FBI seized PokerStars.com, FullTiltPoker.com, UB.com,... domain names • Hacker News Board

Re: FBI seized PokerStars.com, FullTiltPoker.com, UB.com,... domain names

#101

Post by kragen » Fri, Apr 15, 2011, 6:44 PM UTC

davidcann wrote: post #47

eof wrote: post #18

Wow this is huge. I used to play online poker for a living, I had a decent chunk of cash locked up for almost a year when they came down on online poker previously (UIGEA) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAFE_Port_Act#Internet_gambling... It's worth noting that these are NOT American companies. It doesn't look like anyone (players) has had their assests seized; but this is bad news for a lot of people. It also appears p…

The real issue here is the seizure of domain names. US citizens who gamble online know full well that they're breaking the law and are subject to lose assets. The domain seizures are very troubling, though. Edit: There seems to be some dispute over where it's a crime to "participate" in different US states, but for the purposes of the "customer assests seized", the transaction is illegal, so it's to be expected that…

Are you saying that even US citizens who live outside the US are breaking US law if they gamble online?

Re: FBI seized PokerStars.com, FullTiltPoker.com, UB.com,... domain names

#102

Post by ChuckMcM » Fri, Apr 15, 2011, 6:44 PM UTC

nika wrote: post #48

jonknee wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I find this ridiculous, it's quite different from the Liberty Dollar case which you mentioned losing $20 in. In the US it is clearly illegal to begin running your own currency and has been for a long time. The fact that NotHaus went as far as putting the word Dollar on it was just the icing on the cake.

Visa is a currency. So are travellers checks and regular old checking checks and coupons. All of these are also denominated in dollars. If you were to take some time and study the actual laws, and also check out the legal opinions, from members of boards of federal reserve branches, as well as the secret service and lawyers that were obtained before the Liberty Dollar project was started you'd recognize just how absu…

I lived in Las Vegas in the 70's when the Secret Service stepped in and shut down the process of people paying for things with Casino Chips.

For those not familiar with them, a Casino Chip has a current denomination ($1, $5, $25, etc) and the name of the Casino on it. For a long time Casinos, as service to their customers, didn't care if you played with another Casino's chips so you could just carry them around from place to place and play them. At the end of the day the Casinos would settle accounts and exchange chips and cash to make it all come out even. It was a great convenience and while occasionally people would try to counterfeit chips, at that time if you were caught doing that you literally disappeared. Of course businesses near the Casinos, 7-11, restaurants, etc, started accepting chips in lieu of cash since they could just walk next door and exchange them for cash. It was a kind of fun and "just one of those things."

And then the secret service came and said "Under the constitution only the US Government can make a currency, stop accepting chips or go to jail." And they did a few stings and there were some high profile wrist slaps (I don't think anyone actually went to jail) and the whole thing stopped.

Had the Liberty Dollar folks read that bit of history they would have seen where their enterprise was headed.

Relinquishing the right to create a currency was one of the pre-requisites to ratifying the Constitution [1] which took that power for the Federal government and removed it from the states and the citizenry.

[1] http://www.jstor.org/pss/2124065

Re: FBI seized PokerStars.com, FullTiltPoker.com, UB.com,... domain names

#103

Post by rbetts » Fri, Apr 15, 2011, 6:45 PM UTC

mrtron wrote: post #32

Online gambling is legal almost everywhere - how does the FBI have the ability to do this?

They are accused of a conspiracy of intentionally fraudulent financial transactions.

