My Letter to My Congressman

[Dave H.]

Here's what I sent:

Dear Mr. XXXXX,

I am truly appalled that Mr. Leach’s bill (H.R. 4411) even made it out of committee. This is the United States of America, for crying out loud!

I have no interest in online gambling myself. However, I AM interested in protecting the right of U.S. citizens to come to his/her own conclusions about the morality of gambling. I see legislating this morality issue as a sham.

To add insult to injury, the bill excludes State Lotteries, fantasy sports, and horse betting. Gee, now why would that be? The bill is wrong to begin with, but to add hypocrisy to it with these exclusions makes the bill itself hypocritical!

It is also hypocritical of us to point our fingers at the Chinese for their restrictive policies regarding the Internet when a bill such as this aims to do the same kind of thing.

And who will bear the cost of having financial institutions and Internet Service Providers “police” the whereabouts of their customers on the internet? I, and the rest of the American consumers, that’s who.

What about the World Trade Organization? Do you not think that we risk some sort of sanctions from that organization?

I doubt that few people would fail to understand that this is actually a tax issue. If so, it should be treated as such and steps should be taken to regulate the industry, NOT legislate our rights away!

Please, sir, as my representative, do not let this bill pass. It’s a travesty.

And should Rep. Bob Goodlatte’s bill (H.R. 4777) be introduced, my comments above apply to that as well, although I will certainly send another letter concerning same. And tying that bill to lobby reform legislation just because someone wants to prove that Jack Abramoff is a crook is ridiculous. We already know that anyway!

Thank you for your time and please protect our freedoms.