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Police raided the home of Gizmodo editor Jason Chen late Friday, busting down the door to serve a search warrant that suggests that the site’s role in obtaining an iPhone prototype is being investigated as a felony, according to a post and documents published on the Gizmodo website.
The search, which wreaks of violating journalists’ protections against such warrants, involved the seizure of four computers and two servers, among other things, from Chen’s home, which doubles as his workplace.
The warrant was approved by a judge in San Mateo County, home of the bar where Apple software engineer Gray Powell lost a prototype of Apple’s yet-to-be-revealed next iPhone. Cupertino, which is home to Apple HQ, is in neighboring Santa Clara County. Chen lives in Alameda County, which is just across the bay from San Mateo County.
I have to agree with #12, Neodiablo23
I can’t think of a more vindictive bastard than Steve Jobs to have as an enemy. Apple will bury them with litigation costs. Every asshole that posts on the internet isn’t a journalist, me being a case in point. Nick Denton should have anticipated Jobs going for the jugular, the damn fool. There will be criminal charges filled, followed by a whale of a civil suit.
Something tells me the engineer that left the prototype at a bar is now applying for the position of dishwasher at that same bar.
Steve Jobs stole a liver. Just saying…
#14 Get over it.
#24 Yea. Somebody died so that Fabby Stevy could live. I’m talking about the person who did NOT get a liver in Tennessee that month. Obviously, some institution in Tennessee got a new wing from an unrevealed donor. Tennessee? Really? Better than STANFORD for Christ’s sake?????
Very interesting commentary on this matter, covering both sides, including the laws that apply to journalistic privacy:
http://salon.com/technology/iphone/index.html?story=/tech/htww/2010/04/26/gizmodo_iphone_computers_seized
Basically it says that “journalists” are legally protected from having their files seized because of the right of journalists to have confidential sources. If you disagree, imagine for a moment a world where journalists of any type can’t have confidential sources because their computers are subject to seizure and inspection at any time for unproven (no trail conducted) allegations of misbehavior. Sources would be in constant fear of exposure, and therefore there would be no confidential sources.
I predict that the Santa Clara county police department will deeply regret their actions, and more importantly that there will be a serious journalistic backlash against Apple, maybe even an embargo on mentioning ANY of their products by mainstream media… the Apple hype machine may have just committed suicide by pissing off their most valuable ally.
Awake–thanks for the link. Good to learn that California has a reporters shield law.
My uninformed best guess is that the shield law was meant to keep sources confidential. Sources of governmental secrets being the highest the main/original intent. Can/should the theft of private commercial property be on the same footing?
I think not, but people could differ I suppose. In like manner, I don’t see how a search warrant was issued given the property had been returned ((I’m assuming that from what I’ve read elsewhere.)) In most civil cases, normal discovery would be granted–not search warrants.
Yes, lots of issues with only tangential case law on point. Lots of arguments to be made on both sides of all the issues.
#27, Awake,
Good link.
Awake,
The difference here and the reason the shield law doesn’t apply is because they actually bought the stolen item in question. That made them at the very least, accomplices. They are not making them give up their informant.
The police have every right to search through anyone’s stuff that is suspected of actually participating in the crime. If they happen to come across the informant’s name, which they will, then he will be arrested for stealing the phone. If they had just took pictures and the guy took it with him when he left, they would be fine, and they could keep him safe with the shield law.
Just listened to the Tech Five Report. JCD thinks this incident will be covered in the press for awhile.
Many complain of the “rich” getting “special treatment.” “Usually” the special treatment is that they get ALL the protections the law allows. Most of us just can’t afford it==lawyers ready at the snap of a finger to file court papers and what not.
If any of you had any of your “stuff” stolen ((said concept applies whether or not it was first “lost” given the chain of recipients each knew it wasn’t theirs and did know who’s it was)) wouldn’t you want it back and the guilty prosecuted?
Steve Jobs/Apple is no different. The first amendment rights are very secondary to the felony theft issues raised here.
Let’s just say that the value of the lost iphone was c. $10,000,000.
And let’s just stipulate that the value of the secrecy it embodied doubled that.
Mr. Chen might find himself the recipient, acting with malice aforethought, of about $20,000,000 of now-stolen property, from which he obviously intended to and actually did derive great benefit. His act of “buying” it being the pivotal action that turned it from “lost” to “stolen.”
