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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, 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.