[CBFF] Your tax dollars at work!

[Victor Waldron]

Is this from The Onion?

V

On Fri, Feb 1, 2008 at 11:14 AM, Jerry Madsen <jerrywm at gmail.com> wrote:
> You gotta be flipping kidding me?  First of all, the NFL is a private
>  entity.  Second, what does "spygate" have to do with the antitrust
>  exemption?  Third, Goodell stuck it to the Pats real good; it's not as
>  if he just looked the other way.  This isn't Pud Selig we're talking
>  about here.  Forth, it makes sense that they would have destroyed the
>  tapes.  Duh!
>
>  Jerry
>
>  ------------------------------------------------------
>
>  Friday, February 1, 2008
>
>  Senator wants to know why NFL destroyed Patriots spy tapes
>  ESPN.com news services
>
>  Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) wanted to hear the NFL's explanation for
>  the purging of evidence in the infamous "Spygate" case involving the
>  New England Patriots. He wrote commissioner Roger Goodell on Nov. 15.
>  He got no response.
>
>  Specter, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, wrote
>  Goodell again more than a month later, after getting no acknowledgment
>  to the initial communication.
>
>  Two days before the Super Bowl, there is plenty of response.
>
>  In a phone interview Thursday with The New York Times, Specter said
>  the committee at some point will call on Goodell to discuss why the
>  league destroyed the tapes that revealed the Patriots had been spying
>  on the competition.
>
>  "That requires an explanation," Specter told The Times. "The NFL has a
>  very preferred status in our country with their antitrust exemption.
>  The American people are entitled to be sure about the integrity of the
>  game. It's analogous to the CIA destruction of tapes, or any time you
>  have records destroyed."
>
>  An NFL spokesman told The Times that Specter's letters did not reach
>  the league until late last week, and there was no mention of the
>  letters on the occasions the two parties had communicated on other
>  issues. Specter said his office had been told by the NFL that there
>  would be no response until after Super Bowl XLII.
>
>  Spygate came to the forefront in September, when New York Jets
>  security officials discovered a Patriots video assistant recording the
>  Jets' defensive signals during the Sept. 9 game at Giants Stadium. The
>  videocamera and tape were confiscated. Goodell also ordered the
>  Patriots to turn over all videotape, notes and files involving taping
>  of opponents' signals.
>
>  The Patriots got hit by the most severe penalty in NFL history --
>  coach Bill Belichick was fined $500,000, the team was fined $250,000
>  and also will lose a first-round pick in the draft in April.
>
>  Subsequently, the league said it had destroyed the tapes after looking
>  at them. NFL spokesman Greg Aiello, in a September e-mail to ESPN.com,
>  wrote that the reason for destroying them was "so that our clubs would
>  know they no longer exist and cannot be used by anyone."
>
>  Specter, a lifelong Philadelphia Eagles fan who still calls sports
>  radio stations on Monday mornings, said he was concerned about the
>  integrity of sports.
>
>  "I don't think you have to have a law broken to have a legitimate
>  interest by the Congress on the integrity of the game ... What if
>  there was something on the tapes we might want to be subpoenaed, for
>  example? You can't destroy it. That would be obstruction of justice,"
>  Specter said to The Times.
>
>  There is no timetable for when the committee would call upon Goodell,
>  who has a previously scheduled news conference Friday morning in
>  Phoenix.
>
>  Bill Belichick, at his Friday morning news conference, was asked about
>  Specter and his demand for an NFL explanation on the tapes' demise.
>  "It's a league matter," Belichick said. "I don't know anything about
>  it."
>
>  The possibility exists that Patriots employees or other NFL personnel
>  would have to testify before the committee.
>
>  "It's premature to say whom we're going to call or when," Specter
>  said. "It starts with the commissioner. He had the tapes, and he made
>  the decision as to what the punishment could be. He made the decision
>  to destroy them."
>
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