[address-policy-wg] Legal counsel on 2008-08 (Initial Certification Policy in the RIPE NCC Service Region)

On Mon, May 9, 2011 at 3:34 PM, Sander Steffann <sander at steffann.nl> wrote:
> Sascha,
>
>>> "There is no specific Dutch legislation that can be used to order the
>>> deregistration of Internet number resources or change the registration
>>> details of Internet number resources. Nor is there any legislation
>>> that applies to the revocation of certificates over Internet number
>>> resources."
>>>
>>> What you are looking for is legislation (as pointed out by Malcom)
>>> that can be used to restrict/control access to the internet which
>>> appears to exist at least at a European level
>>
>> There is an unfortunate tendency in lawmaking these days towards formulating legislation is such a broad way that it includes "use
>> cases" they may have forgotten about or not thought of when writing
>> it.
>> Not the word "specific" in the above, this does not mean that applicable
>> legislation does not exist!
>
> You miss the next sentence of the legal advise:
> "In the absence of such legislation, a court cannot order the revocation of certificates."
>
> I think the legal statement (when read as a whole, not cherry-picking the parts you like) was clear enough.
> Sander

Now if the statement could only guarantee for the future that it no
court could do anything of the sort, it'd actually be useful.  Since
it doesn't, I think the sensible thing to do is to account for the
fact that laws can change (and that lawyers are... highly creative,
and can launch attacks that force you to prove them wrong just to get
back to status quo) when choosing what model to use for securing the
internet.

I remember Gordon Brown of the UK used then-recent British anti-terror
laws to cease Icelandic money, btw. I wonder how many legal counsels
could foresee that. :)

Kind Regards,
Martin