How the online gambling bill came to be

Way to go Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN)! You must be one proud asshole having successfully blackmailed the entire legislative branch to get a pork barrel bill added to the Port Security bill at the last minute and guaranteeing nobody would ever read it before voting on it.

C|Net and Politech's Declan McCullagh has more on similar sneaky senate tactics.

Somehow I don't think this is exactly the way the founding fathers imagined the process when they came up with it.

-TPP

Torture good, online poker bad

The US Congress passes a bill that requires financial institutions to monitor and block financial transactions to and from online gambling businesses. The bill also requires ISPs to respond to "takedown notices" from the US Government to remove any links to online gambling businesses from websites hosted with them.

The bill was passed as a rider in the Safe Port Act of 2006.

Rider bills are so much fun.

Online gambling phobition will be enacted as soon as George W. Bush signs the Safe Port Act of 2006. Let's see how "creatively" this prohibition gets circumvented.

-TPP