Seizing a domain is like seizing a billboard, argue the attorneys appealing Kentucky governor Steve Beshear’s attempt to take possession of 141 gambling domains. Even if domains were forfeited, users could still access gambling sites via IP addresses, which become destinations without signs over them.
That argument isn’t likely to fly with Beshear, who demanded international gambling sites block access to Kentuckians because of potential children’s access, loss of tax revenue, competition with the horse industry, money-laundering, and lack of consumer protections.
Other arguments not likely to fly with Beshear but were made to the Kentucky Court of Appeals last Friday:
- The previous Circuit Court judge does not have the jurisdiction to allow the Kentucky government to seize international domains registered in countries where gambling is legal.
- Domain names are not gambling devices.
- Domain names can only be seized after criminal convictions; there have been none.
- Kentucky is prohibited by the commerce clause of the US Constitution from regulating interstate and international commerce.
The state has rebutted that attorneys for the defendants have no standing to challenge seizure of the domain names because they won’t name their clients. The ACLU argues that revealing their clients would be a violation of the Fifth Amendment since the state is coercing them into self-incrimination.
The state’s lawyer, apparently the best our cash-strapped state could afford, accused gambling sites of running a “massive offshore criminal conspiracy” and masquerading as legitimate business.
Someone is likely to tell him that if it’s not illegal in the countries their based, it’s legitimate business. And technically, gambling’s not illegal in Kentucky either, if you count horse racing and lottery.
One of these days logic will return to our politicians, locally and nationally, but it won’t be this day obviously.