From the press release:

... arranged for the money received from U.S. gamblers to be disguised as payments to hundreds of non-existent online merchants purporting to sell merchandise such as jewelry and golf balls

Re: FBI seized PokerStars.com, FullTiltPoker.com, UB.com,... domain names

#104

Post by kls » Fri, Apr 15, 2011, 6:45 PM UTC

TY wrote: post #36

It's real and it's happening now. I have nothing to do with online gambling (anymore), but this just sent shivers down my spine. Who's next? The US Government has just strengthened the case of those who were concerned about having parts of Internet infrastructure under the control of the US government. Domain seizures have been happening for a while (i.e. [1]), but this case will probably be the highest profile to da…

but this case will probably be the highest profile to date and will hopefully raise public awareness about this disturbing issue

It will but not in the manner you hope, you see they always go after sex, drugs or gambling when they are trying to set precedence. The moral outrage hands them the jury and then they can use the precedence on less morally distasteful targets as case law gets build upon past rulings.

Re: FBI seized PokerStars.com, FullTiltPoker.com, UB.com,... domain names

#105

Post by uptown » Fri, Apr 15, 2011, 6:46 PM UTC

jonknee wrote: post #35

nika wrote: post #7

Reagan is the one who signed "asset forfeiture" into law. I remember at the time reading newspaper articles claiming this was "just going to be used to keep drugs off the streets" and how "law enforcement are outgunned and now can defend themselves against drug dealers". It was obvious to me then that this was a violation of due process. Also, it is not authorized by the constitution, and thus every act of seizure un…

While I find this ridiculous, it's quite different from the Liberty Dollar case which you mentioned losing $20 in. In the US it is clearly illegal to begin running your own currency and has been for a long time. The fact that NotHaus went as far as putting the word Dollar on it was just the icing on the cake.

What about these?

Disney Dollars: http://www.disneydollars.net/

BerkShares: http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/jul2007/sb20070...

Buy Local—With Town Currency Dollar alternatives, such as BerkShares in Massachusetts, are shoring up local economies by keeping money in the community

Microsoft Points: http://www.xbox.com/en-US/Live/MicrosoftPoints

Pittsboro Plenty: http://www.democracynow.org/2009/4/9/north_carolina_town_pri...

Re: FBI seized PokerStars.com, FullTiltPoker.com, UB.com,... domain names

#106

Post by nika » Fri, Apr 15, 2011, 6:46 PM UTC

_ouxp wrote: post #94

nika wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're misremembering. The primary educational effort of the Liberty Dollar focused on, whenever someone asked what it was, or you offered it, making clear that it wasn't US currency. Nobody associated with the Liberty Dollar in any official capacity would call it "a new dollar coin" and as the word "coin" is one of the magic ones that denotes government money. They might say "its 20 dollars in silver" or "a silver p…

Even "it's 20 dollars in silver" is iffy. To most, dollar means USD, and there's no constant dollars-silver ratio any more. This is the video that I was misremembering (works in newest VLC): http://replay.waybackmachine.org/20050206004912/http://www.l... via: http://replay.waybackmachine.org/20050206004912/http://www.l...

Alas, the wayback machine won't let me see the video, but even the name of it is bad since it contains the word "coin".

Most may assume that "dollar" means USD, but that is not the legal meaning. Dollar is a generic term, as Canadians use it, for instance. But further, if I were to say "20 USD in Silver" I'd be referring to the US dollar and I'd be naming a price for this amount of silver. This is no different than saying "$5 in coffee beans".

Edit to add: My real point is to disagree with the idea that the liberty dollar advocated (generally) passing it off as US government money, as they spent a great deal of effort trying to prevent that perception or anyone associated with the organization doing so.

I'll concede that you saw a video where someone didn't make it explicit enough that it wasn't government money and that put you off of the idea... and in fact your quote might even be exact. In which case you are not misremembering.

My point isn't really to debate the video, so much as the intent of the organization.

