In response to an April 29 directive from the Minnesota Department of Public Safety, Alcohol and Gambling Enforcement Division requesting that 11 telephone providers and internet service providers block about 200 online gambling and online gambling-related websites came legislation which would make such a governmental order illegal.

Minnesota state representative Pat Garofalo, in taking care of business apparently first thing Monday morning, introduced legislation that would keep the division from forcing compliance out of the ISPs. Garofalo was quoted in the (Minneapolis-St. Paul) Star-Tribune as emphatically stating that "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.”

Perhaps Garofalo has spoken with Matt Werden, the Minnesota state director for lobbying group Poker Players Alliance; clearly they’re on the same page mentally.

In echoing Werden’s vehement reaction to the original action, Garofalo stated that “I have serious concerns about government banning access to websites. This is the kind of thing they do in communist China, not the United States of America."Besides,” rhetorically asked the Republican rep, “How about we focus on balancing the state's $6.4 billion budget deficit and not harassing Minnesotans anymore than Democrat legislative leaders are already trying to do?"

And until the Minnesota proposal is legalized or (more likely) forgotten, Live Casino Direct remains fully behind American freedom and the rights of blacklisted online casinos to stay in business.