Chaffetz Caught on Online Poker Geolocation Hypocrisy

Jason ChaffetzThe Poker Players Alliance, the nationwide advocacy organization which is dedicated to the rights of US poker players, brought one of the country’s most outspoken opponents of online gambling, Jason Chaffetz to order this week. The PPA, with membership of over 1 million US poker players, pointed out the utter hypocrisy of Chaffetz regarding his opinion on geolocation.

The PPA has shown that Chaffetz has often used what he perceives as the problems with geolocation technology as one of the reasons he constantly fights against online gambling in the United States, and why he became a sponsor of the federal Restoration of America’s Wire Act. However, this week, the PPA highlighted the lawmaker’s hypocrisy when he actually complimented the effectiveness of geolocation technology in terms of law enforcement.

At a hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on the subject of geolocation and privacy, a committee which Chaffetz chairs, he was quoted as saying: “Geolocation is more than just a record of where we are or were. Just because it’s easier in 2016 for law enforcement to track our location and learn intimate details about our lives doesn’t mean those details are somehow less worthy of constitutional protection.”

The PPA tweeted this quote in favor of geolocation made by Chaffetz and compared it to things he said just a few short months ago at a hearing about the Restoration of America’s Wire Act, where he came out strongly against online gambling and the ineffectiveness of geolocation technology.

“For anybody to argue that the internet can be walled off and used in just these certain boundaries, it’s a joke, come on,” Chaffetz said at the RAWA meeting. “No one with a straight face is going to come before the American people and say, well the internet, it’s just for the people of Nevada, or just for the people of Rhode Island.”

The PPA continues to play a strong part in the advancement of poker in the United States, especially pushing for the legalization and regulation of the game in individual states and at a federal level. Last week, the executive director of the group, John Pappas was nominated for Industry Person of the Year at the annual American Poker Awards, along with Seminole Hard Rock Director of Poker William Mason, WSOP Vice President and Tournament Director, Jack Effel and a number other personalities in the industry.

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