Oh, come on. For real? This is Onion material.
--- Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> [it's three days past April Fool's, so that can't be
> it...]
>
> US Judge Affirms IMBRA: Americans Must Have Criminal
> Checks Before
> Contacting Foreigners on Internet
>
> http://www.prweb.com/releases/2007/4/prweb515227.htm
>
> A new federal law that makes it a crime for
> Americans to communicate
> with foreigners on dating websites without criminal
> background checks
> is upheld by a federal judge.
>
> Washington, DC (PRWEB) April 2, 2007 -- On March 26,
> 2007, a new
> federal law restricting Americans from contacting
> foreigners through
> internet dating sites was upheld by a federal court
> after a
> Constitutional challenge by an internet dating
> company. In European
> Connections v. Alberto Gonzales, 1:06-CV-0426-CC,
> Judge Clarence
> Cooper of the US District Court for the Northern
> District of Georgia
> dismissed a lawsuit by European Connections which
> claimed that the
> law violated the right to freedom of speech
> contained in the First
> Amendment to the United States Constitution. The
> plaintiff had failed
> to challenge the law based on the First Amendment
> right to assemble.
>
> According to Tristan Laurent, President of the
> advocacy group Online
> Dating Rights, "We will now have to take legal
> action from the point
> of view of the users of online dating sites. The
> whole idea that it
> is now a crime for American men to send emails to
> women in other
> countries is so preposterous it is beyond belief.
> The judge's ruling
> that there is no Constitutional violation in forcing
> Americans to
> divulge all sorts of highly personal information to
> a complete
> stranger or scammer abroad before the American can
> even say hello or
> know to whom he is writing is only exceeded in
> foolishness by
> Congress in making the law."
>
> The law was originally called the International
> Matchmaker Regulation
> Act, but it did not pass Congress in previous years
> by that name and
> it was later named the International Marriage Broker
> Regulation Act
> (IMBRA) before it passed on December 17th, 2005. The
> law, which was
> attached to the reauthorization of the Violence
> Against Women Act
> (VAWA) was apparently not debated in public and Mr.
> Laurent says that
> no dating company or dating site user was invited to
> a closed-door
> Senate hearing in July 2004.
>
> IMBRA makes it a felony for an internet dating
> company, that
> primarily focuses on introducing Americans to
> foreigners, to allow
> any American to communicate with any person of
> foreign nationality
> without first subjecting that American to a criminal
> background
> check, a sex offender check and without first having
> the American
> certify any previous convictions or arrests, any
> previous marriages
> or divorces any children and all states of residence
> since 18.
> Match.com is excluded from the law, and the judge
> found that this
> exception posed no challenge to the Fifth Amendment
> equal protection
> clause because American women are supposedly not
> abused by American
> men that they meet on the internet, and thus are not
> in need of
> protection.
>
> The law was sponsored by Sen. Sam Brownback, R-KS
> and Sen. Maria
> Cantwell, D-WA and was championed by key women's
> groups. The law was
> passed after these groups made claims that foreign
> women who marry
> American men are subjected to higher rates of abuse
> than are American
> women. However, the only study that addresses this
> issue was done by
> the INS in 1999 and it found that the rate of abuse
> in such
> international marriages is one-seventh the rate of
> abuse in domestic
> marriages. See
> http://www.online-dating-rights.com/index.php?
> ind=downloads&op=entry_view&id en$
>
> Online Dating Rights Director of Public Relations
> Jim Peterson said
> of the judge's ruling: "It is a sad day for freedom
> in our country
> when an American has to have a criminal background
> check before he
> can say 'Hello" to a foreigner through the
> internet." He also said
> that "America is the only country in the world that
> regulates
> communication between two consenting adults seeking
> to communicate
> via internet, with the possible exceptions of China
> and North Korea.
> Without new email technology, IMBRA could not have
> been even feasible
> because people generally sent paper letters to each
> other's home
> addresses just a few years ago. Is it right for the
> US government to
> make a form of communication illegal when it was the
> only form of
> communication possible just a few years ago?"
>
> The law has been attacked in a bipartisan fashion by
> prominent
> feminist Wendy McElroy
> <http://www.ifeminists.net/introduction/
> editorials/2006/0111.html> and by men's rights
> supporter David Usher
>
<http://capitolhillcoffeehouse.com/more.php?id=2444_0_1_0_M>
> and by
> immigration attorney Gary Bala
> <http://www.online-dating-rights.com/
> index.php?ind=downloads&op=entry_view&id en>!
>
> Mr. Laurent says that his organization has
> undertaken a fundraising
> drive to raise $100,000 for a class-action suit
> against the
> government on behalf of all the men who can no
> longer contact women
> in Canada, England, Germany, Russia and the
> Philippines due to this
> law. Contributors are asked to visit the website at
> www.online-dating-
> rights.com.
>
> Both Mr. Laurent and Mr. Peterson are available for
> media interviews
> but since both have to work for a living and do not
> receive federal
> taxpayer funding, arrangements for telephone
> interviews should be
> made by email if possible. Contact Mr. Laurent at
> onlinedatingrights
> @ yahoo.com and Mr. Peterson at veterans @
> veteransabroad.com
>
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