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Bush Administration Stops Microsoft Breakup

The U.S. Department of Justice announced that it had been instructed by the Bush Administration to cease its drive to break up Microsoft, which has already been found guilty of violating U.S. anti-trust law in a complaint filed by the Federal Government and 19 states. See the BBC or CNN for more. It isn't clear what wristslap, errr, remedy the Justice Department will seek instead. Update: 09/06 15:21 PM GMT by M : Declan McCullagh of Wired notes: "The text of the DOJ announcement is here. Wired News has an article. Also, the DOJ says a 'Senior Antitrust Division Official' will brief reporters at the department's DC headquarters at 11:30 am ET, so look for some followup stories from that."

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  1. Naive and incorrect by werdna · · Score: 4, Flamebait

    Clearly your position is grounded more in a kneejerk bias to defend the President, regardless of the merits, than an informed understanding of what is going on, or a valid criticism of the original posting.

    Bottom line, the President is absolutely answerable for this (although it may well be the right thing to do from a legal perspective). Writing "state senators" can and will accomplish nothing.

    First, the Department of Justice is an agency of the Executive Branch of Government, that is to say, they work for the President of the United States. John Ashcroft was appointed by, and serves at the pleasure of, the President. While he is sometimes granted autonomy as a matter of course, Ashcroft would take no position contrary to the wishes of the President. You may recall not too long ago, when Richard Nixon sought to have "independent counsel" Archibald Cox sacked -- two officers resigned office (or were asked to resign) rather than follow their boss' instructions. Only Robert Bork, one of the few remaining executives in DOJ who hadn't resigned, agreed to follow those instructions.

    Now, just so you understand -- the Department of Justice are the lawyers for the United States Government. If they drop the case, the U.S. government will not proceed. Furthermore, and far more important, the House and the Senate have no constitutional authority to enforce any law against anyone (except a case for impeachment), presuming that, by "state senators," you meant the Senators representing your state in the Federal Senate. Your state senators wouldn't have much to say about anything -- except the cases brought by particular states -- and they would likewise be constrained under their respective state constitution separation of powers from acting against any company. You might write your governor, if you wanted to continue seeking structural relief, for all the good it will do you.