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Executive Order 13757 🏛️✅ Zone 1: Maximum Authority Constitutional Neutral (+0.06) 📜 Art. I §8: Delegated Tariff & Commerce Execution

Executive Order 13757—Taking Additional Steps To Address the National Emergency With Respect to Significant Malicious Cyber-Enabled Activities

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Wednesday, December 28, 2016
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4 min read (785 words)
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82 Fed. Reg. 1

Executive Brief • At a Glance

⏱️ 4 min read (785 words) • ● In Effect
🎯 Primary Mandate

Section 1(a) of Executive Order 13694 is hereby amended to read as follows: "Section 1.

⚖️ Constitutional Footing
🏛️✅ Zone 1: Maximum Authority
Express or Implied Congressional Authorization
📜 Art. I §8: Delegated Tariff & Commerce Execution
🏛️ Scope & Affected Sectors
Merchants, Importers & Commercial Enterprises Sovereign State Governments & Localities Executive Departments & Federal Civil Servants Foreign Nations & International Entities

Plain-English Translation & Framers' Constitutional Analysis

Early Statesman synthesis distilling legal jargon into practical meaning, statutory anchors, and structural constitutional impacts.

Signed by President Barack Obama on December 28, 2016, this order concerns Taking Additional Steps To Address the National Emergency With Respect to Significant Malicious Cyber-Enabled Activities. Section 1(a) of Executive Order 13694 is hereby amended to read as follows: "Section 1. (a) All property and interests in property that are in the United States, that hereafter come within the United States, or that are or hereafter come within the possession or control of any United States person of the following persons are blocked and may not be transferred, paid, exported, withdrawn, or otherwise dealt in: (i)…

Constitutional Assessment: This action represents an orderly exercise of Article II administrative discretion, managing the internal machinery and personnel of the executive branch without abridging the ancient liberties of the people.

Key Directives & Operative Actions

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Section 1(a) of Executive Order 13694 is hereby amended to read as follows: "Section 1.

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All property and interests in property that are in the United States, that hereafter come within the United States, or that are or hereafter come within the possession or control of any United States person of the following persons are blocked and may not be transferred, paid, exported, withdrawn, or otherwise dealt in: (i) the persons listed in the Annex to this order; (ii) any person determined by the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Attorney General and the Secretary of State, to be responsible for or complicit in, or to have engaged in, directly or indirectly, cyber-enabled activities originating from, or directed by persons located, in whole or in substantial part, outside the United States that are reasonably…

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Executive Order 13694 is further amended by adding as an Annex to Executive Order 13694 the Annex to this order.

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Executive Order 13694 is further amended by redesignating section 10 as section 11 and adding a new section 10 to read as follows: "Sec. 10.

Constitutional & Societal Entities Impacted

🏛️ Merchants, Importers & Commercial Enterprises 🏛️ Sovereign State Governments & Localities 🏛️ Executive Departments & Federal Civil Servants 🏛️ Foreign Nations & International Entities 🏛️ Financial Institutions & Monetary Authorities
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The Framers' Constitutional Council

1787 Prism

Evaluating this order against the constitutional debates of 1787 and the limits of Article II executive power.

🏛️✅ Zone 1 (Maximum Authority)
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"When the President acts pursuant to an express or implied authorization of Congress, his authority is at its maximum, for it includes all that he possesses in his own right plus all that Congress can delegate."

— Justice Robert H. Jackson, Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer (1952) Express or Implied Congressional Authorization
JM

James Madison

Separation of Powers & Legislative Primacy

"The constitutional magistracy was designed not to invent policy, but to be the faithful instrument of the laws passed by the people's representatives." — Speech in the First Congress (1789)

Madison would approve the structural posture of this order. The President acts strictly in subordination to statutory authority granted under Article II, Section 3 ("take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed"). The checks and balances hold firm because the policy origin remains with the legislature.

Madisonian Stance: Concurring (Statutory)
AH

Alexander Hamilton

The Energetic Executive & Unified Command

"The direction of war implies the direction of the common strength; and the power of directing and employing the common strength must be under the direction of the single hand of the Executive." — Federalist No. 74 (1788)

Hamilton would forcefully champion executive discretion here. For foreign entanglements, commerce defense, and national security, deliberative assemblies are too slow and faction-ridden. A unified, energetic Executive exercising swift command is precisely what the Philadelphia Convention intended for national preservation.

Hamiltonian Stance: Supportive of Execution
GM

George Mason

Bill of Rights, Due Process & 10th Amendment

"The president will be surrounded by flatterers and sycophants... and the great powers of the executive will gradually absorb the liberties of the people." — Cato IV (Anti-Federalist, 1787)

The Anti-Federalist prism advises continuous democratic vigilance. Even routine administrative directives aggregate centralized federal power away from town halls and state assemblies toward a distant executive apparatus.

Anti-Federalist Stance: Eternal Vigilance Required
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Five Measurable "Constitutional Friction" Dimensions

An objective audit measuring potential separation-of-powers tension against the United States Constitution and established Supreme Court doctrine.

⚖️ Discretionary Twilight Zone
45 / 100 friction index
Dimension 1 • Art. I, §1 & §8

Legislative Encroachment & Purse

Moderate Friction

Administers commerce or fiscal programs requiring ongoing statutory delegation and legislative oversight.

