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U.S. Arrests Online Gambling Company Chairman
imaginaryelf writes "Reuters reports that U.S. authorities have arrested Peter Dicks, the chairman of U.K. based online sports betting company Sportingbet Plc, while he was passing through Dallas. Just two months ago, the CEO of another U.K. based online sports betting company, BetOnSports, was arrested on U.S. soil as well. They are both charged with violating the 1961 Federal Wire Act, which can be broadly interpreted as declaring all forms of online gambling illegal in the U.S. Is online gambling the Alcohol Prohibition of the 21st century?"
Now my $1000 bet that Peter Dicks would be arrested doesn't look quite so foolish...call my bookie!
I'll form my OWN solar system! With blackjack! And hookers!
according the article, he was arrested @ kennedy, not in dallas.
If you live outside of the US and have done something that the US have made illegal then don't go there.
I would say cigarette smoking is much closer to alcohol prohibition. I just hope that once they ban smoking in bars I can open up a speakeasy where we'll drink and smoke and gamble online to our heart's content....
More importantly, does he wear Dickies to work?
>organised gambling isn't nearly as widespread and deeply rooted in Western culture as consuming alcohol is.
You wanna bet?
First one gets arrested, that's unfortunate for him.
Second one gets arrested - man, how dumb to you have to be to fly through the US when you know you're likely to get arrested? It's not like international flight lists are ignored these days. Passengers that may pass on domestic flights aren't going to escape scrutiny on international (especially incoming) flights.
Mooniacs for iOS and Android
Its another great example of the US deciding that its perfectly okay to have their laws apply to people from other countries, but the idea of an international criminal court that might try CIA and US Soldiers for torture and crimes against humanity then the answer is no.
Remind me again why people think the US is imperialist?
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
Funny. Pretty much sums up how I feel about the prohibition industry.
So it's okay for the United States to arrest foreign nationals because they run a business in their own country that is (sort of) illegal in the States.
And yet the American government complains loudly when Freedom Fighters in the Middle East capture and detain members of the American invasion force who are obviously breaking the law by invading those countries?
It would be really nifty if the American government spent as much time trying to provide health-care to its citizens, teaching science in its schools, and waging peace, as it spends on enforcing fear driven puritanical laws at home and waging unjust ideological wars abroad.
--brian
In the near future, the United States of America may be a country that non-Americans fear to travel to. With the DMCA, the Patriot Act, association with gambling sites, corporate deals with Iran, corporate deals with Cuba ... you just simply do not know whether or not you will be arrested when entering the United States. If your non-American company did business with Cuba, could you be arrested? If you engaged in fair use of media in your country, could you be arrested for DMCA violations?
You won't know until you are on American soil.
Take a look at your so-called friend, Britain!
It's a simple matter of complex programming.
Of course, were the USA we can do what ever we want... I often wonder how we'd react if say Bill Gates was arrested in Communist China for being an "obscenely rich capitalist"..
WHEREAS ALL they NEED to do and HAD to do is to bar all access from u.s. to that u.k. site
If the US government did that, then you'd be complaining about censorship.
The problem is that this guy and his company accepted money from US citizens who were on US soil in exchange for providing a service that is illegal in the US. It would be trivial for him to refuse credit card transactions for cards where the address on record is in the US, and at least then he'd have plausible deniability. Of course, doing so destroys most of his market, so it's easy to see why he wouldn't do that.
He let's Americans gamble on his site, so he lets them break the law. That's illegal. At least that what I'm guessing their logic is. My guess is that their claim to him is a little tenuous to say the least. I bet he refused to bar access from US betters. The US's stance is hardly unknown, especially if you are in that industry.
I think that "online gambling is prohibition" comment is rather ridiculous. Online gambling is something people do from home, where one of the big things about prohibition is that it removed a common social activity (going to a bar with friends and to meet people). They are nothing alike except that they are both bans on something popular, and (are likey to get) overturned.
Don't forget that there is a REASON online gambling is still illegal. While that act can be intrepreted that way, Congress could have easily changed that by passing a law. However, don't think that all the casinos in Vegas and elsewhere like the idea of online gambling. That could take away a LOT of a their business if it was legalized. I'd be amamzed if they weren't pouring out money to keep online gambling illegal.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Leave the poor guy alone. It's not his fault his first and last names are both euphemisms for 'penis.'
