Minnesota wins ruling in LV gaming website lawsuit Assoc Press ST. PAUL, Minn.-Minnesota has the right to regulate Internet activity, the state Court of Appeals ruled in a widely watched l case involving a L as Vegas company's gambling site on the World Wide Web. The site's operator said Monday he would appeal. "For Minnesota to have jurisdiction over a site that has never taken a bet, that requires someone from Minnesota to go look at it, is ludicrous," said Kerry Rogers, president of Las Vegas-based Granite Gate Resorts Inc. The case stems from a push by ~Attorney General Hubert HumPhrey IlI to block Rogers' gambring operation from soliciting business~ from Minnesota residents on the Internet. The court's opinion, filed Friday, said Granite Gate demonstrated a clear intent to solicit business with Minnesota residents, including one successful solicitation. Rogers claimed a lack of jurisdiction because he had not mailed anything or advertised in Minnesota. "We've never taken a single bet in the history of the deal," Rogers said. "It was an idea. I'm being sued for an idea." The decision upholds a district judge's refusal to dismiss the case filed in 1995. The attorney general's office accused Rogers of false advertising, deceptive trade practices and consumer fraud. Now, Humphrey said he would seek a court order to stop the advertising and seek civil penalties of at least $25,000. Eugene Volokh, a UCLA law professor who specializes in constitutional, copyright and computer technology cases, said the decision is "a barrier to interstate commerce." "This is a very significant case because when you put up a web site in Nevada, you are essentially doing business in every one of the 50 states." He said the debate is over how to characterize the business: Does the transaction occur in the state of the site's origin, the state where the user is, or in cyberspace? --end PGP mail preferred, see http://www.pgp.com and http://web.mit.edu/network/pgp.html RSA PGP Fingerprint: FE 90 1A 95 9D EA 8D 61 81 2E CC A9 A4 4A FB A9 --------------------------------------------------------------------- Steve Schear (N7ZEZ) | Internet: azur@netcom.com 7075 West Gowan Road | Voice: 1-702-658-2654 Suite 2148 | Fax: 1-702-658-2673 Las Vegas, NV 89129 | economic and crypto dissident --------------------------------------------------------------------- The push by western governments for financial transparency and banning unrestricted use of cryptography is blatent politicial tyranny. Free Cypherpunk Political Prisoner Jim Bell