The Congressional hearing for the Restoration of America’s Wire Act (RAWA) was finally unleashed on Capitol Hill yesterday, chaired by Representative Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), who introduced the bill early in 2010.

The hearing had been mainly criticized in the run-up, because the witnesses due to testify were by and large against online gambling and pro-RAWA, and there have been no surprises for the reason that arena once invited speakers had their say.

From the minute that Louie Gohmert, chairman of your house Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland protection, and Investigations, kicked things off by grappling using the states’ rights concern, it seemed just like the issue was headed for a fairly discussion that is one-sided.

‘We must explore methods to protect the rights of states to stop unwelcome Internet gambling from creeping across their borders,’ he reasoned. ‘Updating the Wire Act can be a tool to safeguard states’ rights to prohibit gambling activity.’

Enthused by this exciting brand new interpretation of federalism, Chaffetz took that ball and went with it. ‘I believe [RAWA] is a state’s rights bill, and I believe it’s the rights of states like Utah and Hawaii, where we’ve no video gaming, to safeguard ourselves from one thing that we would not like to see inside our boundaries,’ he declared.

This, before a testimony that is single been heard.

Rhyming Rhetoric

The witness that is first John Kindt, a professor at the University of Illinois Law class, who wasted almost no time in condemning online gambling as the ‘crack cocaine of gambling.’

Kindt is fond of the it’s-true-because-it-rhymes brand of rhetoric, a passion he shares with Sheldon Adelson: ‘Click your phone, lose your home’ he quipped. ‘Click your mouse, lose your household,’ he included, just in case you did not get the brilliant poetry with the example that is first.

In fact, Adelson likes the exact same types of phrases, which he himself coined. Perhaps Not that he is behind all this, of program.

Kindt is additionally partial to quoting from outdated studies, such once the one commissioned by Congress in 1999, the full days of dial-up Internet, which concluded that ‘Internet gaming is impractical to control’ and for that reason should be forbidden at all costs.

‘Dangerous Precedent’

Next up was Andrew Moylan, executive director and senior fellow at R Street Institute, a conservative-libertarian think tank. Moylan had been a late addition to the listing of witnesses, a concession, possibly, to criticism of the largely partisan panel.

However, he confusingly claimed which he was not particularly knowledgeable about or interested in gambling. Instead, he had been right here to ‘articulate a conception of limited government and federalism as it relates to gambling legislation.’

Moylan noted that RAWA and its own blanket ban on online gambling was at odds utilizing the principles of federalism and also the ‘more narrowly targeted language for the Wire that is original Act UIGEA.’ Both the Wire Act and UIGEA, he said, had been enacted to greatly help states in their law that is own enforcement.

He also said that RAWA ‘potentially establishes a dangerous precedent by suggesting that the mere usage of a communication platform just like the internet subjects all users and all sorts of activity to the reach associated with the federal government, irrespective of its location or its nature.’

Les States More

Les Bernal, nationwide director of the Stop Predatory Gambling Foundation, was up next to state their moral objection to any or all forms of gambling. It’s Bernal’s opinion that states are forcing online gambling on a reluctant and populace that is terrified.

‘States, in partnership with commercial gambling operators, are forcing these gambling games onto the general public. If not the federal government, whom will step in to protect the rights of individuals, your constituents, against these methods by an active, predatory state?’

A Minute’s Silence

Michael K. Fagan, adjunct professor of law at Washington University School of Law, was able to unplug their TV microphone as he was asked to move it closer towards him, which meant that the first half his speech ended up being carried out in complete silence, so far as cyberspace flow viewers were concerned.

While we’re no professionals on lip-reading, we’re fairly yes we could make the words out ‘terrorism,’ ‘money,’ and ‘launderers’ repeated several times over. The theme of the second, more audible half of the message proposed that this had been the case and now we resisted the urge to show the amount back off.

Finally, Parry Aftab, executive director of cyber safety advice group WiredSafety, were the witness that is only had taken the time and energy to talk to operators and regulators in the states that had actually legalized online gaming.