My lack of God, it's Trotsky!
If the US government did that, then you'd be complaining about censorship.
Furthermore, the US government can't do that. It's not technically feasable. We don't have a single, nationwide firewall like some countries do that can be configured to block out arbitrary foreign sites.
I suppose it's far easier to arrest a single foreign national -- even though what he's doing is perfectly legal in his own country -- than it is to arrest his American customers, who really are committing crimes on US soil. Less unpopular in an election year, too, off-year or not.
And the brethren went away edified.
This is either harrassment or just the US thinking it has rights to push the rest of the world around.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Well, go to betonsports.com
"To contact BetonSports Customer Service please call toll free 1-866-481-3057. You may also send email requests to:
customer_service@betonsports.com
Customer Service hours are Monday to Friday, 10am - 10pm EST. "
Hmm, looks like a US number and a US timezone there. May be UK based, but they are definitely targeting business to the US
Help me take back Slashdot. When did 'News for Nerds' become 'FUD and Conspiracy Theories for Extremist Nutjobs'?
It's "Harry."
He's being arrested for crimes having to do with wiring money to/from the US for gambling, not something he did in UK.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
In the last three cases we expect the citizen to follow the law, because to restrict or monitor access would be UnAmerican. Gambling is a "vice" crime so to the law enforcement "religion" it's different. The fundamental problem is that it's easier for the govt to collar these guys illegally than it is to fix the real problem going on in the country. Also, "rightist" state legislatures and law enforcement work very hard to delay, subjorn, etc. the Will of the people to change these backwards laws. For them "Law" is the "religion" and so they should not "compromise" even if the people vote for it.
No. Marijuana is the Alcohol Prohibition of the 21st century.
Started up a website serving up good old kiddy porn, started charging US users to download those images I should be safe then.
I think another person suggested that the US should have censured illegal sites.
How about if you're going to conduct business in a country, you follow and obey all local rules and regulations? If you can't comply, then about making it so that you block access yourself so you don't violate those laws and regulations.
Second, I can't believe this Dicks decided to go through the US even though the other guy went in a couple months earlier and got arrested. It's either arrogence or stupidity.
First off, the link says, "Dicks was arrested in New York late on Wednesday at JFK Airport on a warrant from Louisiana" nothing about Dallas. What's up with the warrant from Louisiana? Sounds like some small-timer that wants to stir things up. There's got to be more to the story.
I'm a big-time outspoken conservative and I love to play no-limit hold 'em (and hi/lo omaha). I'd like to state that I am very diappointed that republicans are backing this and I believe this really is just for votes this fall. There are democrat supporters on this as well, so it isn't completely one-sided. Everyone interested in keeping internet gambling alive needs to talk to their representative.
The good news is that this was tried in the late 90's and failed. It passed the house in 2003 but the senate didn't take up the issue. With the rate at which poker in particular is gaining popularity, this should be an issue that can be defeated. I see the senate again not taking up this issue in 2006. Post 2006 elections, it should disappear for a while again. Apparently big money doesn't buy all the votes as online gambling is worth bilions of dollars. AFIAK, as long as we have state lottos and Indian casinos, I don't want to hear anything from the state about why online gambling should be illegal.
Now as for the gentlemen who have been arested... the only good thing is that maybe they can sue and further clarify the law. The fifth circuit says the law only applies to sports. It would be great to see additional courts back this up as I believe they would.
Marijuana Prohibition is the Alcohol Prohibition of the 21st Century.
========
77 77 77 2e 6d 65 6c 76 69 6e 73 2e 63 6f 6d
You see, the difference is that the service the company is offering from the UK would be illegal if they were based in the USA. One analogy to understand the situation is that this is the same case as if the citizens of the USA using this service were magically teleported to the UK, conducted their business and then went back to the USA. If that is illegal in the USA, then punish the citizens of the USA, but there is absolutely no basis for the USA to punish a legally operating legitimate UK business.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
Well, no, marijuana prohibition is the alcohol prohibition of the modern age. With the sole details that the drug is significantly less harmful than alcohol, and the effects of the prohibition are significantly more widespread and harmful, it's essentially identical. We're just so used to it that we don't even notice any more.
Wake up - the future is arriving faster than you think.
British people. British companies. Americans charging them with crimes as soon as they set foot on US soil.