Why did he buy it? To do the right thing and get it back to Apple? He took it apart, fer crissake!
Journalism? Journalistic “sources?” The now-stolen phone is not a source. It is a self-evident embodiment of trade secrets, future careful revelation and multi-million or billion dollar product trade.
Try theft for personal gain, however that gain is played out, and whatever the court decides the value of the object was on March 15.
Personalities aside, a jury might send him away for way more years than he could afford to while away. Or a minimum of zillions of dollars worth of community service, fines up the wazoo and a record for felony theft, conspiracy and being a dick.
How long of a prison visit would a jewel thief caught with $20 million in loot get?
(typo: not dollars, hours of comunity service)
m
So what’s the problem? Newspapers and network news always cite or disclose the contents of internal memo’s, emails, and other documents that they shouldn’t have in their possession. In this case, it was a phone, not a document. The biggest thing learned is that the phone has a new shape. So what?
Not sticking up for the Gizmodo guy, but car magazines trip over each other to get photos of next year’s badly-disguised cars being tested on public streets. No one’s suing the magazines’ butts off.
Why did the cops break the door? Seriously. Did they think he was going to flush the evidence down the john or something?
What exactly do they think they might find on his computers? A text file saying what?
Gizmodo did make a strategic mistake. They should _not_ have actually taken custody of the phone. Everything else was clear.
The next issue is that, if Apple didn’t want this to become a big story that would freeze Iphone sells, this is _not_ the way to go.
I’m not saying Apple prompted the raid but if they did or didn’t and Apple sues Gizmodo at some future date for damages the further notoriety the case has gotten due to the raid and whatever comes out of it will taint the case.
If you charge some one with receiving stolen property you have to put a value on it. Legally speaking what is the value of this item? The value of its components? They got a bricked phone. I wouldn’t have given you six cents for it.
Okay I left out a vital point. Gizmodo made it clear they weren’t sure this phone had anything to do with Apple until Apple confirmed it. Unless you can get around that…
#37 “Gizmodo made it clear they weren’t sure this phone had anything to do with Apple until Apple confirmed it. Unless you can get around that…”
Get around that?
Okay:
They published photos of Apple part-numbers on some of the internal components?
It is a type of iPhone none of them has seen before – and they make a living out of following hardware trends & rumors on such devices – and it had been remotely wiped??
After being wiped, it would only prompt them to sync it with iTunes??
Does that sound like a WindowsMobile device? An Android device? A Nokia prototype?
#30 JFetch,
Is it wrong for a journalist to pay for information of public interest in all cases? In this case, the journalist was offered an item of public interest for a price, and he has no obligation to inquire on how the object was obtained, only to report his findings if he believes that the story is worth publishing.
We may be talking about something trivial like the next-Gen iPhone, but at what point you change it over to non-trivial. Who determines the importance of the information?
Suppose that I as a journalist were to pay $5000 for stolen documents that show that an auto-maker know his vehicles were dangerous and defective. It is stolen information, hence I should not publish it?
Or if I get my hands on the next-gen Zune, would a police raid still happen on the reporter when nobody cares about what was published?
IMHO, the seizure of the computers is wrong, very very wrong in this case. The accused journalist did not order the theft of the item (he is not an accomplice to theft), he reported on an item that was offered to him for money and that he thought was of public interest. Great public interest. He had no need to inquire where it came from, just that he got it and this is what it is about.
Apple had a drunk employee lose one of their next-generation products, and it ended in the hands of the press. Tough. Too bad. Shut up and improve your corporate security. But to push your corporate weight to violate the 1st amendment to the Constitution (basically that the press can report anything they want to), is a national disgrace, and so are those that allowed this to happen.
If the police what to charge anybody with theft, they should use their own investigative methods to figure out, but that does not include the seizure of constitutionally protected sources.
Laws were violated here on both sides, but the iPhone theft is trivial compared to the violation of Constitutional protection of journalists.
#36: “If you charge some one with receiving stolen property you have to put a value on it.”
Gizmodo paid $5000.00 for it, apparently -hoping- that it was a genuine iPhone prototype…
I can only assume they would have paid more if they -knew- it was the genuine article.
So, the value should be at least $5000.00