Canada Apologizes After Drone Caught Spying On New Zealand's Olympic Practices (espn.com) 47
New Zealand has lodged a formal complaint with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) after a Canadian soccer "support staff member" allegedly flew a drone over their training session. The Canadian Olympic Committee has apologized, expressed shock and disappointment, and launched an investigation into the incident. ESPN reports: The COC said the individual has been detained by French authorities. "Team support members immediately reported the incident to police, leading to the drone operator, who has been identified as a support staff member of the wider Canadian Women's football team, to be detained," the NZOC said in a statement. "The NZOC has formally lodged the incident with the IOC integrity unit and has asked Canada for a full review. [...]
For their part, Canada has said it was also stunned. The COC said it was made aware that a "non-accredited" member of its support team had used a drone to record the Silver Ferns' practice. "The Canadian Olympic Committee stands for fair-play and we are shocked and disappointed. We offer our heartfelt apologies to New Zealand Football, to all the players affected, and to the New Zealand Olympic Committee." It added it was "reviewing next steps" with the IOC, the Paris organizing committee and FIFA. The person responsible was Joseph Lombardi, an unaccredited analyst with Canada Soccer. As a result of these findings, Lombardi is being removed from the Canadian Olympic Team and sent home immediately. The same punishment will be applied to Jasmine Mander, the assistant coach to whom Mr. Lombardi sent information to.
Furthermore, Head Coach Bev Priestman has removed herself from coaching the match against New Zealand on July 25th and the entire Canada Soccer staff will undergo mandatory ethics training.
For their part, Canada has said it was also stunned. The COC said it was made aware that a "non-accredited" member of its support team had used a drone to record the Silver Ferns' practice. "The Canadian Olympic Committee stands for fair-play and we are shocked and disappointed. We offer our heartfelt apologies to New Zealand Football, to all the players affected, and to the New Zealand Olympic Committee." It added it was "reviewing next steps" with the IOC, the Paris organizing committee and FIFA. The person responsible was Joseph Lombardi, an unaccredited analyst with Canada Soccer. As a result of these findings, Lombardi is being removed from the Canadian Olympic Team and sent home immediately. The same punishment will be applied to Jasmine Mander, the assistant coach to whom Mr. Lombardi sent information to.
Furthermore, Head Coach Bev Priestman has removed herself from coaching the match against New Zealand on July 25th and the entire Canada Soccer staff will undergo mandatory ethics training.
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At least they used a quasi-honorable method of snooping - a drone
Other might have taken a more nefarious route and poked a hole in the wall of the team's shower room.
Canada vs New Zealand eh? (Score:3)
Making me think of "This match will determine once and for all which nation is the greatest on Earth, Mexico or Portugal?" [youtube.com]
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Jobbers cobknots, ya mucker!
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Correct me if I am wrong here but as I understand it France has strict laws about who and where drones can be flown, and as they were caught by authorities I can only assume the authorities have the ability to track/determine/triangulate the location of drone pilots?
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Any drone beyond the toy quality requires you to register with the faa in the us to fly it beyond a small distance away. France must have something similar.
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Any drone beyond the toy quality requires you to register with the faa in the us to fly it beyond a small distance away.
Unless, of course, you make it.
You can build a FPV drone for under $200 with parts from ebay or whatever. Maybe $300 if you want decent range.
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That changes nothing about what the person you replied to said.
No matter where you source your drone from (commercial purchase, self-build) you still have to comply with FAA regulations.
This is no different than if you buy a Cessna or build an ultra-light out of a lawn mower engine and a lawn chair - you still must comply with airspace regulations.
Re: Again? (Score:2)
What the person I replied to said was meaningless, and what you are saying is equally meaningless, because laws don't prevent behavior.
Nothing stops anyone from operating a drone illegally, and if you use a typical 2.4 GHz radio system, it's super hard to track who is controlling it because they are just one of many sources of spread spectrum 2.4 GHz radio signals which can reach the drone.
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Correct me if I am wrong here but as I understand it France has strict laws about who and where drones can be flown, and as they were caught by authorities I can only assume the authorities have the ability to track/determine/triangulate the location of drone pilots?
Not really, most French will just obey the law because they wouldn't want the same thing being done to them, making an expensive monitoring system largely redundant. Abuses can be reported the old fashioned way, MK1 human eyeball and police report. Someone noticing what the Canadian team was up to is likely how they were found out. I doubt this was a slick operation a Bond villain would be proud of.
Also Canada and New Zealand are not exactly soccer powerhouses. The fact they weren't spying on the Spanish
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Pretty sure the authorities have much bigger problems right now besides a pocket sized drone. Even if they were aware of the drone, enforcement is extremely low on the threat assessment board. Hamas has already promised mass casualties. You'll be lucky if policing the use of steroids this year will be as on-point as prior Olympics. Theres only so many resources available and those have to be prioritized. Its a shame that Hamas is a bunch of dirt-farming inbreds hell bent on killing anyone who disagrees with
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Gotta love Hamas. Let's go protest for terror!
