184 ◾ Kevin R. Kosar
Legal
Government agencies are born from laws, and laws both create and curb the agen-
cy’s authority for action. Some agencies, for example, may collect taxes and fees;
others may not. Every government public relations practitioner should have some
familiarity with the statutes that encourage and limit his agency’s work. Ideally, he
also should become familiar with any adjudications on these laws, whether a court
ruling or the ocial perspective of an enforcement agency. Not only is it the right
thing to do, but it can give the practitioner a real sense of what is permissible and
what is not, and keep him from putting his agency in legal jeopardy.
In the United States, the federal government has two sorts of statutory controls ...