[address-policy-wg] 2013-03 New Policy Proposal (No Need - Post-Depletion Reality Adjustment and Cleanup)

John, you are really flirting with outright misrepresentation of the facts. 
The NSF letter expressed a detailed legal opinion of the counsel who represents the organization that made the legacy allocations. 
He did not "withdraw" his opinion, he simply stated that it was his legal opinion and not a US government position. But absent legislation, or a court ruling that contradicts the NSF Counsel's decision, the "position" of the NTIA is quite irrelevant. NTIA has no legislative authority and no judicial authority. It can express US government policy, but it cannot dictate law. You know this as well as I. 

So here is the real score: 
 - We have one legal opinion that ARIN has no authority over legacy holders
 - We have NO legal opinions that support ARIN's claim of authority over legacy holders. 
 - We have no court decisions that conclusively rule that ARIN does have authority over legacy holders.
 - We have a broad statement from NTIA which does not directly address that issue.*

Those are the facts. Best to leave it at that. 

* The NTIA statement says only that Regional Internet Registries (RIRS) are responsible for IP address policy development (an uncontested fact); that ARIN is the RIR for North America (another fact) and that the USG "is supportive of the policies, processes, and procedures agreed upon ... through ARIN." This statement completely sidesteps the issue of whether ARIN has authority over legacy holders.  See the IGP blog discussing the principles here: http://www.internetgovernance.org/2012/12/06/ntias-meaningless-numbering-principles/ 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: John Curran [mailto:jcurran at arin.net]
> Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2013 1:13 PM
> To: Milton L Mueller
> Cc: Nick Hilliard; address-policy-wg at ripe.net Group
> Subject: Re: [address-policy-wg] 2013-03 New Policy Proposal (No Need -
> Post-Depletion Reality Adjustment and Cleanup)
> 
> On Mar 26, 2013, at 12:26 PM, Milton L Mueller <mueller at syr.edu> wrote:
> 
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >>
> >> NSF was the USF agency which issued and provided oversight to the
> InterNIC
> >> award performing these exact same functions (and additional ones
> related to
> >> DNS) in the Internet's early years.
> >
> > And here is what the General Counsel of the NSF said about this:
> > http://www.internetgovernance.org/2012/09/22/its-official-legacy-ipv4-
> address-block-holders-own-their-number-blocks/
> 
> Apologies to the RIPE community.  Milton is referencing a letter which was
> followed up by the same person noting that it just his observations and
> not the US government position as NTIA is authoritative in these matters -
> 
>  <https://www.arin.net/resources/legacy/NSF-Rudolph-ARIN-
> 7NOV2012.pdf>
> 
> NTIA subsequently issued the USG's Internet Protocol numbering principles,
> as I noted earlier, including that it recognizes ARIN as the RIR for its
> region and is supportive of ARIN's policies.  Milton hasn't apparently
> updated his blog based on this withdrawal.
> 
> The full set of letters involved (with references) may by found at the
> bottom of this page: <https://www.arin.net/resources/legacy/index.html>
> 
> FYI,
> /John
> 
> John Curran
> President and CEO
> ARIN
> 
>