The announced intentions of Congressmen Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) early in the week came to fruition when, along with Rick Boucher (D-VA), he reintroduced the Internet Gambling Prohibition Act. The onslaught produced by this bipartisan legislation to crack down on the online casino industry, by invoking the bogeymen of money laundering and under age gambling, has a base along the lines of the "weapons of mass destruction sites" in Iraq.

The press release from Goodlatte's office reads like a bible-bashing Southern fanatic's invocation of fire and brimstone: " The growing problem of illegal, off shore gambling, as well as illegal gambling that crosses state lines over phone lines and Internet technologies. These activities suck billions of dollars per year out of the U.S. economy, serve as a vehicle for money laundering, undermine families, and threaten the ability of states to enact and enforce their own laws."

The good Goodlatte continues: “I have been continuously committed to putting an end to gambling on the Internet. For too long our children have been placed in harm’s way as online gambling has been permitted to flourish into a $12 billion industry. The Internet Gambling Prohibition Act brings the current ban against interstate gambling up to speed with the development of new technology.”

Looking at Goodlatte's roll call of legislation work, one can see that he has prepared well for this new legislation. At the end of last year he secured for the US the continued control of the Internet when the House passed a resolution to protect the Internet from United Nations control, 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), an organization based in the United States that works under supervision from the U.S. Department of Commerce.

Further down the line, Goodlatte also has asked for the abolition of the Immigration Lottery, which grants resident status in the US to thousands of foreigners every year, using terrorism arguments as the modern shorthanded way for a blanket threat to the borders of fortress America. For his proposed The Internet Gambling Prohibition Act, the Virginia Rep is calling on the all-encompassing Wire Act. Under current federal law, it is unclear if using the Internet to operate a gambling business is illegal. The closest useful statute currently is the Wire Act, which prohibits gambling over telephone wires.

THE FEDERAL WIRE WAGER ACT
The proposal to update the Wire Act to cover all forms of interstate gambling, taking into account new technologies as a means to prohibit online gambling, argues that the Wire Act was written well before the invention of the World Wide Web and as such has become outdated: "The Internet Gambling Prohibition Act amends the Wire Act to make it clear that the prohibitions include Internet gambling and the use of other new technologies."

What Goodlatte omits to say is that the Federal Wire Wager Act came in 1961, as a means to outlaw organized crime's hold on gambling. Congress enacted the Wire Act as a part of series of antiracketeering laws. "The Wire Act complements other federal bookmaking statutes, such as the Travel Act (interstate travel in aid of racketeering enterprises, including gambling), the Interstate Transportation of Wagering Paraphernalia Act, and the Illegal Gambling Business Act (requires a predicate state law violation)."

As a prohibition politician, Goodlatte is prepared to use any old battering ram to push his initiatives, and has brought in the Abramoff card to play the victim to the corrupt lobbyist’s sleight of footwork to derail his previous attempts to ban Internet gambling in the USA. The politician's press release reads: "In fact, in the 106th Congress, the Goodlatte-Boucher legislation received support from more than sixty percent of the House of Representatives but fell victim to Abramoff’s campaign of misinformation and lacked the two-thirds required for passage under suspension of the rules."

The online industry has a real fight on its hands to stop the Goodlatte bandwagon from gaining momentum and use similar arguments to those previously when the anti Internet gambling proposals were defeated in Congress. At the same time, perhaps it is now the moment to support efforts of countries like little Antigua, to allow Americans to gamble anywhere they choose. If a revitalized form of the Federal Wire Wager Act comes into being, online marketing strategies will have to be far better financed.
(E-02.17.06)

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