State of the Poker Union
I’m fairly certain Barack Obama has known a little bit about the online poker “situation” for a while … at least since the White House released its Strategy to Protect Online Consumers and Support Innovation and National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace on April 15, 2011.
And you gotta think Obama probably got briefed as the DOJ officially changed its position on the Wire Act, September 23rd — the first day of Fall, and the same day the DOJ labeled Full Tilt Poker a Ponzi scheme and took all of Howard Lederer, Chris Ferguson, and Rafe Furst’s money. But why then did the ever-PR-conscious DOJ wait some 60 business days later until December 23rd — the quietest media day of the year — before telling the rest of America about the Executive Branch’s significant change of digital heart?
I suppose it might not even matter at this point; SOPA and PIPA have been tabled for now, Megaupload has been slapped hard with the same government quarantine the Feds beta-tested on online poker sites, and Kim Dotcom is in jail awaiting a fate that Full Tilt and PokerStars lawyers say he coulda avoided simply by changing his name to Kim Dotnet!
OK, maybe I get a little factually carried away sometimes jest … but John Pappas has a serious message for the President — essentially a 22-second synopsis of all those emails and tweets from the Poker Player Alliance’s 1.2 million members, and a plea for “common sense public policy” on the eve of what could be Barack Obama’s final State of the Union address.
