[CBFF] Your tax dollars at work!

[Matt Langschwager]

Not duh.  Why would the NFL have destroyed the tapes?  Doesn't make sense to me.  As TMQ wrote recently, if the tapes exonerate the Pats, let them out and clear the air.  If the tapes vilify the Pats, all destroying them does is cast a shadow of doubt and taints New England's accomplishments.  In a sport containing the Jerramy Stevenses of the world, you can't give the benefit of the doubt here, unfortunately.

I will agree though that this hardly seems like a matter for Congress, and more like a sports fan abusing his rank.

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."

_______________________________________________
CBFF Homepage and Blog:
http://chicagobearsfanforum.com


       
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