Are the Feds now making mlb into a victim?

Like Fenian said, there's a big difference between "fair'' and ''legal''.

As for your last sentence (If you cooperate, you get screwed ...) And if you don't do anything illegal, you don't get screwed. So it's ok for them to do something wrong, and mlb should help them cover it up, because they "cooperated'' (I wouldn't say the players union has "cooperated'' very much when it comes to this issue at all, ever) when mlb finally got around to trying to clean things up?

And a new ethical question: is it smart for mlb making itself complicit in this illegal activity by helping to cover it up? Would it have been smarter to continue its hard line - that steriods are illegal and also bad for the players, and we have a right to drive it out of the game? I think they - eventually - could have won this battle, if they wanted to. So to me, mlb is kind of an accessory in this crime. Another reason their promises to the players don't really hold water.

 

You're punishing them for doing something illegal.

 

I realize there are those areas - I'm saying, if they can get a search warrant, they should. If they can't, oh well, then they can't.

And I don't think it's exactly "fishing'' if you can prove there is evidence of a crime that is available by going through those records. but that's exactly why you go to a judge and try to prove that the evidence is there. If the judge thinks it's "fishing'', he says no.

(edited to change subpoena to search warrant. I'm an idiot.)

 

The Feds are trying to find/prosecute the distributors, not the players. But they need the players to do it.

The Mitchell Report managed to find massive abuse of PEDs, but only a handful of peon distributors, ie McNamee and Radomski, neither of whom are the international drug mastermind type. It would be absurd to think the drug flow began and ended with two NY stooges...so they're looking for the bigger guns. The link to some other BALCO, or perhaps the former BALCO directly.

It was nice of MLB to promise anonymity, but the Feds got the info on their own. and if they want to prosecute this, it's hard to see how MLB can stop them.

 

I'm not sure how you think evidence is gathered - it's all kind of something that's out there, and the police look at the crime, and try to figure out where they can find information that would prove who did it. This isn't any different really.

And I'm pretty sure "right to privacy'' does not mean "right to do something illegal, then not allow the government to gain access to proof that you did something illegal''.

And before we go too far with this, I'm not arguing that the government should be allowed to trample our rights . What I'm saying, is, that if they go through the process the right way, and a judge says, yes, you can look at these records, then fine. I'm actually more on the side of people's rights. But it doesn't seem unreasonable that they would want this information, especially if/when they have other evidence that supports what they're asking for. Like in BALCO, where Barry Bonds possibly tried to hide information from them.

 

That does not make sense. The Feds had a search warrant to investigate a possible crime. It will clearly will hold up in court. Union made the mistake in the first place of aaggreing to the tests.

 

That's the other thing here, they're probably not even going after the players. The only thing the players are losing here is their "reputations''. Too bad for them. (sarcasm)

 

MLB can't stop them from prosecuting. But it can force them to find other means of obtaining the evidence besides these tests. And it ought to do just that.

 

I would be willing to bet that when the players peed in the cup they signed a waiver that absolved MLB and pplayers uniion from any responsibility.

 

They got the test results without the help of MLB. They have a list of 104 names. Does MLB have the legal right to prevent the federal government from investigating evidence it obtained through legal means?