PRELIMINARY STATEMENT

1. This is an action brought by the American Online Dating Association (“AODA”) and Mark Strickler to permanently enjoin enforcement of certain provisions of the International Marriage Brokers Regulation Act of 2005 (“IMBRA”) that require websites and other enterprises functioning as international match-making services to gather and maintain private information about domestic clients, and then to disclose that information to its international patrons prior to permitting basic communication between the parties.¹ AODA brings this action on its own behalf, on behalf of its individual and corporate members, and on behalf of the customers, including Plaintiff Strickler, those members serve.
2. AODA and its members are adamantly opposed to domestic violence in any form. The organization is particularly sensitive to the relatively few, although highly publicized, accounts of immigrant woman being physically abused by their American husbands. However, AODA believes that the disclosures required by the IMBRA violate its members’ and clients’ rights to free expression, free association, equal protection, and privacy; do not constitute the least restrictive means of achieving the government’s goal of eradicating domestic violence against women who immigrate to the United States for the purpose of marriage; and impose an unreasonable burden on smaller match-making websites that have no influence on the frequency or severity of domestic abuse. For these reasons, AODA seeks to invalidate the disclosure provisions of the IMBRA and to permanently enjoin their enforcement.

JURISDICTION

3. This is an action challenging the constitutionality of an Act of Congress under the First and Fifth Amendments to the United States Constitution. The case therefore presents a federal question.

¹A copy of the International Marriage Broker Regulation Act of 2005 is attached as Exhibit A and incorporated in its entirety by reference.

1. Jurisdiction is conferred upon this Court by 28 U.S.C. § 1331.
2. Venue in this Court is proper pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1391(b) and (e).

PARTIES

1. Plaintiff American Online Dating Association is an Ohio corporation operating primarily in cyberspace and having its principal place of business in Montgomery County, Ohio. AODA constitutes an organization of numerous websites and business entities that function as international marriage brokers, as that term is defined by § 833(e)(4) of the IMBRA. The organization’s members do business in every state and have a substantial number of clients in Ohio. 7. Mark Strickler is a resident of Montgomery County, Ohio and a client of an international match-making website belonging to AODA. He is a United States citizen and is therefore required by the IMBRA to disclose private information about himself before exercising his protected const itutional right to communicate and associate with international women via the match-making service.
2. Defendant Alberto Gonzales is the appointed Attorney General for the United States. He is sued in his official capacity only.

STATEMENT OF THE FACTS

1. The American Online Dating Association is a trade association of websites that function as international marriage brokers by pairing American clients, predominantly although not exclusively male, with international singles. Some of these relationships are merely casual, consisting of e-mail conversations and occasional telephone calls. However, some of the relationships do progress and become more intimate, resulting in marriage. These international marriages, only a fraction of which are arranged by online dating services, account for less than
2. 6 percent of all new citizens admitted to the United States and constitute a meager .021 percent of all marriages undertaken by American men annually.
1. The services provided by AODA’s members range from merely facilitating electronic or telephonic communication between clients in the United States and foreign singles to assisting those clients who chose to marry with travel and immigration plans. AODA’s members are both small and large, with client bases from as few as 150 American customers to as many as 60,000 men interested in meeting international women.
2. AODA’s members facilitate contact between their domestic and international clients in a number of ways. Most offer free listings for their international clients, where the woman can post a photograph, her first name, and other basic details about herself, including the type of man she is looking to meet. Men can then peruse the basic listings free of charge, but must purchase either a subscription plan or individual addresses in order to contact the website’s foreign clients. Some of AODA’s members offer additional communication services, such as bulletin boards or chat rooms, that allow its male and female clients to converse in a free and open manner. Still others schedule group tours to specified countries, where its male and female customers can interact face-to-face and learn about each other’s cultures, or assist with flower and gift delivery in certain foreign locales.
3. The AODA and its members are neither non-profit nor religious in nature, a fact of critical importance under the IMBRA. AODA’s members charge and collect reasonable fees for the services they provide and do not generally limit their American clientele to a specific ethnic group. In addition, AODA’s members primarily focus on pairing American men with international clients, although a small amount of their business may be devoted to matching foreign men with foreign women.

The IMBRA and Its Disclosure Provisions

1. On December 17, 2005, Congress enacted the International Marriage Broker Regulation Act of 2005 without hearings or debate. The IMBRA follows on the heels of several other important pieces of legislation designed to curb domestic violence against women who immigrate to the United States to marry American citizens. These previous regulations, which include the Violence Against Women Act of 1996, each lessened the burdens required for battered immigrant fiancees and wives to legally immigrate to the United States. Unlike these statutes, however, the IMBRA is not primarily focused on the immigration process, but instead seeks to regulate lawful, premarital communication between American citizens and international women. In this regard, the IMBRA imposes significant burdens on match-making websites to gather and maintain private information about their American clients and to disclose that information to their international prospects, even when the foreign patron does not request or waives the right to be told about the man’s background.
2. The IMBRA imposes three specific information-gathering duties on international marriage brokers. First, § 833(d)(2)(A)(i) requires that, before disclosing an international client’s contact information to an American customer, the international marriage broker must first conduct a search of the National Sex Offender Public Registry to determine whether the American client has been convicted of a sex crime. Second, pursuant to § 833(d)(2)(A)(ii), the broker must also collect certain private, and potentially embarrassing, background information from the American client. Then, under § 833(d)(3)(A)(iii) and (iv), the website must secure from each individual international client a signed written consent pertaining to each specific

American client in question, confirming that the international client reviewed the American client’s background information and agreeing that the international client’s personal contact information may be released, before the American client can initiate any presumptively protected communication.