Re: FBI seized PokerStars.com, FullTiltPoker.com, UB.com,... domain names

#107

Post by dchest » Fri, Apr 15, 2011, 6:49 PM UTC

dsl wrote: post #52

nbpoole wrote: post #9

For those that are skeptical, check the nameservers: http://network-tools.com/default.asp?prog=dnsrec&host=po... http://network-tools.com/default.asp?prog=dnsrec&host=fu... http://network-tools.com/default.asp?prog=dnsrec&host=ub... All of the domains point to nameservers at cirfu.net, which appears to be the FBI's Cyber Initiative and Resource Fusion Unit ( http://itlaw.wikia.com/wiki/Cyber_Initiative_and_Resource_F…

Neustar, Verisign, and Afilias operate the actual registry for most of the commercial TLDs (.com, .net, .me, .info, etc), and are all within US jurisdiction. Further, they all hold hefty government contracts.

.me is operated by "doMEn, d.o.o., a Montenegrin joint venture (doing business as .ME Registry), whose partners include Afilias Limited, GoDaddy.com, Inc., and ME-net d.o.o." (http://www.domain.me/about.html), so it seems like it's not under the US jurisdiction.

Re: FBI seized PokerStars.com, FullTiltPoker.com, UB.com,... domain names

#108

Post by samfoo » Fri, Apr 15, 2011, 6:49 PM UTC

nika wrote: post #83

jonknee wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/486.html It seems extraordinarily cut and dry to me, but I'm not a lawyer (and by your post I assume you're not either).

It would be cut and dry if you could show any "utterances" from the Liberty Dollar / NORFED, where they represented their products as US government money. They did not, and further, they were careful to put disclaimers on their warehouse receipts, and various features on the physical pieces to make it clear that this was not being represented as government money. For instance, ever piece contained a copyright stateme…

> Whoever, except as authorized by law, makes or utters or passes, or attempts to utter or pass, any coins of gold or silver or other metal, or alloys of metals, intended for use as current money, whether in the resemblance of coins of the United States or of foreign countries, or of original design, shall be fined under this title [1] or imprisoned not more than five years, or both. [Emphasis mine.]

They were minting physical coins. They called them dollars. Just because they decided they didn't think they were legally coinage or currency doesn't change the fact that, that's very obviously the intent.

Their whole disclaimer is delivered with a wink and nudge.

Re: FBI seized PokerStars.com, FullTiltPoker.com, UB.com,... domain names

#109

Post by Symmetry » Fri, Apr 15, 2011, 6:49 PM UTC

nika wrote: post #83

jonknee wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/486.html It seems extraordinarily cut and dry to me, but I'm not a lawyer (and by your post I assume you're not either).

It would be cut and dry if you could show any "utterances" from the Liberty Dollar / NORFED, where they represented their products as US government money. They did not, and further, they were careful to put disclaimers on their warehouse receipts, and various features on the physical pieces to make it clear that this was not being represented as government money. For instance, ever piece contained a copyright stateme…

The law he cites rather explicitly said "in the resemblance of coins of the United States or of foreign countries, or of original design" are all covered. Metal coins of original design are still illegal to manufacture (though I'd agree they shouldn't be).

Re: FBI seized PokerStars.com, FullTiltPoker.com, UB.com,... domain names

#110

Post by bmelton » Fri, Apr 15, 2011, 6:52 PM UTC

cynicalkane wrote: post #88

blhack wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you elaborate on this for me? It sounds like what they're saying makes perfect sense (btw, there is really no need for the --or high school economics-- jab). Visa is an abstraction of my money. A better example would be american express gift cards. I can buy american express gift cards, and I can trade these gift cards or goods or services. The gift cards have a non-static real-value that is tied to the United…

Currency refers to physical money. A gift card isn't "money" because it's only a medium of exchange at a few specific places. Credit cards aren't currency because they are simply pointers to a line of credit, which isn't physical money. The Liberty Dollar guy was found guilty of imitating U.S. currency . The OP believes the application of the law is unjust because, mentally, he's equivocated currency with other numis…

I believe it is you who is wrong. Wikipedia's first sentence on 'currency' is this:

In economics, currency refers to physical objects generally accepted as a medium of exchange.

I don't claim to have the requisite knowledge on the argument at hand, so I won't speak to that, but it appears that the assertions you're arguing as fact are incorrect.