Like I said, P1 is too vague. RICO maybe, but come on, the Patsy Act?

Interesting story. From the article, it sounds like the US Attorney is looking for a shakedown (and wouldn't THAT be a violation of RICO?). I think this goes beyond the intent of the Act, but may be within the bounds of the language of the law.

Huge implications for many industries should this be upheld.

Thanks for the heads up, Eric.

Dead on, Ross. I almost came back to comment that this sounds like government-sponsored extortion: why charge PayPal under RICO, if they really need to be charged at all, when you can charge them under P1 and make them look like anti-Americans unless they pay up, preferably the figure established by the US Attorney's office?

And where will the money proceeds of this shakedown be going, we wonders? Perhaps to the RNC to fund their various equally shady activities for 2006-8, hmmm?

BTW -is there any way to nuke or otherwise inflict pain on who/whatever posted #4? How the hell does this crap get on here?!

Nancy, now your comment is unintentionally self-referential. And kinda funny.

If online gambling is illegal, why aren't they prosecuting the actual online casinos? For that matter, why aren't they going after the credit card companies the same way they are going after PayPal?

And for that matter, if gambling is so illegal under the Patriot act, why isn't the US Attorney for Eastern Missouri going after the legalized gambling IN MISSOURI, where riverboat gambling is legal.

Of course, online casinos all base their operations offshore, in places like the Grand Caymans or Costa Rica, and since eBay is a company with an international presence, they're perfectly within their rights to process payments for foreign companies for activities which are legal in the countries where they are based.

Thankfully, at this point eBay has all the money in the world, so I look forward to them crushing this grandstanding dumbass of an attorney and sending his pathetic butt back to the jackleg lawschool that birthed him.

Dave

When politicians are involved, one always has to look for the lowest common denominator. If the Dems were in power, I would have said 'the re-elect Kerry' committee. I am an equal opportunity politician despiser.

One also has to wonder, since when does Missouri have jurisdiction over gambling outside of Missouri? In this case, I think Dave is right: can this upstart wannabe slickie, and administer the state of Missouri a well-deserved smack on the nose.

Oh. Yeah, it IS kind of funny. At the time I was writing that, #4 was one of those damned ad blogs that show up (there are more on other threads this am) urging bloggers to check out this or that commercial site peddling some garbage sexual in nature. One of the editors must have edited out that entry, and then arranged for ME to be #4! LOL! Pretty slick!

Nancy, the question is: where is the gambling taking place? Where the servers are? Where the person actually betting the money is? Some third place?

The states have tended to act as if the person surfing the web is the determiner, which isn't crazy. And if the person surfing the web is in Missouri, then Missouri believes it has jurisdiction. Not over the whole server, but over any of the activity involving people in Missouri.

Then Missouri is going to have to have a list up front of every Missouri citizen's gambling transactions that involve Paypal - which involves mass violations of individual privacy rights, not to mention trying to review Paypal's records, of which they have the chance of a snowball in hell. Otherwise, it's up to A. Gonzales to file federal charges. In any event, getting this kind of specific evidence against Paypal is not only unlikely, but impossible without bringing all kinds of other constitutional questions into play. Missouri is just hedging that maybe they can scare Paypal into coughing up dough in order to stave off fake charges that can't possibly be prosecuted, let alone proven, i.e a shakedown scam. Which deserves to be treated as such by ebay. With contempt.

It is a shakedown, no doubt about it. Paypal, however, is not a bank, and so your privacy rights might not be as secure as you hope they are.

Paypal doesn't want to be a bank and has worked hard to ensure they aren't treated as a bank in order to avoid the sort of regulation that comes with being a bank. This is the flip side to that coin -- a subpoena may be all that's required to identify Missouri customers.

Well, these are finer points that no doubt will be argued out by the lawyers, should it come to that. I have no worries as I don't gamble nor do I live in Missouri. Thank God.