What a load of bullshit.
So if cocaine was legal in the UK and they sold it to people in the US then the feds shouldn't go after them? (Replace cocaine with any product or service that fits) Just because something is legal in one country doesn't mean one can't face prosecution in another country where it's illegal if that product/service is offered in the other country.
I worked briefly for a company that ran a gambling website in the UK in conjunction with Harrahs casino. On-line gaming is apparently huge in the UK. In order to legally operate the site there were all sorts of checks to verify that a user was based in the UK. It included not only identifying the physical location of an IP address but validating the address of a credit card and other steps. Apparently all legitimite gambling sites in the UK are required to take these sort of steps if you don't want to run afoul of UK gaming laws. If this was a legit UK gaming website then they would have these same checks in place that would prevent people in the US from using it. It's his own fault for violating US laws (that happen to be well known in the gambling community) and thinking that he could travel here without getting arrested.
Remember Dmitry Sklyarov?
Perhaps this is all a fiendish plot to cut down on US tourism...
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
No, you got that backwards. The shop isn't flying to Saudi Arabia selling vodka, but the Saudis are flying to the UK buying vodka in a local shop ("This is a local shop, for local people; there's nothing for you here").
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
> L
You are sitting in an airplane seat, in the coach section of an airliner. The airliner is descending.
> I
You are carrying:
>READ TICKET
I don't see any ticket here.
>READ TICKET STUB
The ticket stub is for an intercontinental flight from Great Britain to Mexico, with a stopover in Dallas.
>DALLAS?
I don't know how to dallas.
>DOES THIS PLANE HAVE A STOPOVER IN DALLAS?
I don't see any plane here.
>LEAVE PLANE
Your seatbelt holds you in the seat, preventing you from standing up.
>OPEN SEATBELT
You cannot open that.
>UNFASTEN SEATBELT
Unfastened.
>LEAVE PLANE
You need to stand up first.
>STAND UP
You are now standing. The passenger sitting next to you looks agitated.
>LEAVE PLANE
The exit doors are locked, as the plane is still in flight.
>FUCK
I don't know how to fuck.
The plane is about to land in Dallas. You are likely to be arrested by a grue.
>ARE THEY GOING TO ARREST ME?
I don't see any they here.
>EXIT
You cannot exit now.
Your sword is glowing faintly.
>QUIT
You cannot quit now.
Your sword is glowing faintly.
FATMOUSE + YOU = FATMOUSE
The only crime the offshore gaming companies committed is competing against US based brick and mortar casinos. If you travel out of a state that doesn't have gambling to a state that does, isn't the casino enabling an act that couldn't occur in the gambler's home state? The gaming corporations don't want more competition (they spent alot of money in California to restrict Indian Casinos) and the federal and state government don't want to lose revenue from offshore gambling.
The previous arrest had included charges of racketeering. It's quite possible this one does as well.
As to the Wire Act, and the enforceability of such: This is really no different than betting over the phone or by mail. This is just a newer version of an old debate - when an activity takes place over a distance, and it is illegal in one location and not the other, can it be enforced on the person in the latter? Obviously, the government of Louisiana feels it can, provided that person comes within their territory, or can be extradited. Other governments have behaved similarly, for other laws, although most just prefer censorship.
The issue is not whether gambling should be illegal. Sure, it's a stupid law, and it would be a simple answer for this one situation if gambling was legal, but it wouldn't answer the larger question. On the one hand, no government at any level wants its laws to be so easily avoided, and it's ineffective to go after the individuals who use the service rather than the providers (just ask the RIAA - well, in a few years anyway). On the other hand, there is certainly a case to be made that those who offer services should not expect to be held in violation of a law that didn't exist in the locality from which they offered said services.
So I guess what I'm saying is, "I dunno." Is it fair to say, "If you do something that breaks the law here, and that has an effect here, you can never come here"? Or is it fair to say, "You can't touch us, you can only block access to our site from everyone in your country"? (This has in fact been suggested by other posts here! Is this something you want to encourage?) I for one am going to consider it some more rather than locking myself into some knee-jerk reaction.
P.S. One last thought - it's possible the warrant was issued due to activities during a previous trip to the US. That would change the whole situation.
