Some weeks ago, Minnesota Government officials sent a letter to ISP's telling them to block Minnesota resident access to list of websites they believed to be illegal.
The letter was sent by the Alcohol and Gambling Enforcement division (AGED) of the Minnesota Department of Public Safety (DPS) to 11 national and regional telephone and ISP providers. The list comprised 200 online gambling related websites that were to be blocked and a 3 week deadline for the ISP's to respond or face follow up action.
Authorities used the Federal Wire Act (1962) as the legal basis for the order.
We have since discussed the fact that the list comprised many online gambling operators, like Titan Poker and Party Gaming, who as a matter of internal policy do not accept players from the US anyway. Party Gaming's position on this matter has been extremely well publicized in recent weeks with the settlement of a case brought be the Justice Department. The composition of the list has therefore already hinted at the fact that little research and thought had gone into the AGED/DPS initiative.
Now iMEGA, an online gambling lobbying organization based in Washington, has challenged the initiative as legally baseless as well. They have filed a lawsuit against AGED director John Willems to prevent enforcement of the order, contending that AGED does not have the legal authority to force the ISP's to engage in a block that violates first amendment rights.
“It’s our hope that Minnesota will recognize their error and drop their blocking order,” said Joe Brennan Jr., iMEGA chairman.
In addition to the lawsuit, iMEGA sent letters to all of the ISP's subject to the original order, advising them that they were not compelled by law to comply with the PDS/AGED demand. The letter went on to say that PDS/AGED were in error in their interpretation of the Wire Act and its effective application in the present case and that iMEGA were challenging this by way of a lawsuit.
Standing on the sidelines, the Minnesota Attorney General has decided not tomove on the issue and challenge the ISP's non-compliance with the original order.
We eagerly await round three of this interesting tussle.
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