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http://www.politico.com/story/2016/09/state-ags-sue-to-stop-internet-transition-228893
Four Republican state attorneys general are suing to stop the Obama administration from transferring oversight of the internet to an international body, arguing the transition would violate the U.S. Constitution. The lawsuit — filed Wednesday in a Texas federal court — threatens to throw up a new roadblock to one of the White House's top tech priorities, just days before the scheduled Oct. 1 transfer of the internet's address system is set to take place.
In their lawsuit, the attorneys general for Arizona, Oklahoma, Nevada and Texas contend that the transition, lacking congressional approval, amounts to an illegal giveaway of U.S. government property. They also express fear that the proposed new steward of the system, a nonprofit known as ICANN, would be so unchecked that it could "effectively enable or prohibit speech on the Internet."
The four states further contend that ICANN could revoke the U.S. government's exclusive use of .gov and .mil, the domains used by states, federal agencies and the U.S. military for their websites. And the four attorneys general argue that ICANN's "current practices often foster a lack of transparency that, in turn, allows illegal activity to occur."
(Score: 4, Informative) by Thexalon on Friday September 30 2016, @01:18PM
As far as I can tell, nobody has been able to sufficiently explain exactly what law or constitutional provision the Obama administration is violating with their plans for ICANN. If the plan doesn't break existing law, then it is a matter for Congress and the President to work out, not the courts.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Friday September 30 2016, @01:47PM
It's violating America being in charge of something of global importance!
We're number 1! (at administering domain names and IP addresses)
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 3, Interesting) by pe1rxq on Friday September 30 2016, @02:51PM
Since it is a list of one the US is currently also the worst at administering domain names and IP addresses.....
(Score: 2, Informative) by slinches on Friday September 30 2016, @01:53PM
They would have been breaking the law this whole time if there's no direct constitutional authority or congress approved law that allows the federal government to administer ICANN.
The Constitution only grants specific, limited, powers to the federal government and reserves everything else for the states.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 30 2016, @02:14PM
direct constitutional authority or congress approved law
What's with the "or"? Without direct constitutional authority, any congress approved law would be unconstitutional.
(Score: 2) by slinches on Friday September 30 2016, @03:17PM
That's true, but it would take a ruling by the courts to overturn the law. Until that happened it would be legal.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 30 2016, @10:01PM
Completely and absolutely wrong: a law that does not have supporting Constitutional authority, even if it was passed by a legislative body including Congress, is in exactly the same state of legality as if that law had never been passed in the first place.
Don't just take logic and my word for it - consult the judges on the US' Supreme Court:
Does this mean that individuals living in the USA are effectively required to use their own minds and in effect become judges of the law? Yes. Does this also mean that "law enforcers" who mindlessly use or threaten to use lethal force against others using such a non-law as justification are literal criminals on the same plane as muggers and home invaders? Yes. I'd rather not see it come to this, but it is also a long-established principle that using lethal force against a police who are acting as criminals is legal and justifiable [constitution.org], even when the cops were acting under orders which happened to be illegal [cornell.edu],
(Score: 1) by Francis on Friday September 30 2016, @10:42PM
That's not even remotely true. That stance requires completely ignoring hundreds of years of governance and legal precedence.
The way we know that a law is unconstitutional is through a ruling by the Supreme Court. If they don't rule it to be unconstitutional, then it effectively is constitutional whether or not it makes any sense.
Also, it's funny what things are in the constitution when it's convenient to strict constructionists despite the lack of any text supporting the view as well as a lack of historical documentation suggesting that the people writing that section of the constitution took that view. I doubt very much that the founding fathers intended for money to be speech, but somehow that's now the interpretation.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 30 2016, @10:58PM
By all means then, back up your claim. I did [soylentnews.org] - making use of very early and later period USSC decisions to back up my claims that unConstitutional laws have the same legal effect as if those same laws had never been passed in the first place.
Can't you offer a rebuttal better than "nuh uh!"?
(Score: 1) by Francis on Saturday October 01 2016, @02:43PM
Take a look around you. It was never constitutional to ban sodomy, and yet that remained on the books and enforced for years. Or, how about the draft? That was never constitutional either as women were excluded from it despite the 14th amendment.
Being able to find a couple links that in no way reflect the way that the legal system has functioned, is not an argument that I'm going to find very persuasive. Those and those are hardly the only instances, it happens regularly.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 01 2016, @04:16PM
The fact that crimes have been committed by US government agents acting under color of law by no means nullifies the fact that such crimes have been committed. By your same logic, it's perfectly legal to legal to beat my girlfriend to a pulp as long as I can escape punishment; obviously this is a ludicrous statement and the reality is that such an act would merely make me a criminal-at-large.
