Court sidelines NFL pat-downs

California law is clear: A voter-approved referendum had long ago placed limits on corporations violating the right to privacy.

So when the San Francisco 49ers began enforcing the NFL's right-wing policy of frisking fans, the 49ers got sued clean to court.

Now the California Supreme Court has quite properly tossed these searches. The court said that if the 49ers intend on frisking spectators, they have to show the searches are justified, effective, and unintrusive, pursuant to the state law. It was a unanimous ruling.

I wish I could say that all the NFL teams in California will obey this ruling - but after a federal court also put the kibosh on the searches (a ruling that was inexplicably later overturned), I don't think many teams complied with that ruling.

I guess the NFL (like Bush) thinks laws are just "damn pieces of paper", huh?

(Source: http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202428738944)