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- Jan 14, 2008
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SOURCE-FULLSTORY
With the zeal of proponents of the Prohibition Amendment, four Republican House members wrote a letter on Dec. 19 to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein protesting an interpretation of the Wire Act by the Office of Legal Counsel that lets State jurisdictions decide whether to permit Internet gambling within their borders.
The Republican quartet—Representatives Dan Donovan of New York, Tom Garrett of Virginia,
Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, and Louie Gohmert of Texas—ordinarily champion State’s rights based on the wisdom of Justice Louis D. Brandeis in New State Ice Company v. Liebmann (1932):
“To stay experimentation in things social and economic is a grave responsibility.
Denial of the right to experiment may be fraught with serious consequences to the nation. It is one of the happy incidents of the federal system that a single courageous State may,
if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.”
The principles of Donovan, Garrett, Fitzpatrick, and Gohmert, however, are like a restricted railroad ticket, good for this day and train only. And like Prohibition,
their proposed national ban on intrastate Internet gambling would be a cure worse than the disease. To protect States that would prohibit it, Congress could make
illegal any Internet gambling across state lines into their respective jurisdictions as has been done for intoxicating liquors. The 21st Amendment that repealed the Prohibition Amendment provides:
“The transportation or importation into any State…for delivery or use therein of intoxicating liquors, in violation of the laws thereof, is hereby prohibited.”
The Republican quartet imagine a Pandora’s Box of horribles with intrastate Internet gaming regulated by the States rather than banned by the federal government.
They speculate about exploitation by criminals; money laundering; corrupting children; and, risking use of online casinos by terrorist organizations. That argument proves too much.
The Internet sans online casinos is similarly vulnerable to exploitation to perpetrate such evils, yet the quartet is campaigning for an Internet ban.
With the zeal of proponents of the Prohibition Amendment, four Republican House members wrote a letter on Dec. 19 to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein protesting an interpretation of the Wire Act by the Office of Legal Counsel that lets State jurisdictions decide whether to permit Internet gambling within their borders.
The Republican quartet—Representatives Dan Donovan of New York, Tom Garrett of Virginia,
Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, and Louie Gohmert of Texas—ordinarily champion State’s rights based on the wisdom of Justice Louis D. Brandeis in New State Ice Company v. Liebmann (1932):
“To stay experimentation in things social and economic is a grave responsibility.
Denial of the right to experiment may be fraught with serious consequences to the nation. It is one of the happy incidents of the federal system that a single courageous State may,
if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.”
The principles of Donovan, Garrett, Fitzpatrick, and Gohmert, however, are like a restricted railroad ticket, good for this day and train only. And like Prohibition,
their proposed national ban on intrastate Internet gambling would be a cure worse than the disease. To protect States that would prohibit it, Congress could make
illegal any Internet gambling across state lines into their respective jurisdictions as has been done for intoxicating liquors. The 21st Amendment that repealed the Prohibition Amendment provides:
“The transportation or importation into any State…for delivery or use therein of intoxicating liquors, in violation of the laws thereof, is hereby prohibited.”
The Republican quartet imagine a Pandora’s Box of horribles with intrastate Internet gaming regulated by the States rather than banned by the federal government.
They speculate about exploitation by criminals; money laundering; corrupting children; and, risking use of online casinos by terrorist organizations. That argument proves too much.
The Internet sans online casinos is similarly vulnerable to exploitation to perpetrate such evils, yet the quartet is campaigning for an Internet ban.
