of the complaint.[/quote]

(SNIP)

Vaughn could have used his computer at home to print out his files, if
indeed he had them.

(SNIP)

Sam Sloan[/quote]

Let me offer some clarification, as I was Ethics Chair during that
case.

Most ethics complaints are no more than 5-10 pages. Normally, the
plaintiff sends a single copy to the office where additional copies
are made for transmission to the members of the committee and to the
defendant. As Mike notes, this is usually a minor expense. Rodney's
400 page complaint was another matter.

It was entirely appropriate that Rodney assumed the cost of making the
copies but we could not allow him to make those copies at home (as Sam
suggests) because of the issue of verification. The committee needed
to be certain that all the copies being sent out were actually
identical. If he had been allowed to print them at home and send them
to the office, someone would have had to go through all the copies,
page by page, to make certain they were all the same. So printing them
at the office, under the supervision of USCF staff, was the best
solution.

As for the issue of using electronic files or a CD-ROM, we discussed
that but in the end voted to stick with printed copies and U.S. Mail
transmission, in part because we did not want to make it easy for
potential future plaintiffs to submit such lengthy complaints. The
members of the Ethics Committee are all volunteers whose time is
limited; we agreed that it was better to use procedures which
encouraged the parties to make their submissions brief and to the
point.

Also, as we all know it is possible that an e-mail supposedly from one
person may actually be from another. This is less of a problem with
U.S. Mail. During my time on the committee, we did occasionally
transmit some documents by e-mail but voted to stick with our usual
procedures for that 2007 case. It is possible that in the years since
I left the committee this whole question has been revisited but I do
not know.

-- Hal Terrie[/quote]

Your explanation is not reasonable.

Do you mean to say that some member of the USCF office staff had to
sit next to Vaughn for at least two days while he printed out 10 color
copies of his ethics complaint against me so as to verify that each of
the 10 color copies of his 400 page complaint were identical with no
pages missing?

Just so that everybody else here understands, the "Ethics Complaint"
by Vaughn consisted almost entirely of postings by me to this forum.
In other words, everything in Vaughn's complaint can be read right
here on this forum. It is all here. Nothing has been deleted.

It is also important to point out that I was on the USCF Board at this
time. So, Bill Hall, the USCF Executive Director, who is supposed to
remain neutral, authorized Herbert Rodney Vaughn to use the USCF's
computer and the USCF's office staff to print out a 400 page ethics
complaint against a sitting member of the Executive Board.

Any executive director for any reputable company who did this would
have been fired on the spot.

You, Hal Terrie, lost a lot of credibility when you even entertained
this "ethics complaint" and kept it going. Even when Vaughn ignored
deadlines and suggested that he did not want to continue, you kept
extending his time and kept pushing him to complete his task, a task
he had brought upon himself by making a 400 page complaint.

Then you were the only one on the Ethics Committee who even read his
complaint. Several other members of the committee said that it should
not even be considered.

Have you never heard of freedom of speech? Why cannot you even tell us
what the ethics complaint was about? I do not know and would like to
find out, because I never read it either.

The Real Sam Sloan

[samsloan]

[quote="tanstaafl"][quote="samsloan"]
Do you mean to say that some member of the USCF office staff had to
sit next to Vaughn for at least two days while he printed out 10 color
copies of his ethics complaint against me so as to verify that each of
the 10 color copies of his 400 page complaint were identical with no
pages missing?[/quote]
It was just a couple of documents. Push the print button and sit back
and wait. (or, really, push the button and go about your other duties
while the printer does the work) It certainly didn't tie up USCF
resources, except for the newly acquired color laser printer that I
gave to the USCF (back when color laser printers were a lot more
expensive than they are now). And yes, it was all completely finished
when I took it to the USCF. It wasn't written using USCF resources,
just printed (and, again, I gave the USCF the printer!).

It would have been much easier to have just copied a CD 10 times,
perhaps, but the real advantage of doing it that way is that the the
reader could have simply clicked on the embedded links and he would
have been taken to the original source material (making it trivially
easy to verify).[/quote]

You keep referring to the CD and the printer you say that you brought,
but the issue here is that you were allowed to use the USCF's computer
in the USCF's Crossville Office to create your "Ethics Complaint".
Thus, you had access to all the USCF membership records, passwords and
other private data. What you actually did with this information, if
anything, we will never know, but you had far more access than hmb did
that you are complaining about.