Casino winnings are taxed
If Congress could figure out a way to tax all online gambling winnings, they'd do it in a heartbeat. (Specifically winnings paid out by companies outside the U.S.A.)
As it is now, if you win from some offshore gambling outfit, it is up to you to report your winnings... or not.
To support the Submitter/Editor's assertion that online gambling is similar to prohibition: Politicians caved in to the Prohibitionists because income from the relatively new income tax (just 7 years old) made it possible for the Federal Gov't to do without the cash from liquor taxes.
Prohibition ended in 1934, because income taxes tanked ~60% during the first few years of the great depression.
To summarize: Because (1) the tax revenues wouldn't be that large/needed and/or (2) Congress can't figure out how to enforce taxes, they will continue to 'ban' online gambling. Once 1 &/or 2 gets changes, they'll reconsider.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Is the Prohibition of the 21st Century.
I now hereby dub YOU "Bad Analogy Guy, Jr." (in reference to your previous post, of course).
Last time I checked, using and selling drugs are BOTH illegal in the U.S. Therefore, both users and dealers should be arrested.
Whether the law makes sense or not makes little difference to the law enforcement community. This guy broke a U.S. law, and he was arrested for it.
The REAL question here is whether he broke the law on U.S. soil, which really boils down further to the question: where exactly is a website located? Is it located where the server is located? Or is it located where the person using the website is located? If it's the former, then the U.S. people who used the website could be considered to be gambling in a foreign country, and not on U.S. soil, because the website is technically located in the U.K. (and thus they were not breaking U.S. law). But if the latter question is true, then the administrator of any website can be held accountable by the laws of any country any user connects from, even those laws that contradict each other.
Either way, the U.S. government is going to do the same thing with online gambling that they did with alcohol: ignore it, then ban it, realize that ban creates crime, unban it, tax the ever living hell out of it, and finally protect the industry forevermore as a revenue stream.
Wait, it'll happen.
For security, the MD5 hash of this message and sig is 09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0.
I wish we could choose which country we pay taxes to. Wait, we can! I think its time to leave the US for a country run LESS by the church, how about Vatican City?
"Why doesn't the U.S. instead go after the people that *were* under it's jurisdiction? Like, oh... I don't know... the gamblers?"
'Cuz this guy has all their money.
Eloi are stupid, throw morlocks at them!
In the case of selling most products internationally you have to actually make an effort to sell in another country. Even if you're shipping stuff sold "on the Internet" you're shipping it physically to a foreign address and should certainly make sure you're not shipping stuff to countries where it's illegal. When you open up a server on the Internet that content is available to everyone by default. In fact, there's not even really a reliable way to tell where the hits are coming from given proxies, VPNs and whatnot. The same problem exists with payment methods: yes, in most cases it's easy to determine the location of a payer given, say, a credit card billing address. But it's certainly possible to get money routed through foreign accounts or through online payment systems that don't list a shipping address. Perhaps when operating a site that accepts payments for controversial items one should mandate a payment system that includes a billing address and refuse to bill any countries but those where the service is known to be legal. That's not really very difficult, so you're right that this one guy has it easy.
But what about services that don't require payment? For example, the P2P software that's been deemed illegal in Australia. Or racist websites operating in the US that run afoul of Canadian and European laws. Falun Gong sites that are illegal in China. Various types of pornography that are illegal in various places in the world. IIRC it's still illegal to export cryptographic software from the US to certain embargoed nations under the same laws that prohibit the sale of weapons to these nations; I'm pretty sure if you sold any other weapon to such a country the Feds wouldn't take, "But he clicked a box on our website saying he wasn't from Iran," for an answer. We run into the problem that it's easy to cross national borders on the Internet and impossible to control which borders you're crossing. All you have to do to "export" something online is sign up with your neighborhood ISP. This is one of the reasons it's been so successful.
Expressing the laws of every country and state through a technological standard would be ridiculously challenging; even accurately representing the location of clients to every server would be pretty difficult without massive cooperation. If every country in the world tries to apply their import/export laws to Internet traffic we'll be creating massive amounts of work for server operators, who would likely overcompensate by trying to lock down their services to domestic viewers. Countries like Saudi Arabia and China that figure they probably can't force foreign webmasters to obey them set up firewalls, but those are expensive and hard to maintain. I don't have a total solution, but I think as a practical matter Internet traffic can't be treated like standard imports and exports.
can't be prosecuted.
