Submitted via IRC for soylent_red
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: 3, Insightful) by Immerman on Thursday November 07 2019, @05:22PM (10 children)
> If you're a college coach or athletic director and someone makes a FOIA request...
Then you can ignore it, because you're not a part of the government, and the FOIA doesn't apply.
And personally, I think if you *are* a part of the government, and use something like this to ensure FOIA-relevant records aren't kept, you should be fired immediately when caught, and possibly charged with criminal interference.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 07 2019, @05:27PM
Just as well then most of your govt services are run by companies, less foia.
(Score: 4, Informative) by ikanreed on Thursday November 07 2019, @06:02PM (8 children)
Not only are they employees of the government, in many states, coaches are the highest paid employees of state governments. [yahoo.com]
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday November 07 2019, @06:41PM (7 children)
There's a waste of tax dollars...
From what I can find though, FOIA applies only to the *federal* government.
(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.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 07 2019, @05:28PM
College/Pro sports, gambling, drugs, of course lots of hookers, politicians... Are they supposed to publish all their correspondence in the tabloids?
Private unfettered communications shall not be sacrificed for all this pearl clutching over a goddamn game!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 07 2019, @07:12PM (1 child)
Signal might have the best security model in the known Universe, but requiring a phone number is not good, IMO.
Believe it or not, some of us don't use smartphones, so any software requiring one would be instantly discarded.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday November 07 2019, @07:21PM
Get a burner phone with a number you don't care about. Don't use it much.
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.