CD's to not print themselves out and printers do not run on their own.
They need a computer to tell them what to do and the computer here was
the USCF's home computer that you were allowed to use to create an
"ethics complaint" against a sitting board member.

The Real Sam Sloan

[samsloan]

[quote="tanstaafl"][quote="samsloan"][quote="tanstaafl"]
[quote="samsloan"]
Do you mean to say that some member of the USCF office staff had to
sit next to Vaughn for at least two days while he printed out 10 color
copies of his ethics complaint against me so as to verify that each of
the 10 color copies of his 400 page complaint were identical with no
pages missing?[/quote]
It was just a couple of documents. Push the print button and sit back
and wait. (or, really, push the button and go about your other duties
while the printer does the work) It certainly didn't tie up USCF
resources, except for the newly acquired color laser printer that I
gave to the USCF (back when color laser printers were a lot more
expensive than they are now). And yes, it was all completely finished
when I took it to the USCF. It wasn't written using USCF resources,
just printed (and, again, I gave the USCF the printer!).

It would have been much easier to have just copied a CD 10 times,
perhaps, but the real advantage of doing it that way is that the the
reader could have simply clicked on the embedded links and he would
have been taken to the original source material (making it trivially
easy to verify).[/quote]

You keep referring to the CD and the printer you say that you brought,
but the issue here is that you were allowed to use the USCF's computer
in the USCF's Crossville Office to create your "Ethics Complaint".
Thus, you had access to all the USCF membership records, passwords and
other private data. What you actually did with this information, if
anything, we will never know, but you had far more access than hmb did
that you are complaining about.

CD's to not print themselves out and printers do not run on their own.
They need a computer to tell them what to do and the computer here was
the USCF's home computer that you were allowed to use to create an
"ethics complaint" against a sitting board member.[/quote]

When a person continues to make statements that he knows to be false,
what can you say in response? Mr. Sloan wasn't in Crossville, so he
has no direct knowledge, but he's been told the truth about the matter
over and over again, so he can't really claim ignorance as an excuse.
I never had any access to USCF membership records, passwords, or other
private data. I never had access to USCF computers. I provided the
ethics complaint -- prepared before I ever arrived in Crossville --
and a pair of color laser printers (one of which I gave to the USCF as
a donation). The USCF office took charge of pressing the "print
button". It's ludicrous to even think that that I could have prepared
such a lengthy document during my brief visit to Crossville (which was
just a stop while I was on my way to a chess tournament).

Herbert Rodney Vaughn [/quote]

Because your claim makes no sense. If you already had the documents,
why not just take them to Kinko's and tell them to make ten color
copies of a 400-page document? Why not just print them out on your
printer at home? Why did you go to the USCF's offices in Crossville
and request and receive permission from Bill Hall to use the office
staff, desk space and computers to print out your documents? Why did
you ask him to do this and why did he allow you to do this?

Remember this thread starts with you accusing Bogner of some
impropriety in telling Laffery about some threat Truong made to sue
him. You claim that Bogner could have made some other uses of his
administrator privileges than what he actually did.

However, Bogner was an official USCF Administrator. He had the right
to do what he did. Where did you get the right to use the USCF's
computer to compile and printout an ethics complaint against me?

Also you have not accepted my challenge to prove that you can even
produce printouts from this forum. For example, take this posting
right here. How would you go about printing it out? As far as I know
it cannot be done. For my court motion just now, I just took the USCF
Press Release and took a picture of it using snagit and then copied
and pasted it using Photoshop. It came out readable but far from
perfect. Yours came out perfect and for that reason I am confident
that you used the USCF's computer in Crossville, not your own computer
at your home, to make these printouts.

