Re: PAB The green paper has no legal authority.
K S LIM (ks_lim@logchina.com.sg)
Tue, 03 Feb 1998 16:43:20 +0930
Perry E. Metzger wrote:
>
> A couple of people have sent me mail saying, in one case almost
> literally, "Ira Magaziner has the U.S. military's bombs, we don't,
> game over." "The U.S. Army has nuclear weapons" one credulous person
> has said to me.
>
> To those saying this, I'd like to say: you've been brainwashed.
>
> Ira Magaziner is NOT the commander in chief of the military, nor is he
> in a position to go out and bomb your offices, or send troops to shoot
> you, nor would such an order be legal, and no army officer would obey it.
>
> More importantly, and more seriously, Ira Magaziner has NO LEGAL BASIS
> for issuing his dictat. No law authorizes the U.S. Government to
> regulate or take action in this area, and the U.S. executive branch
> only gets to act when it has legal authority granted by the Congress.
>
> The US Government is a government of LAWS, not a dictatorship. People
> often forget this, and assume the executive can just order anyone to
> do anything, but it cannot. It has to have a law in order to act --
> and it has no law in this case, and thus no authority. If it did have
> a law, it would likely be forced (before rulemaking) to follow a
> detailed procedure, including publication of regulations in the
> federal register, holding of hearings, etc. No such activity has taken
> place.
>
> In short, Ira Magaziner's "Green Paper" is just that -- a green piece
> of paper. It has no legal basis, no standing. Legally, its just his
> office's opinion.
>
> If you disobey it, at worst, he can sue you -- maybe. I'm sure he
> wouldn't want you to think this, but I can't see any basis for
> believing otherwise.
>
> In a situation like this, if you disobey Mr. Magaziner, what can he,
> in practice, do to you? You have broken no law. He had no legal
> authority to make his statement in the first place. Given this, who
> are the courts going to get mad at? Certainly not anyone following the
> currently written U.S. Code, which, as I noted, doesn't seem to have a
> section on "executive issuing unilateral orders without hearings to
> private citizens on what they can do with DNS servers".
>
> Perry
Dear Perry
Well said!
Best regards.
--
KS LIM
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