Government Violated A-Rod's Trust

Note: Author is a Red Sox fan.

Alex Rodriguez has a right to be mad. Out of 104 players that tested positive in the supposedly secret and anonymous 2003 MLB steroid testing, his was the only name leaked from the court sealed results.

The government and MLB is presently on a steroids witch-hunt with pending criminal investigations against retired star pitcher Roger Clemens and out-of-work star outfielder Barry Bonds, as well as actual charges filed against all-star infielder Miguel Tejada. However, investigation into the government leaks of supposedly anonymous tests that were sealed under court order have been slower in coming. Perhaps something is in-process on this, but thus far, not much is being mentioned about the lies told to players regarding the testing. The players union agreed to the testing under the auspices that the results would not be shared. This has clearly been violated. Furthermore, the court order sealing the results has also been violated.

This is not just a matter of embarrassment for Alex Rodriguez and the union. This will impact A-Rod financially. His name has been sullied which will certainly cost him endorsement money. If the travails of Mark McGuire are any indication, this could also cost A-Rod election into baseball's hall of fame. It's hard to come down on the side of illegal drug users, but even criminals have rights. This information should never have been made public.

Some may argue that A-Rod took the illegal drugs, so he's getting what he deserves. The argument is that regardless of how it come out, and regardless of the repercussions, in the end justice is served. To me, that's not the issue. A-Rod's rights were violated. He, and all the players in MLB were lied to. If the testing was truly for the purposes of understanding the impact of steroids, samples should have been collected without traceability, i.e. no identification should have been put on the samples to trace a particular sample back to a particular player. The samples should then have been destroyed. Major League Baseball, lead by the commissioner, has struck out on this one.

I rarely come down on the side of unions, but I hope the players union sues MLB for this violation.

MLB is one thing, but what's the government's culpability in this matter? The results were sealed under court order. Courts are part of the judicial branch, and the last I checked, the judicial branch is part of the government. In my mind, the players, specifically A-Rod, may have a case against the government. The government was responsible for keeping the results secret. They were entrusted with this data. They broke that trust. What if the blood tests showed a player had an embarrassing disease or condition not related to baseball performance that he wished to keep private? Would it be acceptable for that information to be leaked too? This situation is a great argument for the civil libertarians that are against the government collecting data on citizens. This plays into the whole government sponsored health care debate. President Obama is presently pushing for a program to digitize all patients health records to improve medical industry efficiency. Based on how well the government kept the MLB steroid testing data, would you trust this same government to keep your health records safe? Imagine your health records are leaked to your employer. Imagine your insurance company dropping you after getting a look at your government leaked health records. In the state in which I reside, they require a finger print in order to own a hand gun. I can understand the good intentions of such a rule, but I don't want the government to even have my fingerprint data on record. Who's to say that this could not be inappropriately used against me in the future? People scoff, but it could happen. I may sound a bit paranoid, but take a moment to consider all the corruption in government brought to light just in the last year (e.g. Blogo, Geitner, Dodd, Frank, Daschle, Hartford mayor Perez, former CT governor Rowland, ACORN etc, etc, etc). I may fall on the paranoid side, but someone who thinks the government is fully on the "up-and-up" is naive.

This is yet another example of why the government can not be trusted. They can not be trusted with our personal data, our medical data, or our dollars.