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Sports teams are using Signal to duck deflategate-like scandals
Facebook isn't the only company struggling over the prospect of end-to-end encryption in messaging apps, as a report from Yahoo Sports cites examples from "every level of sport" turning to encrypted messaging. While Whatsapp and iMessage provide encrypted communications, increasingly the app of choice is turning out to be Signal, which not only protects their message from MITM spying, but can also auto-delete them based on rules.
If you're a college coach or athletic director and someone makes a FOIA request, that could reduce the amount of information they get about contacts with recruits and boosters. In the NFL, investigators pursuing the "deflategate" incident famously requested access to Tom Brady's texts, but the quarterback destroyed his phone prior to meeting them -- an act cited in the league's decision to hand down a four game suspension.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Thursday November 07 2019, @06:52PM (6 children)
Many states have analogous laws.
You're right though. A commonly understood convention of american Juris Prudence is that the federal government can't force a state government to do something, unless it relates to interstate issues. Which is why there are a million federal funding programs with stupid, almost irrelevant, strings attached. In my own opinion it's a botched vision of federalism that doesn't really work.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday November 07 2019, @07:07PM (2 children)
Works great for the people wielding federal authority... If you can't threaten 'em, bribe 'em!
But yeah, a pretty botched version of the original plan.
As for analogous laws - such things are generally similar enough to the federal laws for the similarity to be... completely irrelevant in court. But I'll grant that it's close enough for conversational purposes and shut the F up about it.
(Score: 2) by mobydisk on Friday November 08 2019, @03:49PM (1 child)
It's only botched because we elected people who passed those laws. You can't close every loophole: at some point you have to elect people who respect the boundaries, rather than people who work around them.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday November 08 2019, @04:08PM
Unfortunately the founders created a voting system mathematically guaranteed to end in a two-party system, which is easily rigged by those in power.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 07 2019, @08:29PM (2 children)
What are the alternatives? One is, "the state government has to do whatever the Federal government says." However, that's not federalism; it is just a central government.
You can have, "the state government needs to do what the Federal government says in these specific situations," which is what we have now.
What is the alternative vision of federalism which works better?
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Thursday November 07 2019, @08:41PM
There are a lot of nations that manage to have both local governments with local laws and a less ambiguous version of federal supremacy.
I'd definitely want to avoid a China situation where local governments have to ask the national government to please write a law for a problem they're having. But something like Swiss Cantons or Japanese prefectures isn't a dystopian hell.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday November 08 2019, @02:19AM
How about the federal government doesn't meddle in state affairs except in manners the states have explicitly agreed to, within the constitution? No tying of federal spending to state enforcement - either you spend or you don't - you don't get to use tax-payer's dollars to bribe state governments into doing things you have no legal authority to force them to.