The Minnesota Star Tribune has an article on a Republican\’s legislation Monday to bar the state\’s Department of Public Safety from attempting to block access to 200 online gambling sites without legislative approval.
Rep. Pat Garofolo from Farmington offered the following:
\”The Department of Public Safety has to have better things to do with their time than to go after a college kid in his dorm room or some guy sitting in his basement spending a couple of hours playing online poker,\” Garofalo said Monday afternoon. \”Demanding that a private-sector Internet service provider block access to websites is not a proper function of our state government.\”
In the DPS\’s effort to block ISP\’s from blocking the sites, it\’s not looking good at the moment according to Alcohol and Gaming Enforcement director John Willems:
As for how the ISPs are reacting to his agency\’s initiative, Willems said: \”We have not heard from the ISPs apart from Dish TV, which has told me that they work with a third-party company to provide Internet access to their customers who need it.\”
