Re: The Green Paper is One Small Component

[Jim Dixon <jdd at vbc.net>]

On Thu, 19 Mar 1998, David W. Morris wrote:

> The Green Paper:
> 
>  1.  Ackowledges the historical role of the US Government in funding
>      the Internet infrastructure

Actually it claims that its relatively small cash contribution to the 
Internet infrastructure provides it with a legal basis for ...

>  2.  Asserts that careful transistion to a new world is necessary to avoid
>      disrruption of what has rapidly become an important world wide
>      resource.
>  3.  Suggests that some some small finite number of new TLDs be created to
>      allow careful evaluation of the impact of such a change on the
>      structure of the internet.

   4.  Claims that the US government has jurisdiction over the domain name
       system and the allocation of IP address space.
 
> The paper repeatedly asks for comment. This paper is proposed as a roadmap
> for how the US Government gets out of the internet in a responsible way.

This Green Paper does say that this is their objective.  But they 
begin their arguments by carefully grounding their actions in US
law, specifically by proving that the US has jurisdiction.  

This may seem harmless now.  It might prove very different when the
next administration cites this as a legal precedent when it decides,
for example, that the Internet is a munition, or Cuba should not be
on the Internet, or whatever else is in the interest of some pressure
group.

--
Jim Dixon                  VBCnet GB Ltd           http://www.vbc.net
tel +44 117 929 1316                             fax +44 117 927 2015