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Posted on 01/18/2012 4:40:35 AM PST by Recovering_Democrat
Some Florida House Republicans are calling for a ban on Internet cafes, which have sprung up all around the state.
A House committee voted Tuesday in favor of bill to ban the cafes, which offer electronic sweepstakes entries to customers. Critics charge they are a form of illegal gambling and call the Internet cafes storefront casinos.
(Excerpt) Read more at miamiherald.com ...
They should just lock up all the meddling bureaucrats and leave people alone.
Stop passing stupid laws to stop people from doing what they wish to do with their time and money if it does not interfere with the liberties of others.
Idiots.
Our country is slowly turning into a banana republic and police state at the same time.
Just like in the old Warsaw Pact, there were so many laws that anyone at any time was bound to break one of them, and they would say, “Show me the man, and I’ll show you the paragraph.” (The paragraph would mean the law the hapless individual violated.)
Gradualism toward a Police State...
But they sell lottery tickets at the corner store, that couldn’t be gambling because the state sanctions it. Just more lefty do gooders trying to organize the world in their selfish and twisted image.
Then there is the Mexican lottery.
Restaurants and bodegas across America sell Mexican lottery tickets where the money and the ticket order are transmitted to Mexico via fax.
It takes 10 years to get a road repaved but officials will act in a matter of weeks, if not days, when they imagine they might be shorted a tax dollar or two.
Attorneys general are supposed to be an intelligent bunch but too often they involve themselves in some rather ham-fisted cash grabs.
I think open WiFi -via internet cafe’s or the local McDonalds - are a huge security risk and they are trying to stop it via the back door with this.
I’ve said, for years, that all it would take is an anonymously purchased laptop, a cheap storage unit, a few things to modify your appearance, and you could do pretty much anything you wanted to the internet via open wi-fi networks. And if you were just a little careful, you’d be impossible to catch.
It’s shockingly easy, and they know it.
I still think this is absurdly broad though. It would be like outlawing pull tabs by making bars illegal.
We’ve had a lot of these pop up in VA too. They’re basically a place for stupid people to go online and lose money. That’s no reason to shut them down though. Obviously there’s a demand for them out there, and some enterprising people filled it.
The bingo hall meets WiFi.
Surely the McDonaldses of the world have firewalls on their networks (which in the actual case of McDonalds is supplied by AT&T). You have to do something nominal like log in, then you are free to do whatever the firewall doesn’t forbid.
I’m just waiting for the Gubmnt to ban porn. That is when the youth and under 65 crowd revolt.
I doubt that. Open WiFi net access is so widespread and prevalent these days, attempting to curb it by shutting down these cafes would defy logic. Especially in urban areas, you'd almost have a difficult time finding a place where you can't get online via an open connection. Also, I doubt the net at these cafes are truly open. I'm sure you'd have to pay a little something and be given access code(s) for authentication to their network. If limiting open WiFi was the goal on the part of the FL legislature, they are dumber than a box of rocks.
Miami Hurled.
Complete agreement.
I’m on the outside looking in.
How may I ask is an internet Cafe different than McD’s with
WIFI, or for that matter, any restaurant with WIFI?
—Open WiFi net access is so widespread and prevalent these days, attempting to curb it by shutting down these cafes would defy logic. —
I agree, but it was the only thing I could think of without falling back on the obvious: That these republicans are beyond stupid. It is possible that your last sentence is hitting at the core of this: “...they are dumber than a box of rocks.”
—Surely the McDonaldses of the world have firewalls on their networks (which in the actual case of McDonalds is supplied by AT&T). You have to do something nominal like log in, then you are free to do whatever the firewall doesn’t forbid.—
I use uTorrent there to download music and movies. I also had safe search off and on a picture search I was shocked at what came up. At McDonalds. And there are a LOT of mom and pop places that have no limitations whatsoever.
If a bad guy wanted to, he could exploit this to do serious harm with virtually no risk of ever being identified. And even if they somehow caught him, all his evidence (computer, disguises, everything) would be in a random storage unit somewhere. His house and all his computer equipment, etc. would be squeaky clean.
Internet cafes, aka online gambling joints, compete with the state-sanctioned lotteries. Therefore they must be destroyed via legislative decree.
and so electing legislators is NOT gambling with your future?!!
Don’t ban the cafes’, ban the gambling component... that would keep gambling on the reservation, if you know what I mean...
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