Rather than covering one's eyes to reality and trying to block out the ugliness of it, the only solution that seems to have a chance to stem the tide of rampant criminality by government agents is to embrace reality via awareness of the limitations of government authority and the acknowledgement that acting outside said authority is literally illegal. This may well lead to situations where uniformed criminals need to be dissuaded from their criminal behavior with lethal force, and an example of such a case was already referenced in my first post here [soylentnews.org] in regards to John Bad Elk vs United States. Preferably, though, the knowledge that potential victims recognize criminal acts by gov agents to be the crimes they are and warnings to desist will be sufficient to curb such criminal behavior much like how "normal" home burglars state they greatly fear a confrontation with an armed homeowner.
So, what is the limit to government authority in the USA? It is limited to that of its source, which via the Constitution and the process of delegation of authority is no greater than that of a single human being's. The only exceptions are those with full and voluntary consent, consent which can be withdrawn at any time for any or no reason.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 01 2016, @01:14AM
The way we know that a law is unconstitutional is through a ruling by the Supreme Court. If they don't rule it to be unconstitutional, then it effectively is constitutional whether or not it makes any sense.
"we"? Speak for yourself. That's how our system works in practice, but that's certainly not how reality works. We need authority figures to decide matters at the end of the day, but they can certainly be wrong. It's like you're conflating how the legal system works in practice with how reality itself works, without distinguishing between the two. You even acknowledge the fact that judges can be incorrect when you say "whether or not it makes any sense."
I'm tired of people mindlessly talking about how our legal system works when others simply wanted to talk about what is actually in the Constitution.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Saturday October 01 2016, @02:49PM
Well, no, that's how it works. The constitution is rather short and they don't detail at any point exactly what you'd have to do in order to violate the constitution in many cases.
A good example would be abortion. Is it constitutional to ban abortion because the ban if you ban men from it as well? Or would that be a violation of the 14th amendment because it really only applies to women? Or, how about the 2nd amendment? That one only specifies arms, and that they be held collectively by the well-regulated militias of the country, none of those terms are defined in the constitution and as such, somebody needs to define them.
Just because you choose to not understand how the constitution works or how it was intended to work, doesn't make what I said any less true. Unless you happen to be doing something that is extremely clear cut, you do need a referee to tell you what it means. Because if we have 300 million different people taking views on what the constitution actually means, then we might as well not have one because it's going to be so watered down that only in extreme instances are we going to have consensus on the intent and meaning.
(Score: 1) by tisI on Friday September 30 2016, @02:15PM
Oh, but it sounds important if they drag the constitution into this. Kind of like sabre rattling before a war.
The unwashed masses don't know that these assholes have NO authority here.
"Suppose you were an idiot...and suppose you were a member of Congress...but I repeat myself."
(Score: 4, Informative) by butthurt on Friday September 30 2016, @02:27PM
from the current U.S. constitution (emphasis mine):
The Congress shall have power
To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
To borrow Money on the credit of the United States;
To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;
To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;
To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;
To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current coin of the United States;
To establish Post Offices and post Roads;
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
To constitute Tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court;
To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offenses against the Law of Nations;
To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;
To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;
To provide and maintain a Navy;
To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;
To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;
To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings;—And
To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.
-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_One_of_the_United_States_Constitution#Section_8:_Powers_of_Congress [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by slinches on Friday September 30 2016, @03:20PM
That first sentence applies to everything below. Congress has powers to make laws. They didn't make a law to authorize this action.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Saturday October 01 2016, @01:11AM
I was responding to your previous post in which you wrote
The Constitution only grants specific, limited, powers to the federal government and reserves everything else for the states.
and you seemed to be saying that, for that reason, the U.S. federal government might not have had the power to administer ICANN in the first place.
There was a U.S. Supreme Court case called
McCulloch v. Maryland in which the "necessary and proper" clause I bolded was interpreted as:
Let the end be legitimate, let it be within the scope of the constitution, and all means which are appropriate, which are plainly adapted to that end, which are not prohibited, but consist with the letter and spirit of the constitution, are constitutional.
-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCulloch_v._Maryland [wikipedia.org]
Now you're raising a different point: that the U.S. Congress hasn't given permission for this latest action. In the Wikipedia article about ICANN, someone has written
[...] the U.S. Department of Commerce initiated a process to establish a new organization to perform the IANA functions. On January 30, 1998, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce, issued for comment, "A Proposal to Improve the Technical Management of Internet Names and Addresses." The proposed rule making, or "Green Paper", was published in the Federal Register on February 20, 1998, providing opportunity for public comment.
-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICANN [wikipedia.org]
The article about IANA says:
Prior to the establishment of ICANN primarily for this purpose in 1998, IANA was administered principally by Jon Postel at the Information Sciences Institute (ISI) of the University of Southern California (USC) situated at Marina Del Rey (Los Angeles), under a contract USC/ISI had with the United States Department of Defense, until ICANN was created to assume the responsibility under a United States Department of Commerce contract.
[...]
The Department of Commerce also provides an ongoing oversight function, whereby it verifies additions and changes made in the DNS root zone to ensure IANA complies with its policies.
[...]
