ACLU Jumps On Board Internet Gambling Bandwagon

Written by :

C Costigan

Published on :

17 November, 2008

It's been a long time coming but the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky filed a petition Thursday with the Kentucky Court of Appeals, asking the court to overturn rulings made on Sept. 18 and Oct. 16 by Franklin Circuit Judge Thomas Wingate.

A Kentucky Appeals Court the next day granted a stay in this matter to The Interactive Media Entertainment & Gaming Association (iMEGA), an Internet trade association in Washington, DC.

It was a victory long overdue for the fledgling online gambling trade association and getting the powerful long established ACLU in its corner should help facilitate efforts to have online gambling prohibition abolished nationwide.

"We're please that the Court of Appeals has given us the opportunity to challenge these seizures," said Joe Brennan Jr., iMEGA's chairman. "The commonwealth has tried to take these domains for their own financial gain, violating Kentucky law, exceeding their jurisdiction, and setting a terrible precedent in the process."

Two other civil liberties groups, The Center for Democracy and Technology, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, in addition to the ACLU argued that Wingate's order raises serious free-speech concerns and violates the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which says the U.S. Congress has the power to regulate commerce between U.S. states.

Domain names are simply addresses pointing Web users to the proper Web sites, lawyers for the groups wrote.

"If allowed to stand, the court's flawed order would needlessly create uncertainty about the basic rules governing the operation of the Internet as well as the authority of courts both inside and outside of the United States to affect behavior in other jurisdictions," the groups wrote. "Moreover, if carried to its logical conclusion, the trial court's order could well impose literally billions of dollars of additional costs on individuals and businesses throughout the world that have no significant contacts with Kentucky."

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Christopher Costigan, Gambling911.com Publisher

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