[Rt4-whois] Law Enforcement & Applicable Laws

[Smith, Bill]

Comments inline:

On Feb 16, 2011, at 9:08 AM, Lutz Donnerhacke wrote:

> * Smith, Bill wrote:
>> First, I believe the definitions as presented reasonably capture
>> the sentiment of most, if not all, members of the Review Team
>> (including me).
> 
> Thank you for this approval.
> 
>> My concern is not with the definitions per se, but rather how they
>> might be used in other contexts.
> 
> Current policies does not set up special rules for law enforcement as far as
> I can see.
> 
>> For example, are the "legitimate
>> needs of law enforcement" constrained by Applicable Laws?
> 
> Of course. That is the instrinctive nature of governmental executive bodies:
> They are bound to the law. Private cooperations are also bound to the local
> applicable law.

Are you making a distinction between "Applicable Law", a defined term, and applicable law, an undefined term? If so, then we may be in agreement. Members of society, including corporate entities and law enforcement, are subject to applicable laws, any and all that apply. "Applicable law", undefined, is open to interpretation and subject to change. "Applicable Law", defined term, may have a more limited interpretation and may not be subject to change depending on how we choose to define it.

> 
> But I misread your question. The term "applicable law" in our context deals
> with the laws for the normal business processes in domain registration and
> maintainence: The generation and maintainence of whois data. Your question
> is about access to whois data. That's a different issue.

If I understand your comment, we will have one definition of applicable laws for production, collection, processing, maintenance, etc., and another for use? If that's the case, what is that definition or are we leaving that open to interpretation as suggested above.

Such a definition would need to support the policy as it currently stands which is for unrestricted, public access.

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