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CPSR's Working Group to Prepare for the Year 2000

by Marsha Woodbury

CPSR News Volume 15, Number 4: Fall 1997

The CPSR Y2k Working Group is forming to help educate people about the potential impact of the Year 2000 problem and to work to mitigate its effects on society, organizations, and individuals.

The increasing attention given to the Y2k problem continues to prompt more crisis scenarios stories in the media. The Working Group members foresee a high probability of a major panic, with people possibly pulling money out of banks, selling stocks and bonds, and doing other things that would disrupt social and economic order world-wide.

Ironically, this frenzy could be more disruptive than the events directly related to Y2k. Leadership is needed to raise public awareness about the nature and ramifications of the year 2000 problem without causing panic. If successful, the CPSR Working Group will provide a voice of moderation in an arena where the extremes of doom and gloom, on the one hand, and complacency, on the other, are hampering efforts to rasie awareness.

Is the problem as bad as the media suggest? Here are some ramifications:

• Incorrect date processing may affect many types of automated systems, making businesses unable to process orders, dispatch invoices, calculate payments, process transactions and so on.
• Government may not be able to dispatch emergency crews, pay vendors, or process tax payments.
• Embedded chips in many types of equipment such as traffic lights, cash registers, automobiles, and other equipment with or without date processing functions may become inoperable.

The Working Group has formulated the following statement of principles:

"CPSR believes that governments and organizations worldwide must immediately address the very serious threat posed to individuals, organizations, governments, and economies by the Year 2000 computer problem. The Year 2000 computer problem, a threat that could seriously disrupt our economic and social systems.

"We will seek to promote awareness, mitigation, contingency planning, and preparedness. In particular, CPSR will seek to speak and act for the segments which do not have extensive resources or organized groups to speak for them. We will seek to foster a sense of urgency at all levels, local, national, and global, while helping the public and the media understand the prepare for the impact of the Y2k problem.

"Finally, we will urge government and business leaders to step up to this challenge and provide leadership, education, and prevention."

To learn more about this issue, you can review the articles and sites on CPSR's Y2k page at http://www.cpsr.org/issues/millen.html.

CPSR maintains a listserv (cpsr-y2k@cpsr.org) where this issue is discussed.

Several members of the CPSR-Y2k discussion list are working to develop the role for CPSR the Y2k Working Group. They are
Norman Kurland, kurlandn@crisny.org
Dick Mills ,dmills@albany.net
Steve Davis, steve451@erols.com
Don (Doc) Taylor, docdon@pobox.com

Marsha Woodbury is the Chair of CPSR's Board of Directors, as well as a member of the Y2k Working Group. You can reach her by phone at 217-244-4643, or email at marsha-w@uiuc.edu. Her web address is http://alexia.lis.uiuc.edu/~woodbury/.

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