The New York Jets’ dysfunction in 2020, which never seems to come to an end, continues unabated. As first reported by Manish Mehta of the New York Daily News, players have discovered and reported to the Players Association that hidden cameras have been discovered in smoke detectors in the team facility’s locker room.
Touchdown Wire reached out to an NFLPA source and can confirm the report.
Per Mehta:
The NFLPA immediately informed the NFL in late October. The NFL claimed in the past week on behalf of the Jets that cameras have been in and adjacent to the locker room since 2008 when the team relocated from Long Island to a new training facility in Florham Park, New Jersey, according to sources. The league concluded that players were aware of the cameras, and thus, the cameras were compliant with league rules, sources said.
A league spokesperson informed the Daily News that the league responded directly to the union, and no further action is required by the Jets.
Mehta spoke with a number of current and former Jets players, and none of them were aware of the cameras.
“I’m pissed,” one former player said. “That’s our space. Why would you have a camera in there? That’s [expletive]”
If the players were not made aware of the cameras, it is indeed a major violation. The locker room at a team facility is, outside of prescribed media access, the one place in a team facility where players are supposed to be made to feel comfortable. Coaches and team staff, except for staff working in and around the locker room, almost never go in there. It’s supposed to be a sanctuary.
Also per Mehta, there is a New Jersey statute addressing the filming of people who are partially or fully naked that was enacted in 2016.
“An actor commits a crime of the third degree if, knowing that he is not licensed or privileged to do so, he photographs, films, videotapes, records, or otherwise reproduces in any manner, the image of another person whose intimate parts are exposed or who is engaged in an act of sexual penetration or sexual contact, without that person’s consent and under circumstances in which a reasonable person would not expect to be observed.”
While the league and the union did agree to increased cameras in facilities to help determine that COVID protocols are being followed, there has been, and is, no provision allowing cameras in private areas such as locker rooms. Mehta reports that when players were told about the increased overall surveillance, team officials were asked if this extended to private areas like locker rooms, and were not given a specific answer.
The team told Mehta that players have asked for increased surveillance in the locker room to help find lost items, but no player Mehta spoke to could remember asking for that.
“It doesn’t surprise me,” one former player said. “Some people over there are pretty worried about what’s done behind closed doors or in the locker room.”
Whether “some people over there” are led by head coach Adam Gase and general manager Joe Douglas is a matter of conjecture, but they should certainly face questions about this.