| | There is a story on ESPN.com today outlining an appeal by the Major League Baseball Players Union of the decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals to allow drug test results of some 100 players to be used by investigators in the steroid scandal. The results were parked on a computer that was seized by government investigators in a 2004 raid of the company that conducted the tests. The tests were agreed to by the Players Union and MLB with the condition that the results be kept confidential. If the government is allowed to use the results to subpoena players to testify it will set a dangerous precedent for us all. Basically, it means that investigators can seize a computer under the guise of looking for a particular piece of evidence and then peruse the full contents of the computer and use whatever they find against the owner of the computer. One aspect of this that I find surprising is that the testing grew out of an agreement between two parties and anonymity was promised between them. That anonymity went out the window once the federal government became involved. How is it that the privacy of the parties involved was so easily scrapped? I thought the right to privacy would trump all here and that an agreement between two parties would be protected as long as it was lawful. Now it also seems that if the government decides it’s going to find evidence of crime, presenting paper results won’t be enough. If the information they want is parked on a computer, they can seize the whole thing and scrutinize everything on it to find what they want. Naturally, if they find evidence of some other crime they will probably be able to prosecute based on the evidence they find on the seized computer. It’s just another example of our civil rights eroding away folks. I don’t feel badly for, or care about the baseball players who may have their drug use exposed by this. But I am worried about the legal precedent being set. It affects us all. And that is scary.
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| | Posted 2/14/2007 9:21 AM - 1 View - 0 eProps - 0 comments
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