Why are we arresting these men under a Wire act that was written in 1961. The simple answer? We can't prosecute them under any other law. Gambling is illegal but because they arn't in america they arn't liable.
The sad thing is that Americans want gambling, obviously. But they are accusing a EUROPEAN company, of breaking an American statute dealing with american "wires".
Btw check the wikipedia article closely. "The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the Wire Act applies only to sports betting and not other types of online gambling. The Supreme Court has not officially ruled on the meaning of the Federal Wire Act as it pertains to online gambling." The real question is was the betting on american sports?
The sad fact is as an American I feel bad in this case. Every time we take an obscure law and hold someone under it, something that someone goes "oh we can nail them for that" and others go "that's clever", I die a little inside. The founding fathers didn't say "let's be clever" They said "let's make a country and laws". They didn't look for some loophole with the british, they busted some barrels of tea, got liquored up and won a war (not all in that order or the same night... I hope).
If America really believes something like this is wrong make a law. If America really believes something like this is acceptable revoke the law. America is a very easy place but we make everything complex like this shit.
...I flat out refuse to fly. I'll drive or take a damn sailboat before I'll give an airline one penny or give those goons the satisfaction of seeing another sheep bend over to get sheared and get the shaft put to them. I cannot understand why any MAN would put up with seeing their wife or daughter get felt up by some armed goon pervo at the airport. I will NOT put up with that be a sheep nonsense at the airport. I am a FREE MAN, not some peasant who must bow and scrape in front of the king's mercenary henchmen. FUCK EM!
So good for you foreign guys, and every time you avoid flying into or out of the US, drop a note to the airline you avoided and to some select senators here, and maybe a few letters to the editor at the big papers, let them know that this bullshit is stupid!
The entire REASON for the formation of the USA was because we wanted to trade FREEDOM for the ILLUSION of "security" that was given by being a "king's subject". Screw that noise.
Not true. If you are not wearing a seatbelt, you are unrestrained, and you can turn into a projectile in the case of an accident. You can kill/maim other passengers in your vehicle, pedestrians, or people in another vehicle if you don't wear a seatbelt.
... and then they built the supercollider.
"But what about services that don't require payment? For example, the P2P software that's been deemed illegal in Australia. Or racist websites operating in the US that run afoul of Canadian and European laws. Falun Gong sites that are illegal in China. Various types of pornography that are illegal in various places in the world. IIRC it's still illegal to export cryptographic software from the US to certain embargoed nations under the same laws that prohibit the sale of weapons to these nations; I'm pretty sure if you sold any other weapon to such a country the Feds wouldn't take, "But he clicked a box on our website saying he wasn't from Iran," for an answer. We run into the problem that it's easy to cross national borders on the Internet and impossible to control which borders you're crossing. All you have to do to "export" something online is sign up with your neighborhood ISP. This is one of the reasons it's been so successful." When I was stationed in Spain, I tried to download a 128 bit encrypted browser, the site recognized my IP as not US, so denied the download. I could have gone the proxy route, but figured it was easier just to get the stuff I wanted from work with the US military IP's. But seems that most sites could deny access from sites that it is known to be illegal to access the service or software, but why is that really their concern. It's not illegal (afaik) in the UK to export gambling services, just like its not illegal to export P2P clients, so why should they be bothered.
What's an international company supposed to do to keep americans from using their freedom? They ask if you're from the US. They tell you to check and see if it's legal to do what you're doing there. Are they supposed to visit you?
The guy at my deli never asks for ID when I buy lottery tickets and all the bingo I played as a kid at church was when I was under 18... but you let one american bet the Packer's to win the SuperBowl and bam! You're in jail.
We have a goverment that outlaws things so they can profit from doing it themselves. When the Mega-Millions jackpot is $25 million, you know how much money they make? Let's just say the goverment is taking more than half before showing you that number.
A case like this is currently before the WTO and if the US loses it will either have to ban all inter-state betting in the US (which would effectively kill the horse-racing industry) or countries like Antigua will be able to put tarriffs on US imports. The issue is that from a WTO perspective you can ban anything you want for import provided that domestic production is also banned. As the US allows betting (lotteries and even gambling websites such as YouBet.com -- which proudly describes itself as "US-based and licensed, NASDAQ-listed"), the Antiguans are arguing that the US's position is untenable. So far, the WTO seems to agree with them.
