I Hate What You Just Said

It appears that the US Congress is so outraged by the NFL and New England Patriots head coach, Bill Belichick, that they demand an investigation.  But why are they so upset?

It’s called “spygate.”  Turns out that Belichick has been taping his opposing teams’ defensive signal calls since 2000, when he took over as head coach of the Patriots.  After the story broke, the NFL impounded all the evidence; however, for reasons that are unclear, the organization destroyed Belichick’s tapes and notes after fining the disgraced coach and penalizing the team its first round draft pick.

Now Congress demands to know why.

In a hearing yesterday, Republican senator–and Philadelphia Eagles fan–Arlen Specter criticized the NFL:

“[The teams] are enormous role models for everybody,” Specter said. “If you can cheat in the NFL, you can cheat in college, you can cheat in high school, you can cheat on your grade-school math test. There’s no limit as to what you can do. I think they owe the public a lot more candor and a lot more credibility.”

Left unchecked, the transitive property of cheating could spiral out of control–like a pass from Ryan Leaf.

As a former attorney, Specter also sought to place “spygate” within the framework of US jurisprudence.  Drawing on the natural law that inspired our Constitution, Specter argued that Americans “have a right to have honest football games.”  And he further asked, “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.”

I, for one, applaud Senator Specter’s solemn concern for our rights and the rule of law, especially since it involves illegal surveillance, destroying evidence, and obstruction of justice.

After they return integrity to the game of football, I wonder if Congress might consider working on some related problems:

C.I.A. Destroyed 2 Tapes Showing Interrogations

The Central Intelligence Agency in 2005 destroyed at least two videotapes documenting the interrogation of two Qaeda operatives in the agency’s custody, a step it took in the midst of Congressional and legal scrutiny about its secret detention program, according to current and former government officials.

The videotapes showed agency operatives in 2002 subjecting terrorism suspects — including Abu Zubaydah, the first detainee in C.I.A. custody — to severe interrogation techniques. The tapes were destroyed in part because officers were concerned that video showing harsh interrogation methods could expose agency officials to legal risks, several officials said.

Or this:

Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers Without Courts

Under a presidential order signed in 2002, the intelligence agency has monitored the international telephone calls and international e-mail messages of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people inside the United States without warrants over the past three years in an effort to track possible “dirty numbers” linked to Al Qaeda, the officials said. The agency, they said, still seeks warrants to monitor entirely domestic communications.

Months after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying, according to government officials.