Prohibition vs. Regulation Debated As U.S. Bettors Use Foreign Sites

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...l?hpid=topnews

Please digg at http://digg.com/business_finance/Was..._Poker_Debated .

lol at lobbying for attempts to regulate and subject to the jurisdiction and laws of the usa foreign companies involved in internet commerce whose operating purpose is only the delivery and sharing of information and data.

lemme guess, the usa government is gearing up in spouting that the commerce clause now encompasses the entire globe and now covers the transport and delivery of data and information (i.e. free speech, internet). brilliant. the chinese approach for teh win.

Nice , well stated

The Commerce Clause allows the federal government to do exactly what you just said. The Commerce Clause is a merely a restriction on the rights of states to do that without Congressional authorization.

there is no constitution and no statutory authority giving neither the federal central government nor the individual states the power to prohibit/allow outbound/inbound universally agreed and recognized computer data packets via the internet to people's homes (or personal computers). i would love to see a legal citation (from a statute or from the constitution) proving my opinion wrong though.

I'd rather see a legal citation (from a statute or from the constitution) proving your opinion right. It could really come in handy for us.

As for the Constitution, I'm not a lawyer but it does seem that the federal government has the power to regulate commerce. They regulate plenty of existing commerce. This is among the powers of Congress listed in Article I, Section 8 (i.e., the Commerce Clause): "To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes." I'll leave further legal analysis to the lawyers here.

Congress has certainly taken the position that they have the power to regulate this. There have been convictions under the Wire Act, including Jay Cohen's conviction, that have been upheld by the courts. I hope poker players can win this right, but I'd certainly not recommend that we put all our eggs in this basket.

saying the government is going to allow/disallow internet gambling is like saying the government is now going to allow/block certain thoughts in our minds.
the govt does not own the internet, and they certainly cannot control its movement and function no matter how much propaganda and ignorant journalism saying the contrary. they can of course begin to try, but that would require a regime shift and implementation of authoritarian policies a la china. even then, the chinese way of control is elementary technically. they use a country wide filter that any person with minimal computer expertise can bypass.

i continue to read these silly newspapers and articles implying the govt can control this and that and i shudder at the ignorance and poor journalistic professionalism, but in the end i laugh cuz it's all entertaining. like fox news.

te,

you say the commerce clause gives authority to prohibit/allow outbound/inbound universally agreed and recognized computer data packets via the internet to people's homes (or personal computers). the ball is on your court to prove this. u can start by giving me a statute enacting such philosophy and invoking such powers--to prohibit/allow computer packets between computers via the internet. then if u're feeling generous u can give me a real life example of implementation of such powers in the usa and the resulting enforcement by law enforcement of such.

congress has taken the position that they can regulate anything, anywhere. what matters is enforcement. what good is legislation without proper enforcement.

as to jay cohen. the usa govt was helpless in stopping mr. cohen's business had he chosen to stay out of the usa. they couldn't technically stop him (they have no way of allowing/prohibiting computer packets via the internet which is the point to my last previous posts in this thread) and they had/have no jurisdiction and enforcement power (no extradition treaty, no interpol on gambling) on gambling issues internationally. they only "got" him when he came to them to the usa in person.

The Wire Act, for one.

wire act=telephone lines and radio signals
what i'm talking about=internet protocols and interconnected computer networks

we're getting a bit technical, but since u seem so sure, surely u can come up with a statute giving the govt. power to allow/disallow any internet protocol and the transfer of any internet data packet on any computer network.

The Wire Act was interpreted as applying to computer packets in Jay Cohen's case.

It's not like I want Congress to have this power. All I'm saying is that they claim to already have it.

Yeah the federal government isn't given the power to have anything to do with public education either yet they have a department of education and NLCB. Basically the 10th amendment (and the Constitution in general) is dead.

When the WTO ruled that the US trade commitments were violated through their prosecution of online gaming sites, the US withdrew from that commitment. The Bush admin does not give a rats *** about trade commitments.

Yes, the Bush admin also wants to rule the world and impose US jurisdiction on the internet. Unless the world cares, the US will impose its jurisdiction on the internet, including its moral crusade on things such as gaming.

Will the Obama admin be any different?

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...oryId=15037223

The story is kind of old, but I've seen other newer ones. The story doesn't make it explicit, but it does look like this was a civil case, I'm not sure if the statute(s) at issue are criminal at all.

Regardless, the record companies sued under federal statutes regulating this area. Essentially the statutes say something like "it is illegal to send or receive copyrighted material over the internet."

As to your Commerce Clause argument. The best way to understand the clause (without getting into a lot of details) is IF the commerce crosses state borders THEN the Feds have the exclusive right to regulate it. SO all e-commerce, and all internet transactions are within the commerce clause.

That means you can make the sale of certain things illegal too, across the board. And sometimes even if its never intended to leave the state (http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/06/06/sc...ana/index.html).


