Re: Time to act: draft-klyne-msghdr-registry

On 2/11/02 at 9:29 PM +0000, D. J. Bernstein wrote:

> Arnt Gulbrandsen writes:
> > the IETF AD or a designated expert can add a comment such as "don't 
> > implemenent"...
> So the AD can say such a thing without community consensus?
No, they ought not, and if they do, they ought to be held accountable 
for it. (They don't have to start a brand new discussion every time 
they need to judge that consensus, but if they don't, they better 
judge correctly.) Failure to get community consensus or to judge it 
wrongly should result in appeal of their decision and eventual 
removal from their position if they do it regularly.
> If ISOC, IAB, IESG, IANA, et al. allow their names to be attached to 
> such statements, they will be held liable under United States 
> antitrust law for anticompetitive effects of those statements. See
>    http://caselaw.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=456&invol=556
>
> for a Supreme Court decision imposing liability upon an engineering 
> standards organization for giving subcommittee chairs authority to 
> make such statements. The organization ended up paying $4.75 million.
In ASME v. Hydrolevel, the court held ASME liable for the FRAUDULENT 
acts of one of its officers who acted FOR HIS OWN (or in this case, 
his companies) BENEFIT within the scope of his authority. And yes, if 
an ISOC, IAB, IESG, IANA, et. al. member makes a FRAUDULENT statement 
FOR THEIR OWN BENEFIT for an anticompetitive purpose, they (and the 
IETF) might well be held liable for such an action. (Given who was in 
the majority and dissent in that case in that case and the current 
makeup of the court, there might be some question about whether they 
would be held liable, but if they still believe in stare decisis...) 
In any event, I see no reason to believe that the sorts of statements 
we currently see from the IESG and other members of the IETF, 
especially from the likes of Keith, have much of a chance of falling 
under the constraints of the case you cited.
BTW: I am not a lawyer, but you can take the above opinions in light 
of the obscene number of such people in my family and the intro 
constitutional law class I took almost 20 years ago (just about when 
that decision was handed down from the court).
--
Pete Resnick <mailto:presnick(_at_)qualcomm(_dot_)com>
QUALCOMM Incorporated - Direct phone: (858)651-4478, Fax: (858)651-1102