Sam Sloan

[samsloan]

[quote="Randy Bauer"][quote="mfschulte"][quote="samsloan"]Because your
claim makes no sense. If you already had the documents, why not just
take them to Kinko's and tell them to make ten color copies of a 400-
page document? Why not just print them out on your printer at home?
Why did you go to the USCF's offices in Crossville and request and
receive permission from Bill Hall to use the office staff, desk space
and computers to print out your documents? Why did you ask him to do
this and why did he allow you to do this?[/quote]

The part you seem to be missing is that it is [i]USCF [/i]who insists
all copies be identical. If he made the copies at Kinko's then USCF
cannot easily guarantee (especially for such large documents) that all
copies are identical. They would have to trust that the copies are the
same, and they aren't willing to do that.

Hence he brought everything in to make the copies and let USCF people
press "print" to make the copies, so they could be sure the copies
were identical.[/quote]

I'd be interested in others prediction on the over/under on this
highly important nugget of information that Sam Sloan either fails to
grasp, chooses to ignore, or conspiracy theory fantacizes away. I'm
thinking it will be a big number but also agree that Sam may just
choose to drop the entire argument for awhile - only to regurgitate it
later as if nothing had happened in the meantime.[/quote]

More nonsense. If Vaughn had failed to produce accurate copies of his
own complaint, he would suffer the harm, not me. Why should the paid
USCF office staff have been involved in verifying the accuracy of his
complaint?

Sam Sloan

[samsloan]

[quote="Randy Bauer"][quote="samsloan"][quote="Randy Bauer"]
[quote="mfschulte"][quote="samsloan"]Because your claim makes no
sense. If you already had the documents, why not just take them to
Kinko's and tell them to make ten color copies of a 400-page document?
Why not just print them out on your printer at home? Why did you go to
the USCF's offices in Crossville and request and receive permission
from Bill Hall to use the office staff, desk space and computers to
print out your documents? Why did you ask him to do this and why did
he allow you to do this?[/quote]

The part you seem to be missing is that it is [i]USCF [/i]who insists
all copies be identical. If he made the copies at Kinko's then USCF
cannot easily guarantee (especially for such large documents) that all
copies are identical. They would have to trust that the copies are the
same, and they aren't willing to do that.

Hence he brought everything in to make the copies and let USCF people
press "print" to make the copies, so they could be sure the copies
were identical.[/quote]

I'd be interested in others prediction on the over/under on this
highly important nugget of information that Sam Sloan either fails to
grasp, chooses to ignore, or conspiracy theory fantacizes away. I'm
thinking it will be a big number but also agree that Sam may just
choose to drop the entire argument for awhile - only to regurgitate it
later as if nothing had happened in the meantime.[/quote]

More nonsense. If Vaughn had failed to produce accurate copies of his
own complaint, he would suffer the harm, not me. Why should the paid
USCF office staff have been involved in verifying the accuracy of his
complaint?[/quote]

The word that comes to mind is 'obtuse.' As Hal Terrie pointed out
and you can't seem to grasp, it was the USCF policy that they be in
charge of copying to ensure all copies were the same. This is not an
unreasonable approach, and all your twisting and turning just makes
you look even more unreasonable than usual (which is quite a feat on
your part). Keep typing - you do your detractors a big favor when you
do so.

Randy Bauer [/quote]

What might be reasonable in a normal case, with an ethics complaint at
the most 5-10 pages long, does not apply here.

What Vaughn basically did is take screenshots of every posting I had
made here over a period of several years, a total of more than 400
postings at all, and then print it out and point to a huge stack of
paper and said that all this was all "unethical", without explaining
specifically what was unethical and why. Hal Terrie should never have
allowed such a ridiculous complaint to be filed. I know that some
members of the Ethics Committee voted not to accept this complaint but
they were apparently in the minority.

By the way, Susan Polgar did much the same thing. She filed suit
alleging that all of us had libeled and slandered her to such an
extent that her picture only appeared on the cover of Chess Life
magazine one time whereas she deserved to have it appear on the cover
several times. Then, in a deposition, when asked what specific words
had been uttered that libeled and slandered her, she pointed to a huge
stack of about 15,000 pages and said, "Look there and you will see the
words".

I still have that stack of 15,000 pages in my apartment and I am
looking at it right now. Perhaps I will sell it at Christie's some day
as memorabilia.

