Correa Indicted!!!

[eagle eye]

Okay, don't have a cow, it's not THAT Correa, as in Carlos who plays for the Astros. No, I'm talking about Chris Correa the not-so-great hacker who hacked into the Astros scouting and analytics data base has been given a 46 month sentence by Houston District Court Judge Lynn Hughes this afternoon. Here's a link to the article from NBCSports.com about the incident.

http://mlb.nbcsports.com/2016/07/18/former-cardinals-scouting-director-sentenced-to-46-months-in-prison-for-hacking-the-astros/

This is probably not over yet because now that Correa has been sentenced MLB will likely jump in a levy sanctions against the Cardinals organization. Computer related crime is becoming less and less a joking matter and a pro league--any pro league--cannot afford to let something that could tip the fairness of the league system for acquiring players go unchecked. Expect a pretty harsh response to fall on the Cardinals in the near future.

[eagle eye]

Collin Cowherd said something that got me to thinking. We all look for perspective in life and the older you get the more perspective you look for because experience tells you that there is a reason for everything and the challenge is determine the difference between a reason and an excuse. We will let something slide if there is a reason for that something to happen but we generally don't tolerate anything if it's based on an excuse. What all this means is without perspective you can't tell the difference and even then it can be tricky. Cowherd was talking about Chris Correa's sentencing of 46 months in prison for hacking the Astros player data base. That's it, nearly 4 years of hard time for a cyber crime that really had no impact socially other than it was a cyber crime. The guy hacked a baseball team's assessment of players they were scouting. Now it could be argued that the team Correa worked for, the St Louis Cardinals, could have benefitted from that information but it's impact on society is minimal. It's not like Correa hacked a data base that gave him access to people's life savings which he then stole. If Correa had done that I would say lock the bastard up and throw away the key. I don't even think what Correa did was even considered corporate espionage but not being a lawyer I can't say yay or nay on the matter. Cowherd's point was that there are criminals for kill people who bargain their way out of jail time and there are criminals who do heinous things that directly influence people's lives negatively who do not go to jail or, if they do, it is for a fraction of what they deserve. Cowherd's main example was the case of Sammy "The Bull" Gravano who ratted out his boss Mafia Don John Gotti. In return for that bit of information Gravano, who murdered people at the behest of Gotti didn't go to jail he went into the witness protection program and he's living high on the hog somewhere when he deserves the death penalty for what he did. By contrast Chris Correa gets nearly 4 years in jail for hacking another baseball team's information on prospective players. Perspective tells you compared to Gravano Correa got screwed. There is no doubt that Correa did something wrong and if the Cardinals had poached players that the Astros were interested in and it cost the Astros a measure of competitive balance there would definitely be a monetary and competitive deficit suffered by the Astros as a result. I get that but in the grand scheme of things wouldn't six months in jail, the loss of his job and a ban from baseball for a set amount of time be more appropriate? That's was the gist of Cowherd's argument and I have to say I agree. Right now Correa's reputation is shot to hell and he'll probably have difficulty finding as good a job as what he had been in as Director of Scouting for the Cardinals. It has also been reported that when Correa broke into the business of baseball he loved the game so much he worked for free to begin with. So, the career he had in the game he love is as far removed from his grasp has can be imagined. When he got caught hacking the Astros data base his life in baseball was over. That should be punishment enough, don't you think? The guy was wrong but he didn't deserve 4 years in the slammer. Prosecutors should strive to get such strict punishments for the people who really deserve punitive punishment. But, in this new millennium cyber crime is viewed as something that's about as heinous as it gets.