Editorial rips US on UIGEA, stance on Internet gambling

[The Buzz]

Tough editorial by TelecomTV.com rips the US on its stance on Internet gambling.

Here's a few choice passages ...

In a series of cynical actions more akin to something one might have expected from the old Soviet Russia or in some tinpot banana republic like Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe rather than a transparent and accountable democracy, the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act was pushed through the Congress in the middle of the night when zealot Republicans added its provisions to a Bill that was actually about the security of US seaports and had sweet Fanny Adams to do with either networking technology or gambling.

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The fact is that the Internet is the ideal vehicle for the gambling industry and that, as the failed experiment in the prohibition of alcohol that the US attempted between 1919 and 1932 showed, people and organisations (Al Capone and his chums, for example) will always find a way around laws that cannot be enforced. Times have changed, the Internet is an established fact of life and governments of every stripe are having to learn to live with the fact that they cannot control access to to everything.

The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act is no more than cynical and hypocritical piece of protectionism disguised as a moral crusade. It was passed to satisfy the demands of the powerful domestic US gambling industry that could see its immense profits being threatened from overseas. As such it deserves to have a coach and horses driven straight through it.

Full story here ... http://web20.telecomtv.com/pages/?ne...2a10&view=news