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October 11th, 2006 
QuadsZilla Presedential hopeful Bill Frist is real proud of himself. He was able to sneak in a bann on Internet Gambling on to a Port Security Bill about a half hour before that legislation was voted on.
Nice job Asshole. You just created an insentive that will help to fund terrorists. Cringley said it straight in his Friday column:
Any random group of 535 nerds is smarter than the 535 members of the U.S. Congress and able to circumvent ANY regulation if there is enough profit incentive to do so. Well the U.S. Congress has just created such an incentive where there was none before. And once these various payment schemes start appearing, what’s to say some of them can’t be equally used to finance terrorism? Of course they can be used for that purpose.
Thanks a lot Senator Frist.
Here’s a law that purports to end Internet gambling but will instead enable it, a law that is intended to make certain types of financial transactions harder to do but will ultimately make them easier, a law that says nothing about terrorism but will ultimately abet it, making us all less secure in the process.
There is, to my knowledge, no center for Al-Qaida hacking, nor is terrorism as an industry big enough to attract much third-party software development. But ally the interests of terrorists and Internet gamblers who all want to be paid, that’s a $20 billion incentive to corrupt the world financial system — an incentive that didn’t exist before last week.
With the profit motive now in place to create sophisticated underground payment processors – what do you think those vehicles will be used for? Funding terrorism.
This may have come up in discussions if the Senate had the opportunity to debate the bill on it’s own merits. Unfortunately, Bill Frist’s shady tactics did not allow for clean vote or debate on the issue. Are these the types of laws and legislative tactics we could expect more of from a Bill Frist Presidency?
“The government also will be able to ensure that website operators don’t provide links to gambling websites. -Bill Frist
Wonderful. That’s just what we need – the government telling us where we can and cannot link. How can this guy be from the same party that ran on a platform for smaller, less intrusive government to win the House in ‘94?
Although Internet gambling did not have a prominent place on either party’s radar screen just a few years ago, its explosive growth and potential for damaging families made it a very important issue to me and many others in Congress.-Bill Frist
That. . .or maybe it was the billions of dollars you crooks on both sides of the isle raised from brick and mortar casinos. As always, the truth comes out when you follow the money.
On Slashdot, Hackstaw of Spamgormet had this very insightful comment:
In the US, I have noticed a trend since the 60s and 70s to make more “normal” things illegal, and it makes the tension between the system and the government and the people very high. Abraham Lincoln said it best:
“Prohibition goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man’s appetite by legislation and makes crimes out of things that are not crimes. A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded.”
Which was then followed up by HS Thompson:
“In a closed society where everybody’s guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity.”
So much is illegal, but its not “that illegal”, and that is crap. In societies where sex, alcohol, and drugs don’t have these insane and intense laws and taboos against them, they do less of them than here. In societies where pornography and nudity are more tolerated, they have much less rape, child abuse, and teenage pregnancies than we do. In societies where drugs are legal, they do less of them than we do. And the legal consequences keep getting more severe here.
Who do you think has it right? Bill Frist or Abraham Lincoln?
Posted in 
“Did you really think we want those laws observed?” said Dr. Ferris. “We want them to be broken. You’d better get it straight that it’s not a bunch of boy scouts you’re up against… We’re after power and we mean it… There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What’s there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted – and you create a nation of law-breakers – and then you cash in on guilt. Now that’s the system, Mr. Reardon, that’s the game, and once you understand it, you’ll be much easier to deal with.” (’Atlas Shrugged’ 1957)
Who is John Galt?
Lets not forget this is an ‘MD’ who thinks that kissing may transfer AIDS and who also gave his expert diagnosis that Schiavo was not a vegetable.
This ban is such a stupid idea its unbelieveable.
Online Poker has 23 million regular players in the United States and it generates billions in revenue. So you’ve decided you don’t want a piece of the action? Well Britain does. See: http://www.brandrepublic.com/bulletins/media/article/598032/barred-us-set-blossom-uk/
While Congress spends the next few years in a proabition debate this industry will grow its roots outside the US. This is such a bad idea. There aren’t many industries that spring up overnight, with a potential for 100’s of millions in tax dollars, with very little collection effort. This is a big loss for the US. For the players, for the casino operators and for the wider American public who will have to watch revenue that could have gone back into America leaving for foreign shores.
While you lot argue. This cash is going to England.
America has been robbed and the debt keeps growing.
This is why I hate the current Republicans. They aren’t even conservative anymore. Smaller government, fiscal responsibility… the US might actually be in better shape if the Republicans went back to some of the things their party is supposedly in favor of. One of these days Bush is going to grow a little moustache and just confirm the obvious.
[...] The Internet is not going anywhere and prohibition only brings out the worse. Those that will offer a solution are usually not those we would like to make rich. As noted on this site, Bill Frist’s Online Gambling Bann Bill Will Help Fund Terrorists and on countless other site if American banks will not accept checks from online gambling sites, other banks will. [...]
[...] The Republicans were worried they were get too many votes so Bill Frist decided to ban online poker. What other obnoxious government intrusions are on the horizon? [...]
considering that online gambling is one of the biggest spending industries in online advertising market I think this will have some impact on advertising market and on many websites
[...] So for those of you that haven’t figured it out, the whole “funding terrorist” thing is total bullshit. If you buy into it, you’re a fucktard. When I wrote the Poker Bann Would fund Terrorists post, I did so because Frist is just the kind of asshole that would play the “terrorists funding” card for anything; just like when Gonzales said that illicit businesses are used, “quite frankly, to fund terrorism.” [...]