Tuesday, February 13, 2007

know your rights.

The MLBPA has petitioned the 9th Circut Court of Appeals to review its 2-1 decision that allowed baseball investigators to use the names and piss test results of over 100 players who tested positive for performance enhancing drugs. Investigators are using this to get further into the steroid investigation, and some of those involved, if an appeals court does not overturn the 9th Circuit, could be called before a grand jury to testify.

The standing issue was when investigators grabbed those over-100 results from an investigation into 10 players, which, at face value, would look like an overreach.

"If the majority's decision is allowed to stand, it will create circuit law giving the government carte blanche to use a warrant for some piece of data on a computer as the pretext for seizing the entire computer and perusing its contents," attorneys for the union and lab wrote.

The sticking point is that the union and MLB negotiated that the names would remain private, and circumnavigating the agreement constitutes a breach in the union's eyes. The MLBPA faces a PR problem, though -- with every fight (correct or not legally) they put up against the testing, the more it will be blamed for impeding progress. It's a conundrum, but it seems Don Fehr and crew have decided to fight it out. Any legally-minded (or employed) readers who can assess this better?

1 comment:

SAMO said...

I think performance enhancing drugs will always be in the news and always be a part of sports.