Congress To Deal With Online Gambling
"The legislation would make it illegal for banks and credit-card companies to make payments to these sites and increase the maximum prison time for violations from two to five years. It also would allow law-enforcement officials to force Internet service providers to remove links to the sites.
The legislation is supported by many conservative advocacy groups, including the Family Research Council and the Christian Coalition, which view it as necessary to keep children from gambling."
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Read This While It's Still Legal
"As most of us toasted liberty and pursued happiness last week, Jim Harvill opened his mailbox and learned these rights are not as unalienable as he thought.

On July 3, Harvill, an affable operations manager for Sprint PCS near Spokane, got the following letter from the publisher of two magazines he has subscribed to for years. 'It is with deep regret that we must inform you ... ' it read, 'we must cancel all subscriptions to Washington State.'

The magazines are Casino Player — a monthly review of U.S. casinos and hotels — and Strictly Slots — a guide to one-armed bandits, video poker and other mechanized means of gambling.

Hardly classic literature. But Harvill liked them. And now he can no longer read them, thanks to a twisted reading of the state's new law against Internet gambling.

The state says placing bets online is against the law. Fine. But the state goes on to say that even writing about Internet gambling in a way that's promotional is 'aiding and abetting' an illegal industry.

So now two print magazines consider themselves banned in this state. It's not clear whether the publisher pulled them on his own or was asked to by the state. The letter vaguely cites 'new state laws regarding the legality of online gaming.'

Mind you, no actual betting occurs via these magazines. People like Harvill buy them just to read about gambling.

'It's completely surreal,' Harvill says. "My government is saying there is something I'm not allowed to read. I've lived in this country for 60 years and I can't remember anything like this happening to me before.'"
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Ain't that a bitch? No more online gambling (if the bastards have their way). What's next - - online pornography?

Town of 420 Monitors Citizens Constantly
"Nine cameras eyeball Main Street and the few roads into Sanborn, a southwestern Minnesota town plopped among some of the most fertile soybean fields in America. There's a bank but no stoplight, no school, no grocery store and, since the digital cops started keeping their 24/7 vigil last fall, not as much anxiety about crime.

'Things have calmed down pretty good,' said Tom Platz, who runs Tom & Jerry's Corner Bar. From the cool darkness of his saloon, Platz (which is pronounced 'Plates') has a three-decade-long perspective of what goes on along Main Street.

Right now, he likes what he sees — and doesn't see.

'I'm probably the only one up at 1 or 2 in the morning, and I don't see kids up squealing their tires and raising hell like they used to,' Platz said."
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