At 06:25 PM 1/21/99 -0400, you wrote:
* * *
>** 1/19/99:
>"ICANN is not a governance institution,
>but a narrowly focused technical body charged with certain policymaking
>and coordination tasks. * * *
>
>kerry
>
Hidden in the above is the quote I retained, and I wouldn't even begin to try
to track back through to discover who wrote it. In any event, there's a slip
'twixt the cup and the lip here. The way this US government works, there
are legislative policy issues and administrative paper-pushing issues. The
Congress is not authorized to delegate its fundamental policy-making role
to any administrative agency. "Policy" in the sense of "we'll use this code,
nobody gets to do thus and so 'cause it will screw up the computers, we'll
charge $X for whatever, . . . " are technical issues that can be delegated to
an administrative body. Policies that impinge significantly on the manner
in which existing legislation (i.e., the Lanham Act) functions involve
legislative
decisions that are not delegable to an administrative agency. As someone
in this august group quite wisely suggested a while back, "can you imagine
what would have happened if they had first established the FCC and then the
(whatever Communications Act it was)?" Here we have not just one but a
plethora of alphabet-soup type bureaucracies trying to "write" laws that
are wrenching about the very entrails of the Lanham Act, under the color
of law but without the authority of law. Guess I'd better go bone up on the
Civil Rights Acts. (I might mention that this is not a new thing: the U. S.
Patent and Trademark Office, particularly in its Trademark hat, very often
adopts "policies" that are quickly squashed by the Court of Appeals for the
Federal Circuit, if not by that body's own Board of Appeals -- I have one on
appeal right now that I expect to win.)
Bill Lovell
Bill Lovell
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