There is nothing more dangerous than a US Republican lawmaker crying wolf in a terror tense climate. Virginia’s Bob Goodlatte used such tactics when, last December, he got the House of Representatives to pass bipartisan legislation, which was included as an amendment to H.R. 4437 Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005, to eliminate the visa lottery program from the Immigration and Nationality Act. Goodlatte, said then: “The visa lottery system poses a national security threat”.

The good Rep’s St Valentine’s Day news that he intends to reintroduce a bill to prohibit Internet gambling, managed to draw blood from stocks in two European gaming companies, PartyGaming Plc and 888 Holdings Plc. as concern about a massacre of the online gambling industry swept the City of London at Tuesday’s close of business Internet gambling is a fast-growing industry valued at around US$12 billion, and Goodlatte is having a second stab at a bill he first introduced nearly a decade ago. Goodlatte’s bill to ban Internet gambling had strong support in the House but was defeated, reportedly by the efforts by corrupt Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff who, the lawmaker’s camp now says, represented gambling interests.

As the anti Internet gambling lobby in the US gathers momentum following Abramoff’s guilty plea to fraud charges involving Indian Territory casinos in America and, as a good broker, is cooperating with prosecutors in a corruption probe that will certainly implicate Republican lawmakers and officials across Washington, Goodlatte has picked a good time to run his online onslaught once again.

The run of shares in the City is not unfounded as Goodlatte has already done some preliminary work to control the Internet, and last December the House passed a resolution to protect the Internet from United Nations control. Following this, the United States struck a deal with the international community to ensure that the administration of the Internet’s core technical functions remains within the private hands of Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a private organization based in the United States that works under supervision from the U.S. Department of Commerce.

According to the representative’s office, details about the new anti Internet gambling bill will be released on Thursday, and would be sponsored by fellow Virginia Republicans Rick Boucher and Frank Wolf. Goodlatte's previous bill would have made it illegal to use the Internet for gambling, and gave law enforcement officials the authority to stop credit card payments to offshore Internet gambling sites. Now, with Abramoff prepared to sing to anyone’s tune and with a real wolf also in the fray, the work is on for the Internet companies to start getting serious alternatives to benefiting from US online gamblers. (E-02.15.06)

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