As you've probably heard, online poker is under attack in Minnesota. Please help by contact the below state legislators today,and be sure to contact them EVEN IF YOU ARE NOT A MN RESIDENT


John Willems, Director of AGED (651) 201-7529
AND
Governor Tim Pawlenty (651) 296-3391

Tell them:

* You are a poker player and you vote
* You strongly oppose their efforts to force ISPs to block your access to poker sites
* They do not have the right to dictate what you do in the privacy of your own home
* They do not have the right to withhold your money from you
* Poker is a game of skill and NOT ILLEGAL in the USA or Minnesota
* Please abandon this misguided effort to censor the Internet and nullify personal freedoms


thanks for the help!

Also, let me know how it goes, it will interesting to see if anyone actually gets through instead of just getting a voicemail

The efforts of John Willems, director of Minnesota’s Alcohol and Gambling Enforcement Division may cause a bad beat on the entire Minnesota poker community. Minnesota currently has high unemployment numbers, forecloses, swine flu outbreaks, and a multi-billion dollar debt and yet Willems insists that the online poker community needs to be shut down. Minnesota government officials should instead look to proactive solutions like regulation that could provide sorely needed funds.
Willems and his division efforts are both ineffective and shortsighted in their crusade against online poker. In Kentucky, Governor Steve Beasher attempted to implement legislation that would prohibit online gambling similar to the proposed efforts in Minnesota. Beasher renounced online poker sites alleging that they are predatory. His efforts were cut short when the Kentucky Court of Appeals blocked the state from overtaking the domain names of the online gambling sites. The actions taken to combat online gambling from Beasher have in fact created a backlash against the once popular governor. During his reelection bid the governor won by a wide margin of 59% to 41%. However, according to WHAS11/SurveyUSA, Steve Beasher’s approval rating is down to 48% with a disapproval rating of 46%. Surely the poker issue isn’t the only reason for the downslide, but it certainly is a factor.
We can gain significant insight from the Beasher example. For starters there is minimal legal precedent for prohibiting online gambling from a legal perspective. Internet law is an evolving judicial process and the fact that Minnesota is basing their prohibition based on a 1961 precedent is ludicrous. However, there is now a precedent, which conveys that ones efforts to hinder online poker play can be detrimental to a political career as illustrated through Beasher. Lastly, this process has shown how shortsighted and naïve many of our elected official are concerning online poker. Our country faces trillions of dollars in debt and we have an online community that will fully support regulation and willingly contribute billions of dollars in revenue to our government. There is an old saying in politics that “it might be more worthwhile if we stopped wringing our hands and started ringing our congressmen.” It is very concerning that officials across the country have failed to even understand the issue from another perspective as shown by leaders like Beasher. Their inability to understand complex issues from many viewpoints is a main contributing factor to the problems facing our country.

+1

From the Poker News Daily article:

PND: What feedback has the Department of Public Safety received so far?

Willems: I hope we'll have a mutually satisfying outcome to whatever occurs and I hope we'll get good public policy because of it. It appears to me, based on voice messages and phone conversations, that the Poker Players Alliance must have contacted their membership because I've gotten a lot of feedback. I respect their viewpoint and understand it. As much as I can, I try to take the calls, but there are too many of them. I do understand their concerns and I'm not disrespectful of that, but there is a difference of opinion. If they want to make their case, they should also do so to the state's policy makers.

See the full article here:

http://www.pokernewsdaily.com/minnes...ling-ban-2223/

Proud to play,

Drew

It's really too bad that public officials like this one cannot be held accountable for their official actions that ignore existing legal precedent and the US Constitution. That is one thing I would change if I could. Any official that took action that a court of competent jurisdiction finds to violate the US Constitution or laws should be automatically be removed from public office; no other consequence is necessary. Such a consequence would prevent abuse of power like this one and the Kentucky case.

Looks like a committee in the Florida Legislature has just passed a measure to get in on the action. "The Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability shall perform a study and make recommendations to the Legislature by December 1, 2009, regarding the enactment of laws to provide for protection and remedies from existing and unregulated online poker activities, which currently lack oversight and consumer protection under Florida Statutes."

Link?

Starting to look like any Federal bill passed with an opt-out clause at the state level will not help us at all...

http://www.myfloridahouse.gov/Sectio...5&Session=2009

This is something to jump on NOW. They're not going after "illegal gambling sites" or anything general like that. They're specifically targeting online poker.

