Major Rights Violation Looming

The federal government is scheduled to begin a massive onslaught on Americans’ right to financial privacy and online freedom on Dec. 1.
That’s when the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act passed by Congress in 2006 is scheduled to go into effect. This law makes it illegal for banks and other financial institutions to process transactions related to online gambling in the United States. That’s right folks your Uncle Sam is going to tell you what to do with your own computer and your own money in the privacy of your own home.
Average Americans won’t be able to use their computers and internet paid for by their own hard earned money to spend their own money on an activity that hurts nobody but themselves without breaking the law. Every US citizen who plays online poker or does sports betting will become a criminal.
If this wasn’t bad enough this law could lead to massive seizures of private citizens income by government. In early June the US Department of Justice seized between $30 and $40 million in online payments being sent to about 27 million online gamblers in the US. The feds justified this action by claiming to enforce a 1970 law called the Illegal Gambling Business Act. How a law written when the Internet was in its infancy can apply to modern online activities was not explained.
Once again our government has found a way to make its citizens into criminals for engaging in a victimless activity. The Department of Justice now has the power to tell you what you can do with your computer. If DOJ can catch terrorists by monitoring their internet activities how long before it uses its power to catch average Joes enjoying a few hands of Internet Poker.
If the ban on internet gambling works like earlier federal efforts to govern morality such as the War on Drugs and Prohibition it’ll be a disaster. Billions of dollars of our tax money will be spent, the rights of tens of thousands of citizens trampled and the only beneficiary will be organized crime. If the idiotic internet gambling ban is put into effect a huge online black market for gambling will be created that’ll quickly turn into a money machine for Russian and Chinese organized crime.
Fortunately a few voices of common sense have risen up and challenged this stupidity. A powerful Congressman Barney FrankBarney Frank (D-Massachusetts) who has emerged has an unlikely champion of liberty has introduced two bills related to the measure one to delay implementation of the UIGEA until 2010 and another to legalize poker and other games of skill online. Since Frank is the chairman of the House’s Committee on Financial Services he is one of the most powerful men on Capitol Hill. It remains to be seen if Frank’s clout can derail this law.
A group called the Poker Players’ Alliance has also risen up to challenge UIGEA and lobby Congress to overturn it. The Poker Players Alliance claims to have over a million members most of whom were recruited from Internet Poker sites. It’s unclear whether the PPA is a grassroots organization or an astro turfed group that is a movement of citizens deliberately organized by paid agitators and lobbyists for the profitable online poker industry.
Whatever happens 2010 is going to be a very exciting year for online gamblers and the online gambling industry. Not to mention for Americans who care about liberty.