I know you're going to say "but the servers are abroad, the Feds can't block access to those servers, and can't prosecute the sites." This is true. However, no one really cares about that. But that doesn't mean the Feds (if online poker were made expressly illegal) can't raid people's houses here, and arrest them for doing something that is illegal. That's what we all care about. Just like IRS does this if someone is breaking the law with offshore accounts (which are legal there, but not here, or are used here in an illegal way).



edit: Just to add, the federal government rarely does anything like actively tries to ban a certain thing. For example like actually blocking access to poker sites. Rather, it just prosecutes you after if you're caught doing it. For example, the Federal government doesn't really actively go out looking for certain banned assault rifles (ie the Brady Bill), it just throws you in jail if you're caught possessing one. The Feds don't go around blocking access to kiddie porn web sites (even though it's illegal), or kazaa type web sites/services. They just prosecute you if you're caught using them. So it's nothing new to say the government won't actually block access to the poker sites, it doesn't do that with anything else anyway.

the article states that " A federal judge ordered a Minnesota woman to ante up thousands of dollars for violating copyright laws"

being in possession of illegal or stolen stuff has nothing to do with what i'm talking about. i'm talking about the government systematically monitoring, identifying, and potentially blocking specific computer data packets passing thru interconnected networks across the globe.

i first raised the point that imo neither the central government nor the states have such statutory authority. i mean a law giving any government on this planet jurisdiction or ownership over the exchange of information and free speech on the internet is just laughably (for moral and technical reasons) bad. any person or government that thinks or says differently has a technical misunderstanding on what the internet is and how it works and has pretty crappy morals and a messed up belief system (think south korea).

now even if for argument's sake the central government or the states do have such authority, it's a crappy authority to have since they have no enforcement mechanism to act on such authority in any capacity. what good is a law if you cannot enforce its application? the govt in this country is not technologically equipped to monitor every individual internet data packet sent and received nor do they have the capability to then pick and choose which packets to allow and which to block. internet service providers may have some capability in this regard, however, isp's are not the government and the scope and reach of their powers over internet traffic is quite limited because of privacy and technical reasons.

the proof is in the pudding. there are still a bunch of sports betting sites, casino sites and poker sites operating on the internet. if the government could block operators, in particular "criminal" sports betting operators, don't u think they would have done so already?

i see what u're getting at. i just chuckle when i see or hear an ignoramus politician or a misinformed journalist bring forth the notion that u can control the information exchange on the internet (e.g. ban/allow online gambling). lol they have no power/influence to ban any gambling on the internet. so many politicians are so deep in their power trip and so into their god-like complexes that they constantly forget that there are things humans do that they still cannot control.

The article I linked is NOT about a possessory offense. The thing being punished is DISTRIBUTION over the internet. Just like with narcotics distribution crimes, possession is not an element of the crime. The thing being punished is the act of GIVING it to someone else. Incidently, you don't even have to sell it for it to be a narcotics distribution crime. They can charge you with narcotics POSSESSION but it's a different crime.

Again, it's the act of using the internet to download/send copyrighted material.

They are copyright laws, but the law says don't send/recieve copyrighted stuff, and provides statutory remedies to the copyright holder if the law is violated.

The bigger point here is the government IS regulating the internet here. It doesn't really matter that it ends up being one party suing another. The Feds have imposed a rule that bans certain conduct.

I think you understand based on your other post that the Federal government never does this. Both with the internet, or anything else. It only punishes people who do it, later.

The US federal government does have JURISDICTION over the internet, but only with regard to it's own citizens. It will prosecute individuals who violate laws, over the internet such as distributing/possessing child porn.

There's more than one way to enforce a law. One way is to punish transgressors after the fact. You can still say something is "banned" even if it's only punished after the fact. Cocaine is "banned" but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist in the US.

We hit the front page! This likely generated tens of thousands of hits to the article. Additionally, it's now second on WaPo's "Most Read Nation Articles," generating even more views. Great job guys.

Too funny, I had forgotten about this then visited the politics page at the Post and there it was, Predict obama's Cabinet, play free OR pay per prediction and those who are correct split the pot!


So much for Internet "gambling" being illegal.........

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/politics/

Lower right under Prediction Time.

obg

dave,

i think u missed my point. i'm not saying the federal government cannot legislate the activities, expressions and conduct of its citizens. what i'm saying is that it has no statutory authority by which to "regulate" computer network protocols (packets) traveling the internet. the wire act, for instance, does not grant the government or the states the authority to monitor, identify and change or otherwise manipulate the integrity and passage of these packets (this is what me and te were discussing). and even if it did have this authority, it's technically and economically unfeasible to exercise this authority on a systemic basis.

the federal govt arguably has jurisdiction over its citizens on the internet, but it certainly does not have any jurisdiction over the internet itself. since the govt has no control and it cannot systematically block/freeze/dictate the flow of internet data once this data is initiated and traveling like it can cars on a highway or funds thru the financial system, any attempt by the govt to legislate its citizens while on the internet (e.g. engaging in gambling activities) will be that much more egregiously difficult. so it's silly when politicians and journalists say something is prohibited or allowed on the internet since enforcement is unbelievably limited and any attempt at "banning" will be as effective as say outlawing dreams.

Robin, are you implying that the internet would function without communication and servers? If so you seem to have lost it.

no to your question jimbo. i'm totally 'lost" on how u came to that inference based on what i wrote.