QFT.

Looks like the floodgates are starting to open. Game on!

Correction. It's not a committee measure. It passed in the Senate today unanimously.

I searched all 80 pages you linked. The ONLY mention of online poker I saw was a 6 month study bill regarding possible regulation by the State of Florida.... hardly something the PPA can fight and should simply try and influence.

Did I miss something ?

Please ask him to justify his ridiculous "your funds are in peril" statement and ask why that isnt complete fear mongering

Americans for Tax Reform has come out for us. Check out http://www.atr.org/minnesota-attempt...er-first-a3188

Americans for Tax Reform and the Media Freedom Project today released the following press release:

The Minnesota Department of Public Safety announced today that it has instructed 11 national and regional internet service providers to prohibit Minnesota residents from accessing almost 200 online gaming websites.

John Willems, director of the MN Alcohol and Gambling Enforcement Division, warned the thousands of law abiding Minnesotans who enjoy online gaming that today’s announced state action will put their “funds in peril.” Referring to online gaming, Willems added, “I don’t have a law that authorizes it, so it’s illegal,” in a statement that would outlaw even the most mundane daily activities and routines.

“Minnesota state officials have aggressively sought to deter internet freedom over the past few months. First legislators try to tax digital downloads, now bureaucrats want to censor the web,” said Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform. “This is nanny-statism at its worst – the government barging into a private matter because people are supposedly too stupid to make decisions and take care of themselves. Individual liberty should not be supplanted by the whims of politicians looking to soak even more money from an over-taxed, over-regulated population while feigning concern over safety issues.”

Kentucky is also trying to shut down online gaming by attempting to seize 141 websites. Already having consumed a considerable amount of scarce state resources and taxpayer dollars, that case is now heading to the Kentucky Supreme Court.

“Minnesota’s effort to block access to Internet sites that allow gaming is nothing more than an attempt to block competition the state doesn’t like. If Minnesota state officials were truly concerned about the 'societal impact' of gaming they wouldn’t have sanctioned more than a dozen casinos in the state and would be making efforts to close them, too,” said Derek Hunter, executive director of the Media Freedom Project. “In the meantime the Department of Public Safety’s action violates the principles that govern the Internet, that it should remain open and free to legal transactions. Since the federal government has yet to clearly define what constitutes 'illegal' online gaming, Minnesota is now seeking to arbitrarily do it. ”

Here's the list: http://www.imega.org/wp-content/uplo...5/ab001dd4.pdf

anyone notice that pokerstars is not in the proposed list?

lol if they ****ed up that bad.

edit: or AP for that matter... not that most of 2p2 would care tho

That is one goofy list. Notice some names missing?

They didnt block freaking Cereus, the poker site caught cheating, or WSEX whose founder actually was found guilty of violating Federal Law. Politicians amaze me every time

EDIT: LOL at blocking PartyCasino too. Not that I agree with the WSEX case, just seems like you'd try and block the site where someone was actually convicted in a US court. No Bodog either, DOJ target number 1.

Check out http://www.pokernewsdaily.com/minnes...ling-ban-2223/ . LOL at:

Willems: The Wire Act has been used in other arenas as well. The list, which is only 200 out of literally thousands of websites, was selected at random without regards to what type of internet gambling each site is engaged in. Online poker would fall within that possibility.

Apparantly serving US customers was not a prerequisite for being randomly selected. What a bunch of clowns.

Seriously can any lawyers chime in on whether the capricious manner at which these were selected by including sites that dont serve the US helps our side in court?

Hey, I've got a great idea. Why don't we identify, by specific name, each site the State missed, so they can go back and fix their list and ban those sites too?

Read TE's post, they picked them at random. Im pretty sure the existence of PokerStars isnt news to the state of Minnesota

Why does this enforcement ignore precedent etc.? Didn't Party and Dik**** just agree to pay for running afoul of the Wire act and other laws? Is using the MN and fed laws together not an acceptable enforcement procedure?

So what. Use your head.

No, Permafrost, just because an individual caves in to pressure from a governmental entity and settles to avoid litigation and/or prosecution does not make the action of the governmental entity or the government official proper and acceptable.

The settlement with the DOJ by Mr. Dik**** is not any precedence of any type. Only cases litigated in court make legal precedence.

I don't see UltimateBet on there either! F*&%kin allehlulia!!