Minnesota orders ISPs to blacklist gambling sites
The state of Minnesota has handed Internet providers a 7-page blacklist (PDF) of gambling Web sites that they're supposed to prevent customers from accessing, a move that raises First Amendment and technical concerns.
"We are putting site operators and Minnesota online gamblers on notice and in advance," said John Willems, a Minnesota Department of Public Safety official, in a statement. Companies that received the list of off-limits Web sites--which was made public on Thursday--include AT&T, Comcast, Qwest, and Sprint/Nextel.
The Department of Public Safety's letters to the Internet providers say that "gambling is illegal within Minnesota" and claim that a federal law "requires upon notice by a law enforcement agency that you do not allow your systems to be used for the transmission of gambling information."
Federal law says that a "common carrier" must "discontinue or refuse, the leasing, furnishing, or maintaining" of any service if it's being used to transmit gambling-related information. (The U.S. Supreme Court and the Federal Communications Commission, however, have suggested that neither cable providers nor DSL providers are "common carriers.")
Joe Brennan of the Interactive Media Entertainment and Gaming Association in Washington, D.C. said on Thursday evening that his group just found out about the blacklist and is consulting with First Amendment attorneys to evaluate its options.
Minnesota's move echoes what happened in Pennsylvania about six years ago. The Keystone State enacted a law permitting the state attorney general to deliver orders to Internet providers telling them to block possibly illegal Web sites.
But a federal judge in Philadelphia struck down the law in 2004 on First Amendment grounds, saying: "There is little evidence that the act has reduced the production of child pornography or the child sexual abuse associated with its creation. On the other hand, there is an abundance of evidence that implementation of the Act has resulted in massive suppression of speech protected by the First Amendment."
One reason the law failed to survive the court challenge was because of the way the modern Web is designed. Because many Web sites can share one Internet Protocol (IP) address, blocking the IP address makes the entire list of sites inaccessible. (An expert report prepared for the trial says that out of over 20 million .com, .net, and .org domains, over two-thirds of the sites shared an IP address with at least 50 other Web sites. In many cases, Web sites shared an IP address with thousands of other sites.)
Minnesota's efforts may suffer from the same overbreadth problem. Its blacklist includes GetMinted.com, a gambling site with an IP address listed of 194.36.21.124.
Sharing that IP address is another site called Cashcade--a domain devoted not to a virtual casino, but to a parent company's corporate site, with a product list and hyperlinks to a gambling news Web site that it owns.
Declan McCullagh is a contributor to CNET News and a correspondent for CBSNews.com who has covered the intersection of politics and technology for over a decade. Declan writes a regular feature called Taking Liberties, focused on individual and economic rights; you can bookmark his CBS News Taking Liberties site, or subscribe to the RSS feed. You can e-mail Declan at declan@cbsnews.com. 
Fear that which you can not control.
I have made an online petition I encourage everyone who cares about free speech to sign and follow-up on here:
http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/minnesotacensorship
Keep up the good work,
Oyez
A. It is legal to smoke cigarettes, a known cancer causing, addictive, killer of people. Something that forces our health systems costs to sky rocket.
B. Drinking is legal, a known addictive substance, however only if abused will it lead to possible liver or kidney failure.
C. Poker is illegal, something that is not a drug, i.e. chemical to the human body. As a matter of fact, unlike A or B the so called addictive aspect of poker, gambling in general, is to a very small percentage of people who have a physiological problem.
Okay, there you have it. The brilliant logic of the Minnesota government. They allow two drug addictive items that regardless of ones physical condition, can be made an addict as the drug is that powerful.
Okay, I'm pushing it with the alcohol, but at least too much poker does not poison ones liver!! We can change alcohol to coffee, or sugar, diet sodas, the point is man made products include some kind of drug that increases ones desire for the product. Poker is not a DRUG!!!
This form of censorship is borderline insanity for a free society, and demonstrates zero forethought. It is instead based on old ideals, and lack of proof. They were brought up in a different era where they were told poker/gambling is bad. What proof do they have? None...there only argument is that a very small percentage of people cannot control themselves. Sheeze, where in society isn't that a fact?!
There is a fine line between governing lives, and running ones life, and I think they crossed it.
a) beer and liquor is heavily taxed
b) cigarettes are heavily taxed
c) the state lotto is also heavily taxed
d) gambling over the internet is almost impossible to tax.
Your government can give you any made up reason they want, but the bottom line is ... if you are spending all your money online gambling then your government loses all the tax revenue they would have got if you would have smoked, drinked, ate, shopped, drove or went to a movie with your money.
So, by the logic of this ill-lead, misinformed article leads me to believe that when I go to the casino next time, I will be arrested?
Get your facts right next time before assuming or misreading a fax. The fax said "...wagering knowingly uses a wire communication facility for the transmission in interstate or foreign commerce of bets or wagers ... or for transmission of a wire communication which entitles the recipient to receive money or credits as a result of bets or wagers ..." (pg 14)
I see good money in the proxy server business.
They don't really grasp what they are asking is wrong.
You people seem to actually believe in your constitutionally protected rights. Wake up.
Also, another government official showing that he knows nothing about technology. Doesn't MN have IT professionals on staff that could explain the IP address problem?
"Lets ban all cars that are capable of speeding"
Are you kidding? Then they wouldn't be able to impose the speeding ticket 'tax' that they use to pay even more regulations....
This Preamble is the umbrella clause which encompasses all its following Articles and Amendments, because it?s the Purposes Clause of the Constitution. All Articles and Amendments should be interpreted in light of this Purposes Clause. One of the enumerated purposes is ?to promote the general welfare.? As a common sense, a government should not have to step in and regulate those matters that its grown-up citizens should be able to control themselves. There are many such things that a grown-up citizen should be able to handle and control himself. But, if, for some reason, mainly because of the decay of moral standards, the government sees that there is defect in its citizens? self-regulation on a matter which it deems necessary, to protect its citizens, or in our context, to promote the general welfare of its citizens, the government can and should intervene and enact a law or a regulation.
Under the Preamble of the US Constitution, each State is obligated to promote the general welfare of its citizens. Minnesota government decided that the regulation reported here on this CNET article is necessary to promote the general welfare of its citizens. Minnesota followed what the US Constitution mandates. Therefore, a federal court which is only a creation of the US constitution cannot overrule Minnesota?s regulation.
Moreover, the First Amendment states: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
I believe, that the historical context of this freedom of speech clause is the freedom to speak according to his conscience. In other words, what is protected is the liberty of conscience, especially pertaining to one?s religion, because, no one should be forced to believe something that his heart does not embrace as far as his religion is concerned.
Here, in our case, there is nothing that even remotely resembles a speech, let alone a speech coming out of one?s conscience pertaining to his religion.
Therefore, no court has any matter to look at to begin with, in this case.
There must be some real geniuses running things in Minnesota...
We can turn it into the online insult when someone makes a dumb mistake, "Oh, you must be from Minnesota", "That's so dumb, he must be from Minnesota", and so on.
Have a nice weekend, Minnesota :-)