Fortunately, we haven't thrown out the ability of the executive branch to regulate, as they very clearly regulated many things before 1984. And if there is ambi

Fortunately, we haven't thrown out the ability of the executive branch to regulate, as they very clearly regulated many things before 1984. And if there is ambiguity as to the authority of an executive agency to make rules within the scope of power given by congress, deferring to the agency by default seems to me to be a bad idea. For example, I would argue that almost all "strict scrutiny" decisions about free speech explicitly do NOT defer to the agency despite the agency having a "reasonable" interpretation of their scope of power, that's half the reason such cases make their way to the Supreme Court. The government is arguing their position is reasonable. And it might well be "reasonable" but the judicial and legislative history of the country requires applying a "strict scrutiny" standard, not a "reasonable" standard. It's my opinion that overall we are better for that, and when the law is ambiguous, the executive branch should get their say, but they shouldn't get special consideration.