Sen. Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, is taking a hardline on spying — but not by the federal government. Specter, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee and considered an expert on constitutional matters, is targeting spying by NFL teams.
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.”
If this seems ludicrous to you, you’re not alone. Spying by the Patriots within the context of a football game maybe important to the NFL and to its fans, but to compare it to the CIA’s spying on Americans — well, that trivializes the importance of the CIA tape scandal, which has constitutional implications.
Speculation has it that Specter must be a Giants fan, though I doubt it. Eagles fan, maybe.
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Hank Kalet 