Hi there,
I am just wondering if anyone knows any more about the attempt by
Minnesota to block online gambling companies other than what's
publicly available (e.g.
http://www.gambling911.com/gambling-news/minnesota-regulators-try-block-access-gambing-sites-042909.html)?
Such as a list or the letter to the providers?
Thank you!
Ken
For anyone who cares, IMEGA released the letter from the state of Minnesota:
http://www.imega.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/ab001dd4.pdf
What a pile of garbage. I would definitely get a legal review of a
request like that before blocking any of my customer's traffic.
Instead of huffing and puffing your libertarian perspective (you called the AG's letter garbage), you might make a quick Google search of "18USC1084(d)," which provides a wealth of information on the legality of such enforcement actions.
http://openjurist.org/325/f2d/148
Excerpted from the court decision:
18 U.S.C. 1084(d). 'When any common carrier, subject to the jurisdiction of the Federal Communications Commission, is notified in writing by a Federal, State, or local law enforcement agency, acting within its jurisdiction, that any facility furnished by it is being used or will be used for the purpose of transmitting or receiving gambling information in interstate or foreign commerce in violation of Federal, State or local law, it shall discontinue or refuse, the leasing, furnishing, or maintaining of such facility, after reasonable notice to the subscriber, but no damages, penalty or forfeiture, civil or criminal, shall be found against any common carrier for any act done in compliance with any notice received from a law enforcement agency. Nothing in this section shall be deemed to prejudice the right of any person affected thereby to secure an appropriate determination, as otherwise provided by law, in a Federal court or in a State or local tribunal or agency, that such facility should not be discontinued or removed, or should be restored.'
matthew black
speaking only for myself and not my employer
california state university, long beach
Not withstanding the legality of such an order, how would one operationally enforce that order? Does this order force carriers into transparent proxy so that L7 filtering can be done? Is the carrier also required to go through geolocator matching any given IP address with 'Minnesota' so that the filtering can be selectively applied?
Tim Peiffer
Network Support Engineer
OIT / Networking and Telecommunications Services
University of Minnesota / NorthernLights GigaPOP
Hi,
I host some gambling sites (off-shore) and I would like to get some
info on how i can put minnesota IP blocks on my Filter-List to comply
with their 'wacked politics'
-beavis
Please see ongoing thread on geoIP to see how to go about doing this =)
-brandon
Not withstanding the legality of such an order, how would one
operationally enforce that order?
The order has a list of IP addresses, so I expect the ISPs will just
block those IPs in routers somewhere.
Since offshore online gambling is equally illegal everywhere in the
U.S., the ISPs have little reason to limit the block to Minnesota
customers, giving them a lot of latitude in where they implement the
block.
Regards,
John Levine, johnl@iecc.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Information Superhighwayman wanna-be, http://www.johnlevine.com, ex-Mayor
"More Wiener schnitzel, please", said Tom, revealingly.
So is this going to become like the great firewall of China
eventually? You can see in the letters that they are "going to see how
it goes and then maybe start blocking more stuff" if they are
successful. I can see a big nightmare heading this way if ISPs start
caving in to requests like this.
Instead of huffing and puffing your libertarian perspective (you called the AG's letter garbage), you might make a quick Google search of "18USC1084(d)," which provides a wealth of information on the legality of such enforcement actions.
325 F2d 148 Kelly v. Illinois Bell Telephone Company F Kelly F L | OpenJurist
But the Seventh Circuit specifically refuses to rule on any Constitutional issues surrounding the statute, instead choosing to rely on the district court's order that the defendants activities did not violate the law under 18 USC ยง1084(d). The statute, as applied by Minnesota, could very well be unconstitutional and unenforceable in the manner that Minnesota seeks. In this case the First Amendment may be applicable because this seems to be a prior restraint on speech. Additionally, it is content based because it seeks to restrict speech due to its transmission or reception of gambling information. This means that the courts will apply a "strict scrutiny" test to it, requiring that the government have compelling reason to restrict the speech, and that they are applying the least restrictive method of controlling the speech. This is usually a difficult burden for them to sustain.
In this case, the gambling issue seems much like the pornography issue. In _Center for Democracy and Technology v. Pappert_, 337 F.Supp 606 (W.D. Pa. 2004), the Eastern District of Pennsylvania looked at a Pennsylvania state law that looks much like this federal law and required ISPs operating in the state to block based on a letter from the state attorney general. In trying to determine whether the law provided the least restrictive method, the court looked to the types of blocking that the ISPs could employ. Specifically they examined DNS blocking, IP blocking, and URL filtering. The court decided that DNS blocking wasn't particularly effective and would require ISPs to deploy additional equipment. Additionally, URL filtering was impractical because of the deployment costs as well. The only practical alternative the court recognized was IP blocking, but they said that because it could severely overblock (because of name based virtual hosting) that it wasn't narrowly tailored enough block to pass Constitutional muster.
The situation in _Center for Democracy_ seems remarkably similar to what Minnesota seems to be trying to do with the federal statute. There's certainly the chance that the federal district courts in Minnesota, or the appeals courts will disagree with the Western District of Pennsylvania's assessment of the situation, but as long as the strict scrutiny standard is applied, and there's a danger of overblocking, then I would expect the Supreme Court to uphold any as applied challenges to the statute.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. This is not legal advice. If you need legal advice, you should hire a real lawyer licensed in your jurisdiction.
Jeremy McDermond wrote:
manner that Minnesota seeks. In this case the First Amendment may be applicable because this seems to be a prior restraint on speech. Additionally, it is content based because it seeks to restrict speech due to its transmission or reception of gambling information. This
Well, one does have to wonder if first applies, as there is perfectly legal information on some of those sites(ie, reading about strategy is not illegal). I believe some of those listed also had support for freeplay, which is not illegal (and probably why gambling sites like to combine the two).
Jack
So is this going to become like the great firewall of China
eventually?
Who knows. It's hardly the first government attempt to block illegal content, viz. the secret Pennsylvania list of child porn sites.
R's,
John
Isn't this akin to a state legislature mandating that the DOT block
drugs at the state's border?
Also, why is the order to block sites rather than monitoring and
arresting Minnesotans who are violating the law? Sort'a looks like
the MN legislature is trying to hide the bad behavior of it's
citizens. 
-Jim P.
To me, the bigger question is "Are ISPs common carriers?"
To the best of my knowledge, the ISP businesses even of the telcos
are not of common carrier status under federal law. If that is the
case, my understanding of statute in question is that it does not apply
and the ISPs should tell the MN government to go find a workable
statute.
Owen
From a strictly operational perspective:
The only concern that I had with that request was with the v4 address
blocking. That ought to be rethought in the grand scheme of things i.e. v4
exhaustion. There's a reasonable case to make regarding not tainting hosts
or specific blocks in this manner. Creating "less usable" v4 resources as we
approach exhaustion is not helpful, IMHO.
Best Regards,
Martin
Not only do we create "less usable" v4 address space, if these guys
had a clue, and what ever you think of them with $$ envolved clue will
be found... they will just add more IP's from diffrent block, further
'wasting' IP space.
-jim