The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a document that explains its position in relation to the transition of the IANA functions’ oversight from the US government to the internet community. This publication is a response to an attempt to stop this process made by several conservative American politicians (in particular, Senator Ted Cruz), reports Domain Name Wire. One of their arguments was that transfer of American government’s property is not constitutional and can be blocked by the Congress.
This argument as well as all other turned out to be invalid. The analysis of the GAO is a 29-page document; there is no need to go in detail. Suffice to say that the Accountability Office rightly found that the DNS root zone couldn’t be considered the US government property, therefore a violation of the constitution is not taking place. The document also confirms that the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has every right to withdraw from exercising the control over the IANA functions: it is within its power and no additional Congress permissions are required.