But there's more! Since, the US is preventing more online gambling than Antigua can possibly raise in tarriffs, they are asking the WTO permission to be able to pirate Hollywood films and raise the money by selling them. Needless to say, everyone in Hollywood thinks this is a superb idea and welcomes it with open arms.
The remarkable thing is the amount of headway that Antigua has made so far against all odds (as this Washington Post article punningly puts it)
Conquest's 3rd Law: Every organisation behaves as if it is run by secret agents of its opponents.
There seems to be a fair bit of confusion as to how the United States would have jurisdiction in this matter. Without getting too much into specifics, I'll quickly address this.
... To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations." International commerce with the US necessarily would involve some activities that occur outside of the US. But since the people engaging in those activities are engaged in commerce with us, they fall under the scope of what Congress can regulate. It's not necessary for them to physically be in the US at the time, for if it were, that wouldn't be international commerce; it would be wholly domestic.
The Constitution provides Congress with "Power
In this case, the person apparently set up a server in the UK and used it to conduct business with people in the US. Furthermore, in doing so, he apparently violated US laws which prohibit people from engaging in this form of commerce where it involves the US, regardless of where the person happens to be while doing it.
The same sort of thing occurs regularly within the US. For example, if a person in Maine has a website which is part of a business, buying or selling something (as opposed to being merely informational), then they are engaging in interstate commerce nationwide. An Alaskan user who buys something from their site has engaged in commerce with them, and now the person in Maine is subject to Alaskan law. This is the price of doing business with people across borders in our legal system: the differing laws on both sides of the border apply, because the transaction as a whole is occuring in both, not just in one or the other.
The actual situation is a bit more complex than this, but this is the gist of it.
If the person who was arrested doesn't wish to get in more trouble in the future, then he's going to either need to comply with US law, or stop doing business that crosses the US border. Or he can try to avoid going to the US or having assets in the US so that he simply stays outside of our reach, despite violating our laws. (N.b. that airspace counts: there are plenty of instances of people flying on planes, and getting served while crossing the airspace of a particular jurisdiction, by someone that followed them on the plane and waited for the right moment. Landing in that jurisdiction isn't required.)
In any case, this isn't much of an example of our stretching ourselves. If you want to see that, I'd suggest looking at the Alien Tort Claims Act. Personally, I don't have a problem with that, or with our general approach to this.
To those who would argue that repressive countries such as China or Saudi Arabia could try the same thing for basically innocuous things like pointing out how repressive they are (as opposed to something arguably more serious, such as illegally running gambling operations), let's remember that they are repressive countries and thus no one should ever want to go there until they clean up their act. As many idiotic and downright evil things as the US has been doing lately (or historically), we're not quite that bad, and I hope we're soon to get significantly better.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
I think your point about exporting, in general, makes sense: people can take measures to prevent exports that their own country deems illegal. If we were really going to treat Internet exporting like physical exporting, though, the government would be cracking down on proxy servers that potentially broker traffic between embargoed nations and websites offering services. We generally don't do that, and it would probably be a horrible mess if we did, but I think that there should be a clearly codified reason why. We wouldn't want the government to randomly begin applying pressure on particular proxies it didn't like by surprise, or anything like that.
/. a while back). They should be bothered because people that distribute Falun Gong material aren't treated very nicely when they travel to China. Because, while they perhaps should be able to export anything their own countries allow from their domestic servers, the countries they're exporting to aren't seeing it this way.
"It's not illegal (afaik) in the UK to export gambling services, just like its not illegal to export P2P clients, so why should they be bothered."
They should be bothered because a UK man was just arreseted for exporting gambling services to the US, and because some P2P company was somehow ordered by an Australian court to provide a modified program to Australians (I don't remember exactly how that was enforced, but it was on
This is why I believe we (the United States, but also every other country that wants to consider itself a civilized nation) need a clear policy for these situations: what should our response be to illegal material from other countries on the Internet? Right now we clearly have confusion, because if there was a clear policy that the people in his situation would be arrested our UK friend would probably never have traveled to the US.
Personally I was wondering what the officer's boss told him:
"I don't care how you do it, don't phone me again until you have Dicks in your hands..."
29 mpg. YMMV.