As the media, the NFL and Congress commence the process of determining whether a video employee fired five years ago can prove the Patriots' video operation went far enough to potentially compromise the outcome of an NFL championship, a possibility exists that the federal government will launch an investigation into whether the Patriots took any action that violated the Economic Espionage Act.
Signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1996, the Economic Espionage Act makes the theft of trade secrets a federal offense. Without getting into the nuts and bolts of the applicable legal mumbo-jumbo, 18 U.S.C. § 1832 makes it a criminal act to steal, take, carry away or obtain by fraud or deception what 18 U.S.C § 1839 defines as a “trade secret.”
I’m picturing Belichick and NFL Commish Roger Goodell’s worst nightmare: Patrick Fitzgerald being the prosecuting attorney on this baby.
Update: A friend of mine pooh-poohs this issue with the rhetorical statement of, “So stealing the third base coach's signs are now federal violations?”
No, of course not, but that’s an apples-and-oranges comparison.
Major League Baseball has no internal rules about stealing signs.
The NFL, though, DOES have rules about what you can, and cannot tape, of other teams. From there, it’s an easy argument that the NFL considers signals and other information picked up illicitly to be “trade secrets.”
That’s especially true if the allegations about the Pats’ taping the Rams last walk-through before the 2002 Super Bowl are true, being in advance of the game itself. Because, in this case, as opposed to in-game taping, the Pats would have had time in advance to adjust their defense to the Rams’ offense.
Or, on the civil side, what if Kurt Warner decides to sue Belichick (and the actual videotaper) for loss of income, loss of reputation, etc. What if he names Goodell and the NFL as co-conspirators?
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