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Canada was accused of spying on Honduras a few years ago using the same thing.
WTF is going on with Canada? Maybe the US could learn them some better spyin techniques.
Actually, Canada may be on to something here. Send in the obvious drone, then they'll miss all the other ways you're spying on them, plus, they get to pull the ultimate Canadian move, apologize. Contrite and chastised, they sulk back to their homes to peruse the ill-gotten gains.
You can't trust Canadians. They're way too friendly. You just know they evil villain laugh constantly when they aren't in public.
This is the first time they were caught (Score:1)
It is likely not the first time... drones have been seen observing their next opponents on previous occasions. And don't tell me only one or two people knew. No way was it kept that quiet.
This was unsportsmanlike and unacceptable for a team representing my country in any capacity.
Canada (Score:1)
Sorry! (Score:5, Informative)
We're not all polite and shit you know, many of us are assholes. But still, sorry about that, that sucks.
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yeah, but we can be assholes to each other... this chucklehead did it outside of Canada, and to non-Canadians. Needs to hand in his Canadian card. The only time we are allowed to be assholes outside of Canada- is when we're doing the Geneva checklist during wartime. ;)
Awkward. (Score:2)
And some rando with a drone was just merrily watching the New Zealand team until they noticed it. Sure is good that there aren't any significant geopolitical tensions on at the moment, that th
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French "security" is not for you, Jew. The French helped the Germans much more than they fought the Germans.
I can't say I'm shocked (Score:1)
As soon as I hear "soccer" or "football" (in the global sense, not the North American one), I think, "scumbag". No sports organization can claim to be utterly pure, but people involved in soccer tend to be slimy, unprincipled douche-canoes.
I've played a lot of hockey. One of the worst things you could say about a guy on your team or another one is that he's "a soccer player". You'd never have to worry about the guy as long as you were facing him, because basically he was a coward. As soon as you turned
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Hungry for dinner, Yankster?
I know it's a struggle, but try not to be such a little bitch.
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funny that f1 is the same way.
the french sure do love dictator money.
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Which is more corrupt? FIFA or IOC?
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yes.
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Some wit basically said "Welcome Canada, you're playing soccer/football now!".
Because cheating is so prevalent in the sport, the fact Canada got caught basically means Canada has graduated to playing it like the rest of the world.
Oh, Canada! (Score:2)
Canada... (Score:2)
Someone didn't get "the talk" (Score:5, Interesting)
In Canada, when you travel abroad, particularly for the first time, your parents usually sit you down and give you a big speech about the fact that when you travel you're representing you community and your country, so always keep that in mind, etc. It's just a matter of paying it forward to the people from your country who will visit that country after you. It sounds like this guy's parents didn't do their job.
I always thought that was normal, and that all parents around the world did this (it makes sense). But last year my daughter came back from a trip to Europe, and on her trip she'd been relating the story of me sitting her down and reminding her how important it was to represent Canada well to some of her fellow travellers. The ones from Australia and New Zealand nodded their heads and smiled, but one young woman from California was aghast and said, "That's terrible! When you travel you don't represent anyone but yourself! Nobody should say that to anyone!" I know it's just anecdotal, but it sure fits the stereotype.
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Any cost (Score:2)
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I understand entirely. [nationalpost.com]
This guy is hitting that. Hormones make you stupid.
Too much respect is given to trade secrets (Score:2)
I guess this is a minority view, but I think it's nuts that we elevate the protection of trade secrets for things like technically-amateur sports teams (and political parties!) to such an extent that governments get involved.
Somewhere (and aye, there's the rub: I haven't figured out my definition yet), there's a line between "legitimate" trade secrets (where perhaps government force should be involved in their protection) and undesirable trade secrets where policy should at least be neutral, if not activel
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The spying just sounds like a stupid idea to me.
WTF are you going to find out? The team members are public information. They have all played before. There is likely film of them playing. It is not like there is any big secret about how sportsball players play sportsball.
Flying an unapproved drone in a high-security area? Where the authorities are concerned with potential terrorist attacks? They are lucky that they are only being sent home in disgrace.
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WTF are you going to find out?
Seriously? In common with many other sports, soccer/football often has planned moves, especially for set-piece plays like corners and free kicks. These will be practised during training. Knowing the details could be of substantial value to the opposing team. There's all kinds of other useful information too, like knowing what formation they intend to play. Spying like this is cheating.
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It's actually remarkably common.
Have you ever wondered why on TV, there's no camera that shows the entire field? Turns out many leagues, NHL, NFL, and others, prohibit them from showing the location of everyone at once. It's apparently so much of a trade secret that you're just not allowed to show it as a view other than as a cut through. I think MLS has it too - the location of every player is proprietary information (despite the fact that anyone attending the game in person has full view of that informati