15. The information that the international marriage broker is required to collect under

§ 833(d)(2)(A)(ii) is extensive. It includes:

1) any restraining order, temporary or permanent, that has ever been issued against the American client, regardless of whether the order was issued ex parte or was obtained by someone other than a family member (§ 833(d)(2)(B)(i));

2) any arrest or conviction for a number of violent criminal offenses, including those not related to sex or domestic violence (§ 833(d)(2)(B)(ii));

3) any arrest or conviction for enumerated prostitution offenses (§ 833(d)(2)(B)(iii));

4) any arrest or conviction for crimes involving alcohol or controlled substances, which would include such seemingly innocuous and frequent occurrences as underage drinking, open container violations, and the like (§ 833(d)(2)(B)(iv));

5) the marital history of the American client, including the number of marriages, the manner in which any previous marriages were terminated, and the client’s history, if any, of sponsoring immigrants for citizenship through marriage (§ 833(d)(2)(B)(v));

6) whether the American client has any children and, if so, their ages (§ 833(d)(2)(B)(vi); and

7) any state in which the client has resided since he was 18 years of age (§ 833(d)(2)(B)(vii).

1. With the exception of possibly the disclosures required by § 833(d)(2)(B)(i) and portions of § 833(d)(2)(B)(ii), the information required to be disclosed under the IMBRA does not detail a history of domestic violence and therefore bears no rational relationship to whether
2. the American client is likely to subject any potential immigrant spouse to domestic abuse should they elect to marry. In addition, there exists no legitimate governmental interest in mandating that these disclosures be made as a precursor to even innocent, basic communication by e-mail or telephone, as opposed to at the time of the immigration interview. Furthermore, the mandatory disclosures for any arrests for certain crimes, regardless of the how old the arrest was, and regardless of whether the arrest resulted in a conviction or dismissal, is plainly overbroad and chilling of free speech.
1. Despite the lack of apparent nexus between the disclosure provision and the propensity of an American client to physically abuse his family members, an international marriage broker who fails to elect and disclose the information required to be gathered under § 833(d)(2)(A) faces a fine of $5,000 to $25,000 and imprisonment of up to five years for each violation of the statute.

The IMBRA’s Exemption Provisions

1. Remarkably, the IMBRA exempts certain entities who function as international marriage brokers from complying with its disclosure provisions.
2. Because the definition of an “international marriage broker” contained in § 833(e)(4)(A) includes only websites and other entities that charge fees for their services, the IMBRA initially excludes not-for-profit marriage brokers from its coverage.
1. The IMBRA goes on to exempt cultural and religious websites that operate on a non-profit basis and are otherwise in compliance with the laws and regulations of the countries in which they operate. Also exempted from compliance are more mainstream match-making websites, like match.com or eharmony.com, whose principal business purposes are not to
2. provide international dating services and who charge similar fees to clients regardless of their nationality.
3. There exists no basis to reasonably believe that relationships brokered through nonprofit, cultural, religious, or mainstream domestic dating services result in fewer instances of domestic violence than those fostered by for-profit, internationally focused websites. Thus, no compelling, substantial, or legitimate interest underscores the exemptions found in § 833(e)(4)(A) and (B).

The Impact of the IMBRA

1. The IMBRA was passed by the Senate on December 16, 2005 and by the House of Representatives on December 17, 2005. It was signed into law by the President on January 5, 2006. Pursuant to § 833(d)(7)(A), the law takes effect 60 days after its enactment. Thus, the disclosure provisions challenged by AODA became effective on March 6, 2006.
2. Since that date, AODA’s members have suffered various negative consequences as a result of the IMBRA’s regulations. Nearly all of AODA’s member websites have ceased sales to domestic customers altogether, drastically reducing revenues and precluding their American clients from engaging in communication with interested international patrons. Others have stopped accepting listings from foreign female clients as well, thus limiting their opportunities to interact with American men. The disclosure provisions have had a particularly harsh impact on the larger websites, who have no feasible, cost-efficient, and timely mechanism by which to collect and store the required information prior to each transaction. If the IMBRA is enjoined, each of AODA’s members intend to return to normal business operations.
1. The IMBRA has also had a negative impact upon the clients of AODA’s member websites. For example, many of the American clients who elect to make full disclosures still
2. have their communication with international women impeded, in large part because many of those women do not have frequent access to computers and do not respond to the disclosures. And simply the act of making the disclosures itself violates the clients’ rights of privacy. Since the IMBRA took effect, client Mark Strickler has had to disclose private information about himself, including the fact that he has previously been married, before being able to exercise his right to communicate with international women. This has impeded Strickler’s ability to form relationships and to disclose the private details of his life in a manner and timing of his own choosing.
3. The necessary, but unwanted, alterations to the websites of AODA’s members have drastically reduced revenues, thereby categorically endangering the existence of international marriage broker websites. If the IMBRA is not enjoined, many of the smaller websites that belong to AODA that rely on a United States clientele to exist will fail, while some with sales to foreigners -- usually a very small portion of overall sales -- may barely survive. The protected speech, privacy, and association rights of AODA’s members and its American clients therefore hangs in the balance.

