RAWA rhetoric sweeps House subcommittee meeting in federal online gambling debate
Next up was Andrew Moylan, executive director and senior fellow at R Street Institute, a conservative-libertarian think tank. Moylan was a late addition to the list of witnesses, a concession, perhaps, to criticism of the largely partisan panel.
However, he confusingly stated that he was not particularly knowledgeable about or interested in gambling. Instead, he was here to “articulate a conception of limited government and federalism as it relates to gambling legislation.”
Moylan noted that RAWA and its blanket ban on online gambling was at odds with the principles of federalism and also the “more narrowly targeted language of the original Wire Act and UIGEA.” Both the Wire Act and UIGEA, he said, were enacted to help states in their own law enforcement pursuits.
He also said that RAWA “potentially establishes a dangerous precedent by suggesting that the mere use of a communication platform like the internet subjects all users and all activity to the reach of the federal government, no matter its location or its nature.”
