The attorneys general of Arizona, Oklahoma, Texas and Nevada filed alawsuit asking a US federal district court to prohibit the Department of Commerce from allowing the IANA stewardship transition to happen. The plaintiffs  argue that: 'The U.S. government has long exercised exclusive control over who may edit the Root Zone File that ties together the Internet, and that abandoning this government property right requires Congressional authorization; Absent a firm guarantee that ICANN will protect free speech, converting what has been a public forum into a private one would violate the First Amendment; NTIA violated administrative law by failing to build an adequate record and respond to public comment on the matter; NTIA lacks statutory authority to cede responsibility over the Domain Name System; and by failing to secure U.S. ownership of .GOV, NTIA is tortiously interfering with the contracts that states hold for their .GOV domain names'.