STATEMENT OF THE CASE

Claim One: Violation of Plaintiff’s Right to Free Speech

1. Plaintiffs incorporate each of the foregoing paragraphs by reference as if fully rewritten here.
2. Sections 833(d)(2)(A) and (B) of the International Marriage Broker Regulation Act of 2005 violate the First Amendment to the United States Constitution in the following respects:

1) the challenged sections of the IMBRA impose a presumptively unconstitutional prior restraint upon pure protected expression between Plaintiff, its members, and their clients without adequate procedural safeguards;

2) the challenged sections of the IMBRA are not narrowly tailored to serve a substantial governmental interest and do not constitute the least restrictive means of achieving a compelling governmental interest;

3) the challenged sections of the IMBRA do not leave open ample alternative avenues of communication;

4) the challenged sections of the IMBRA impose overbroad restrictions on free expression, as well as being both under- and over-inclusive; and

5) the challenged sections of the IMBRA create an impermissible chilling effect on free expression by imposing substantial burdens on those desiring to engage in protected communication.

28. As such, the IMBRA threatens to impose serious burdens on the free speech rights of Plaintiff American Online Dating Association, its members, and their clients, including Plaintiff Strickler, if not enjoined.

Claim Two: Violation of Plaintiff’s Right to Equal Protection

1. Plaintiffs incorporate each of the foregoing paragraphs by reference as if fully rewritten here.
2. Sections 833(e)(4)(A) and (B) of the International Marriage Broker Regulation Act of 2005 create the following classes of match-making services: 1) non-profit and profit; 2) cultural/religious and secular; and 3) domestic-focused and international-focused.
3. The IMBRA then singles out only those businesses and entities that are internationally focused, secular, and for-profit for disparate treatment from those websites that are cultural or religious, non-profit, and focus on American clientele. This disparate treatment is not rationally related to any legitimate governmental interest.
4. As such, the IMBRA violates Plaintiffs’ rights to equal protection of the law and due process.

Claim Three: Violation of Plaintiff’s Right of Privacy

1. Plaintiffs incorporate each of the foregoing paragraphs by reference as if fully rewritten here.
2. Section 833(d)(2) of the International Marriage Broker Regulation Act of 2005 impinges upon the privacy rights of Plaintiff American Online Dating Association, its members, and their clients, including Plaintiff St rickler, by regulating, and at times preventing, the most basic communication between two individuals and by mandating disclosure of private information as a condition precedent to engaging in free communication between consenting adults.
3. In this regard, the IMBRA violates the guarantee of substantive due process contained in the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution by placing unreasonable and unnecessary restrictions upon intimate human relationships.

Claim Four: Violation of Plaintiff’s Right of Association

1. Plaintiffs incorporate each of the foregoing paragraphs by reference as if fully rewritten here.
2. Section 833(d)(2) of the International Marriage Broker Regulation Act of 2005 prevents individuals living in the United States from freely associating with foreign nationals under certain circumstances unless and until the American citizen agrees to disclose certain private information about himself. The IMBRA therefore prohibits individuals from exercising their protected right to free association.
3. The IMBRA therefore violates the right of Plaintiff American Online Dating Association, its members, and their clients, including Plaintiff Strickler, to free association guaranteed by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

PRAYER FOR RELIEF

WHEREFORE, Plaintiffs American Online Dating Association and Mark Strickler demand the following relief from Defendant Alberto Gonzales:

1. A declaration that §§ 833(d)(2) and (e)(4) of the International Marriage Brokers Regulation Act (“IMBRA”) are unconstitutional under the First and Fifth Amendments;
2. Preliminary and permanent injunctions prohibiting the enforcement of the IMBRA against Plaintiff American Online Dating Association, its members, and their clients, including Plaintiff Strickler;
3. An award of reasonable attorney fees and costs pursuant to the Equal Access to Justice Act, 28 U.S.C. § 2412; and
4. Any such other award in law or equity that the Court deems appropriate under the circumstances.

Respectfully submitted,

JENNIFER M. KINSLEY (Ohio Bar No. 0071629) CANDACE C. CROUSE (Ohio Bar No. 0072405) Sirkin Pinales & Schwartz LLP 105 West Fourth Street, Suite 920 Cincinnati, Ohio 45202 Telephone: (513) 721-4876 Telecopier: (513) 721-0876

Counsel for Plaintiffs American Online Dating Association and Mark Strickler