Benchmark: Power of the purse, taxes/tariffs, and rule of law reserved to Congress.
Dimension 2 • Art. II, §1 & §3

Executive Scope & Faithfulness

High Friction

Invokes broad unilateral or emergency executive authorities that test the constitutional boundary of the Take Care Clause.

Benchmark: Faithfully execute laws enacted by Congress vs. unilateral decree.
Dimension 3 • 10th Amendment

Federalism & State Sovereignty

Moderate Friction

Engages state and local partners in cooperative federalism programs.

Benchmark: Police powers and un-delegated responsibilities reserved to the States.
Dimension 4 • 5th & 14th Amendments

Due Process & Individual Rights

Low Friction

Focuses on internal governmental operations with no direct impairment of private rights or property.

Benchmark: Protection of private property, contracts, liberty, and procedural justice.
Dimension 5 • Separation of Powers

Youngstown Jacksonian Tier

Low Friction

The President operates strictly as the constitutional Chief Executive, carrying out policy established by Congress with strong statutory backing.

Benchmark: Express or Implied Congressional Authorization
⚖️ Audit Synthesis

This order operates within Justice Jackson’s Zone of Twilight, resting upon concurrent presidential authority or congressional silence.

Weighted composite: Art. I (25%), Art. II (25%), Federalism (15%), Due Process (15%), Youngstown (20%).
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How to read these dimensions: Executive power expands whenever an administration acts without explicit statutory authorization from Congress (Article I), touches upon police powers historically reserved to the states (Tenth Amendment), or limits private rights and property without judicial process. A low friction score indicates strict concordance with enacted law; a high friction score highlights orders testing the limits of presidential discretion.
Total Words
785
4,869 characters
Estimated Read Time
4 min
@ 200 words / min
Flesch-Kincaid
27.5
Post-Graduate Legal
Language Tone Score
+0.06
Constitutional Neutral
How is this scored?
Text size:

Official Archival Text

View Source Document
📑Sections Outline (5 sections)

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq .) (IEEPA), the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1601 et seq .) (NEA), and section 301 of title 3, United States Code, I, Barack Obama, President of the United States of America, in order to take additional steps to deal with the national emergency with respect to significant malicious cyber-enabled activities declared in Executive Order 13694 of April 1, 2015, and in view of the increasing use of such activities to undermine democratic processes or institutions, hereby order:

Section 1 . #sec-1

Section 1(a) of Executive Order 13694 is hereby amended to read as follows: "Section 1. (a) All property and interests in property that are in the United States, that hereafter come within the United States, or that are or hereafter come within the possession or control of any United States person of the following persons are blocked and may not be transferred, paid, exported, withdrawn, or otherwise dealt in: (i) the persons listed in the Annex to this order; (ii) any person determined by the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Attorney General and the Secretary of State, to be responsible for or complicit in, or to have engaged in, directly or indirectly, cyber-enabled activities originating from, or directed by persons located, in whole or in substantial part, outside the United States that are reasonably likely to result in, or have materially contributed to, a significant threat to the national security, foreign policy, or economic health or financial stability of the United States and that have the purpose or effect of: (A) harming, or otherwise significantly compromising the provision of services by, a computer or network of computers that support one or more entities in a critical infrastructure sector; (B) significantly compromising the provision of services by one or more entities in a critical infrastructure sector; (C) causing a significant disruption to the availability of a computer or network of computers; (D) causing a significant misappropriation of funds or economic resources, trade secrets, personal identifiers, or financial information for commercial or competitive advantage or private financial gain; or (E) tampering with, altering, or causing a misappropriation of information with the purpose or effect of interfering with or undermining election processes or institutions; and (iii) any person determined by the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Attorney General and the Secretary of State: (A) to be responsible for or complicit in, or to have engaged in, the receipt or use for commercial or competitive advantage or private financial gain, or by a commercial entity, outside the United States of trade secrets misappropriated through cyber-enabled means, knowing they have been misappropriated, where the misappropriation of such trade secrets is reasonably likely to result in, or has materially contributed to, a significant threat to the national security, foreign policy, or economy of the United States; (B) to have materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for, or goods or services to or in support of, any activity described in subsections (a)(ii) or (a)(iii)(A) of this section or any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order; (C) to be owned or controlled by, or to have acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order; or (D) to have attempted to engage in any of the activities described in subsections (a)(ii) and (a)(iii)(A)-(C) of this section."

Sec. 2 . #sec-2

Executive Order 13694 is further amended by adding as an Annex to Executive Order 13694 the Annex to this order.

Sec. 3 . #sec-3

Executive Order 13694 is further amended by redesignating section 10 as section 11 and adding a new section 10 to read as follows: "Sec. 10. The Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Attorney General and the Secretary of State, is hereby authorized to determine that circumstances no longer warrant the blocking of the property and interests in property of a person listed in the Annex to this order, and to take necessary action to give effect to that determination."

Sec. 4 . #sec-4

This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

Sec. 5 . #sec-5

This order is effective at 12:01 a.m. eastern standard time on December 29, 2016. BARACK OBAMA The White House, December 28, 2016.

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Referenced By Later Executive Orders (5)

Subsequent presidents who cited, amended, continued, or revoked this directive in later orders.

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Scholarly & Legal Citations

Exec. Order No. 13,757, 82 Fed. Reg. 1 (Dec. 28, 2016).