As a result, to this day, none of us know why Susan Polgar sued us or
why the USCF had to spend $600,000 to defend this suit. Similarly, we
do not know why Vaughn brought his 400 page "Ethics Complaint" against
me.

[samsloan]

[quote="Randy Bauer"][quote="samsloan"][quote="Randy Bauer"]
[quote="samsloan"][quote="Randy Bauer"][quote="ChessSpawn"]Sam, I'm
not even going to begin to address the factual falsities, half-truths
and misconceptions contained in your latest post. Suffice to say, I
hope a) that you are found in several jurisdictions to be a vexatious
litigant and b) that because of your frivolous legal actions that
continue to cost the USCF money, I hope the delegates expel you from
the USCF. I'm done feeding you on this forum.[/quote]

We don't agree all that often, but I am in total agreement with you
here, Brian.[/quote]

You both seem to be forgetting that Polgar and the USCF filed all the
lawsuits concerned here. I did not file any of them.[/quote]

So, are you paying for the USCF attorney's time to respond to your
'stream of unconsciousness' the past couple of days? You really are
costing the USCF money for absolutely no benefit to the organization -
shame on you.[/quote]

Wait a second. I am responding today to a motion filed by the USCF's
attorney. Moreover, you and especially Bill Goichberg caused this suit
to happen by applying retroactively changes made in the bylaws for the
specific purpose of stopping me from running for election. The
honorable way for you to do this was to let me run and then defeat me
at the ballot box. You knew that you could not do that so you went
this way that you knew would result in litigation.

This is not the first time you have done this. Back in the 2005
election, the time when it was reported that I was dead during the
election period, you ordered the Chess Life staff not to print my
campaign statement, so it was removed from Chess Life and a large
blank space appeared instead. Have you forgotten that one?[/quote]

You have delusions of grandeur that are, well, delusional. Every time
we have been on the ballot together, I have soundly trounced you. I
have no 'fear' of running against you - you are a joke as a candidate
and nobody is buying whatever you are selling. Last and next to last
place finishes don't cause any of us concern about you. You were
elected one time in a special election where nobody cared. You then
proceeded to show by your actions as an EB member that people should
care, because you caused comotion that didn't need to be caused. That
is why you have not been returned to the EB since - it has nothing to
due with any action that I or any member of the EB has taken,
individually or collectively.

Pull yourself together, get a grip on reality and move on. If you
really care about the USCF, stop costing us money with your kook suits
or motions.

Randy Bauer [/quote]

Wait a second. We only ran together two times that I can recall. The
first time was when you were an incumbent and you got them not to
print my candidate's statement in Chess Life and only a blank white
space appeared. Although you had that advantage and the advantage of
incumbency, you only got a few more votes than I did and we both were
defeated.

Many people suggested that i sue over having my candidate's statement
left out of Chess Life, but I did not.

The second time was when you ran as a candidate on the Polgar slate.
Her slate swept the election and all her candidates won. Your victory
had everything to do with her and nothing to do with you.

I am sure she now rues the day when she made you her candidate because
you then defected from her group for which I sincerely thank you.
Otherwise, she would have controlled the majority of the board and
this would now be called the "Susan Polgar Chess Federation" or some
such and the magazine would be called "Polgar Life".

If you really thank you can defeat me in an honest and fair election
on a level playing field, why not hold an election where Bill
Goichberg does not send out 20,000 to 30,000 postcards telling
everybody whom to vote for, and may the best man win.

Sam Sloan

[samsloan]

[quote="mfschulte"][quote="samsloan"]Why should the paid USCF office
staff have been involved in verifying the accuracy of his complaint?[/
quote]

Am I missing omething here? It's *their* policy, isn't it? He complied
with it. Make some sense, man![/quote]

The issue is that his complaint was more than 400 pages long and every
page was in color.

Normally, ten copies are made.

This means that 4,000 (four thousand) color copies were required.

When asked to make black and white pages, he refused, insisting that
all pages be in color.

Sam Sloan

[samsloan]

Actually, if my book publishing company, Ishi Press, had been active
at this time, I would have gladly published Vaughn's 400-page ethics
complaint at no charge.

Just imagine: 400 pages of Sam Sloan postings, in color!

It would sell like hotcakes.

Sam Sloan