The California Supreme Court has sent back a case challenging the practice of security patting down fans at games for the San Francisco 49ers. The Court ruled that it lacks sufficient information to determine if the policy is an illegal invasion of privacy. It is the legal equivalent to an incomplete pass.
Two season ticket holders sued the team in 2005 and two lower courts ruled with the 49ers and dismissed the lawsuit. Daniel and Kathleen Sheehan sued with the help of the ACLU but the team argued that fans consent to such searches when they buy tickets.
Here is the opinion: s155742
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What would be the difference in getting patted down at a football game, and getting patted down before you go into a club.
I was at a niners game last year where there were three fights that I saw, not to mention what I didn’t see. I have been to many raider games, and have never been to one where I didn’t see at least one fight. Why would it not be a good idea to make sure individuals are not coming into the games with weapons, especially since there is alcohol being served.
Jericho,
Go to a Raiders game and then tell me you think it would be a good idea for them to be able to bring guns into the stadium.
Good point Gyges
I appreciate what has been said above minus the von troll manure.
The “National Football League’s limited pat down policy” goes too far.
It’s rooted in fear. Some of the policy’s history is described here:
http://www.nassm.com/files/conf_abstracts/2008-265.pdf
How does this get resolved at the national level? Or every municipal court where this is challenged will have to judge too?
It’s been said above that a ticket holder could just vote with their dollars and decide not to participate. That’s true. But the waiting list can be a couple of years to purchase season tickets.
It smacks of concentrating power, that tool Bush propagated on our lives.
Jericho and Mojo,
Aren’t the Niners run by private individuals or a private company? Not to give people (or businesses) the right to decide what to do with their own property, but shouldn’t that company be able to say “no guns on our premises?”
The case isn’t about if they should\can ban guns, but how far they can go to find the banned guns. I’ll let the legal minds weigh in on if pat downs constitute an invasion of privacy or not.
Market crash
1, March 2, 2009 at 11:38 pm
OBAMA ‘READY TO DROP MISSILE SHIELD PROTECTION FOR EUROPE FOR RUSSIAN HELP ON IRAN’
Thank you, Mr. President. This has been a useless boondoggle and money drain since Reagan and just as big a flop as his economic policies. This was a pipe dream born out of the Cold War era whose potential usefullness died with the USSR. The soul-less GOP’s deal with the devil (defense industry) kept it alive as their way of paying them off the large campaign contributors.
Hey Chris, Mojo, I don’t agree with 3/4ths of the entire justice system, what should I do… leave?? Don’t see anymore trials? Stop paying my taxes?
This was the land of the free, ey?
Just the other week there was a thread about allowing guns in church for Christ’s sake. I’d prefer an armed sports fan over an armed believer any day!
This week they’re patting you down at the game, next week they’re patting you down at the video store, but people that intend to kill, are still gonna kill, you know, patting people down is not gonna change $h!t, get a grip…
My smarter cousin: If you must use my name, at least capitalize it properly. With respect to your comment on Pres. Obama’s presidency of the Harvard Law Review, your suggestion that everyone knows the REAL REASON for that honor betrays your actual concerns. It also explains why you do not use your own name in your posts. The anonymity of the hood has given way to the anonymity of the internet for many people, a new form of cowardice for a new century.
Wow! The Von Troll family is out in force. The RNC money must really be flowing to have this many trolls at work trying to stop frutiful discourse on the most important issue of our day. I guess if Republicans will lie about a train from Disney Land to Vegas, they will lie about anything. Troll people, I hope your are getting your payments in cash. If not, you better cash those checks in a hurry. We all know how bad the Republican neocons are with money!
Exactly mojo, if you dont agree with the pat downs, by all means dont go to the game.
mespo, a lot of people understand why Obama got to be President of the Law Review at Harvard and it was not at all because of his abilities was it…at least have the guts to step up and be honest about ONE THING today. YOU KNOW why he got that job.
Mikey, I hear Obama is calling you looking for another donation to his cause…
Stock Market Crashing: Think for yourself. People who come to this site simply to paste articles written by others, followed by gratuitous and pointless insults contribute nothing. The so-called “smart people” you describe are anything but. The stock market is crashing for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that it was severely inflated to begin with. And I’m still waiting for an explanation from your “smart people” concerning the methodology utilized to value securitized mortgages and rate them for investors. I won’t hold my breath. There is a great deal of liquidity out there, but when did you ever meet a banker (or investment banker) with courage, as opposed to recklessness? The market will stop dropping when all those “smart people” use some of that liquidity to invest again. Fear of government policy in that regard is a convenient, but nebulous excuse to do nothing. Everyone is simply waiting around for someone else to make the first move. Investors act like lemmings, regardless of which way the market is heading at any given time. Then again, if you are genuinely fearful about the risks involved in earning money through other people’s labor, just open a Christmas Club account (that’s right-they’re back) and get an actual job.
Another Campaign Promise Bites the Dust
We’ve often been critical of the Associated Press for its left-wing agenda journalism, but this article, by Andrew Taylor, is surprisingly balanced. It’s titled, “Obama beats early retreat on promise to fight pork:”
Despite campaign promises to take a machete to lawmakers’ pet projects, President Barack Obama is quietly caving to funding nearly 8,000 of them this year, drawing a stern rebuke Monday from his Republican challenger in last fall’s election. …
Obama is hardly the first president to promise to make Congress change its pork-barreling ways, and he certainly won’t be the last. But he is the first to retreat so quickly, after only six weeks in the White House.
Of course, using wasteful spending to buy votes is the essence of the Democrats’ electoral strategy, so no one should be surprised that Obama has, once again, walked away from his campaign promise. Change? Forget about it!
OBAMA ‘READY TO DROP MISSILE SHIELD PROTECTION FOR EUROPE FOR RUSSIAN HELP ON IRAN’
Unbelievable. Only a liberal would sacrifice the security of hundreds of millions for an unenforceable “promise” from the likes of the Russian mafia now called the Russian government.
I think it’s pretty absurd that they are doing pat-downs at Niners games. Have there been a lot of shootings and stabbings at these games? I grew up going to Candlestick Park and the only thing you had to protect yourself against was the cold wind sweeping in from the bay.
This country is truly going down the toilet, and it’s the people who roll over and except these intrusive practices who are allowing it to happen to the rest of us.
There is nothing to fear but fear itself, and if you’re too terrified to go outside without somebody nearby to pat down everyone around you then you are the problem and not the rest of us.
Instead, don’t attend any more games. Vote with your feet. If you see goons wearing black swat gear patting people down, turn around and go enjoy the game from a bar or at your home. Lost profits have a way of changing minds and policies …