US State Orders ISPs to
block Online Gambling Sites
 May
4 - Last week we reported how US Congressman Barney Frank is
scheduled to introduce a bill this week designed to
encourage the legalisation and regulation of online gambling in
the United States,
but that has not stopped the state of Minnesota from
continuing its own personal 'witch hunt' on the popular internet
pastime.
Just days ago, Minnesota government officials sent Internet
Service Providers (ISPs) in the state a 7-page online gambling
'blacklist',
containing online gambling websites that they must block their
clients from accessing.
The move has raised technical concerns as well as those
regarding the
violation of the First Amendment.
Said Minnesota Department of Public Safety official, John
Willems, 'We are
putting online gambling website operators as
well as online gamblers in Minnesota on notice. It is required
upon notice by a law enforcement agency that you do not allow
your systems to be used for the transmission of online gambling
information.'
Willems continued in a statement, 'Federal law says that a
common carrier (ISP)
must discontinue or refuse, the leasing,
furnishing, or maintaining of any service if it's being used to
transmit online gambling-related information.'
Interestingly, however, both the US Supreme Court and the
Federal Communications Commission have stated that
neither cable
providers nor DSL providers are considered to be common
carriers.
The tactic is similar to that used by the US state of
Philadelphia six years ago, where the state empowered its
attorney general to order ISPs in the state to block access to
illegal online gambling sites. Thankfully on that occasion, a
federal judge shut down the motion on First Amendment grounds,
or the violation thereof.
Supporters of online gambling in the United States are hoping
that the same thing will happen with the Minnesota. The technical issue with blocking the Internet Protocol (IP)
addresses of online gambling sites, is that
thousands of other
non-online gambling sites are also affected as IPs are widely
shared.
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