On August 16, 2016, the Department of Commerce confirmed that its criteria for transitioning IANA Stewardship transition to the Internet multistakeholder community had been met, and that it intended to allow its contract with ICANN to expire on September 30 2016, allowing the transition to take effect.
-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Assigned_Numbers_Authority [wikipedia.org]
Assuming those things are true, it looks as though the executive branch of the U.S. government has brought about the current situation, and its power to do so has (unless I'm missing something) gone uncontested for a long time. The U.S. Congress may have granted that power in a general way. and the Congress could withdraw it. A Breitbart News article urges it to do so:
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/09/28/obamas-internet-surrender-must-stopped-icann/ [breitbart.com]
The plan to take the impending action was announced in March of 2014:
http://www.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303546204579439653103639452 [wsj.com] (full article paywalled)
If, as the Arizona attorney-general says, the Congress hasn't acted, it looks to me as though they've tacitly given assent.
I'm sure these four attorneys-general have studied the topic carefully and wouldn't have filed the case unless they had a good chance of winning. They wouldn't want to make a spectacle.
Wikipedia cites a pair of essays that explain the transfer:
http://www.diplomacy.edu/blog/iana-stewardship-transition-what-happening-part-i [diplomacy.edu]
http://www.diplomacy.edu/blog/iana-stewardship-transition-what-happening-part-ii [diplomacy.edu]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 01 2016, @01:20AM
McCulloch v. Maryland in which the "necessary and proper" clause I bolded was interpreted as:
That has been applied so broadly that it has effectively made useless the idea that the federal government can only legitimately perform the functions spelled out in the Constitution. It might be convenient when you want the government to do X and taking that insane interpretation would allow it to do so, but it is highly dishonest and those judges were authoritarians.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bradley13 on Friday September 30 2016, @03:36PM
Ah, the great debate: what does "general welfare" mean? Some of the founders claimed that this term was implicitly defined by the list of everything else that follows this introductory paragraph. That is to say: the general welfare includes borrowing money, regulating commerce, establishing rules for naturalization - and nothing more. Others claimed that it included anything the government decided to spend money on. The latter interpretation frankly makes no sense, because then there would have been no reason for the enumerated list. However, such a list would limit the power of politicians, so the expansive interpretation won out. Would things have been different, with more careful editing?
Note also the distinction between armies and militia. A militia is a part-time, non-professional organization, whereas an army is full-time and professional. The US government, by it's own Constitution, can only have an army for limited amounts of time, or at least is only allowed to finance an army for two years at a time. This might come as a surprise to the military-industrial complex. There is also no explicit tie between the extraordinary financing of an army, and a declaration of war (the US hasn't been at war since World War II, surprise, surprise). Likely another case of something the founders thought was obvious, that should have been made explicit.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 4, Funny) by bradley13 on Friday September 30 2016, @02:36PM
"The Constitution only grants specific, limited, powers to the federal government and reserves everything else for the states."
You have got to be kidding [tellwut.com]. The Wikipedia article listing of all the federal agencies [wikipedia.org] (4741 words) is literally longer than the text of the Constitution [archives.gov] (4505 words).
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by slinches on Friday September 30 2016, @03:24PM
Yeah, blatant disregard for the Constitution is blatant.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 30 2016, @04:06PM
You have got to be kidding. The Wikipedia article listing of all the federal agencies (4741 words) is literally longer than the text of the Constitution (4505 words).
Which is what you'd expect if you understand the purpose of the Constitution. It is meant to be the guiding principles and the rules by which actors operate. The actual details will of course be far more comprehensive.
For example, consider the principles of basketball (two teams of 5 compete to throw a ball into a hoop more in a timelimit) compared to the rulebook (what happens if one person touches another player, when is it "charging" vs a "foul", what are the penalties for it, etc).
Likewise consider the principle "thou shalt not kill" versus the actual rules (what about self-defense, what about defense of others, what about protection of property, what if the community supports this specific action).
The Constitution is closer to Roberts Rules of Order [wikipedia.org] and to a company's Vision Statement [wikipedia.org]. That doesn't make it any less significant, but don't expect to see under what conditions a neighbor can cut the branches of a tree rooted in your property within it.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by tisI on Friday September 30 2016, @02:08PM
Yeah, I was choking on that point too. The US doesn't "own" the internet.
What part of the constitution is being threatened, and since when has any republican ever respected the American constitution? CRAB surely didn't as well as any other republican sodomite before or since.
It's election season. Time to grandstand and make the masses think they are doing something good for the dolts that vote for them. It'll pass once the election's over, then they'll resume sucking off the corporations that own them.
"Suppose you were an idiot...and suppose you were a member of Congress...but I repeat myself."
(Score: 1) by Francis on Friday September 30 2016, @10:39PM
The reason this is happening is that the government abused the position of trust involved with controlling ICANN and did things like steal domain names for services that were illegal in the US, but not illegal in foreign countries.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 30 2016, @11:36PM
ICANN'T