Gordon Cook wrote: > I have seen an assertion the beckwith burr at the CATO insititute in answer > to a question threatened to turn ICANN into a government contractor to > render it immune from suit. > > I consider this to be an irrelevant threat for the following reasons. > > Let's say she were foolish enough to try it an d ICANN is declared to be an > instrumentality of the US gov 't. > > 1. overnight all pretense that ICANN is international vanishes > > 2. if NTIA has no legally defensible authority to to act in this arena, it > certainly has no authority to turn Icann into an instrument of the US > government via a grant of immunity from suit. > By the same reasoning, NSF and NTIA shouldn't be able to immunize NSI. Of course, the DC Circuit's opinion in the domain tax case hinted strongly that that is exactly how it would rule if a case where the plaintiff had standing to file an antitrust claim against NSI were brought before it. > 3. if it did do this, then an instrumentality of the US gov't is subject > to gov't constraints, subject to FOIA and subject to the administrative > procedures act and other mandates for openness and accountability - > requirements that ICANN could not afford to have imposed on it. Then why isn't NSI subject to the same constraints?
