Florida Governor Rick Scott. (Reuters)
Hide your laptops and iPhones if you live in Florida. A broadly-worded bill signed into law by governor Rick Scott in April bans the electronic devices in the Sunshine State.
The law was intended to ban Internet cafes in an effort to crack down on illegal gambling, and more than 1,000 Internet cafes shut down immediately.
One disgruntled cafe owner is now suing the state after her lawyers noticed the potential problem in the bill, according to a copy of the complaint obtained by The Miami Herald. Consuelo Zapata's lawyers claim the definition given to slot machines in the law will end up outlawing all computers and smartphones -- any of which can browse to slot machines on the Internet.
The bill defines slot machines as "any machine or device or system or network of devices" that may be used in a game of chance.
The Miami law firm of Kluger, Kaplan, Silverman, Katzen & Levine, who worked with constitutional law attorney Alan Dershowitz, maintains that the law is unconstitutional and was passed "in a frenzy fueled by distorted judgment in the wake of a scandal that included the Lieutenant Governor’s resignation."
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