As a 24-year-old, red-blooded American, Haden Ware has a hard time bemoaning his surroundings in exile. Life on the tropical Caribbean island of Antigua sounds more like a Corona beer commercial than an episode of “The Fugitive.”
But by virtue of his Internet sports bookmaking operation, Ware is a criminal in the eyes of his country.
If he comes home, he’ll be prosecuted for violating the Wire Act of 1961, which prohibits the use of U.S. phone lines to transmit sports bets.
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That same law doesn’t touch fellow countrymen who set up an on-line blackjack casino on the island. Nor does it prescribe penalties for non-U.S. citizens operating the 300 or more wagering Web sites that have sprung up from Grenada to the Galapagos Islands.
“I am a proud American, but they’re using an act against us that was created years ago in the ’60s–before the Internet was even in our minds,” Ware says from his Antigua office. “It just doesn’t make any sense.”
In fact, gambling law is only one of a considerable number of regulatory mechanisms facing strain from a technology that knows no borders and behaves like none of its predecessors.
Laws and rules governing pornography, patents, human organ sales, weapons auctions–even neighborhood zoning for businesses–all face challenges, experts predict. The questions raised by American efforts to apply old laws to the new, worldwide electronic frontier hold huge potential impact for expanding the Net.
Congressional proposals to make all on-line gambling illegal, for example, would call for law enforcement agencies to track down all the world’s gambling Web sites, seek a court order enjoining the activity, then force Internet service providers to shut down access to each one.
Even the National Gambling Impact Study group acknowledges that the resulting hardware and software needed by ISPs to block access would be costly and difficult to implement. And, given the slippery nature of Web site addressing, completely blocking such a large body of sites may be technically impossible.
“Because the Internet represents an ever-growing interconnected network, no one entity can control or speak for the entire system,” said David G. Jemmett, who testified on behalf of the ISPs before the House Judiciary Committee.
That’s the problem in a nutshell, says Gene Crick, executive director of the Texas ISP Association.
“What we’re looking at in terms of international law alone,” he says, “is a virtual nightmare.”
Says author Bruce Sterling, longtime chronicler of technology and its legal skirmishes: “I think we are in a state of chaos with our laws. I question whether law is ever going to catch up.”
Until they were featured on “Hard Copy,” the six women who moved into the 4,000-square-foot home in a quiet Tampa neighborhood a year ago had never provoked so much as a raised eyebrow.
But the revelation that the young women were part of a daily adult Webcast set into motion a string of events that may ultimately force the city to revise its zoning laws.
The women, who were billed as college students, were given rent-free accommodations as part of Internet Entertainment Group’s Voyeurdorm.com, a subscription Internet service. Their daily activities, including showers and other intimate moments, were being broadcast on the Internet 24 hours a day with more than 20 Web cameras mounted throughout the home.
Mark R. Dolan, a Florida attorney who represents the enterprise, told The Associated Press that local police, not neighbors, initiated inquiries into the location of the home after seeing it on television.
When the venture’s ISP reported receiving state subpoenas for the address, Dolan said, he attempted to head off trouble by requesting a zoning exception.
Although the Webcams were in a residential area where businesses are prohibited, he argued, the business transactions for viewer credit cards occurred in downtown Tampa, where commerce is permitted.
Besides, he said, this “virtual business” has no clients physically arriving at the home and presents none of the problems that zoning laws cover to protect residential sectors.
The city ruled against Voyeurdorm. Now Dolan has vowed to continue the fight.
“This case has implications far beyond adult use,” he says. “What, for instance, is the proper role of government regulating e-commerce from one’s home?
“The code predates the advent of the Internet,” he says. “We need to go back to traditional zoning concerns. Do you upset your neighbors?”
In March 1998, when Ware and 11 other on-line bookmakers were named in New York criminal complaints, U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno issued a strong warning.
“The Internet is not an electronic sanctuary for illegal betting,” she said. “To Internet betting operators everywhere, we have a simple message: You can’t hide on-line, and you can’t hide offshore.”
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Ware finds that laughable.
“We’re not down here trying to get away with anything,” he says. “We’re just down here because nobody else would license us. Everybody knows what we’re doing. We’ve never tried to hide from anyone.”
One of Ware’s associates, Jay Cohen, has returned to the United States to face the charges. And, although Justice Department prosecutors contend the Wire Act covers the alleged offenses adequately, a report released this summer by the National Gambling Impact Study Commission casts some doubt.
The commission, set up by Congress to study a broad range of gambling issues, points out that the law, designed in pre-Internet days, specifically targets those who use wire communications “for the transmission in interstate or foreign commerce of bets or wagers, or information assisting in the placing of bets or wagers on any sporting event or contest.”