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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.
#39: “…he has no obligation to inquire on how the object was obtained,…”
And pawn shop operators should follow the same criteria?
Tabloid journalists should be buying photos and personal effects of people of “public interest” just because they believe the story is worth publishing – and who cares how they were obtained?
#39: “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?”
Only if you give it to the DA first, and arrange a way to publish which won’t undermine prosecution of the case against the criminals.
Otherwise, you are just seeking attention for yourself – “Look at me! See what I uncovered!” – and not serving the public interest.
#39: “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?”
I don’t know, is the DA & Police only doing this because it is Apple?
Or, did it only come to the authority’s attention because so many “fanbois” raised a stink about it?
If there weren’t enough Zune fanbois, or Android fanbois, or Blackberry fanbois to raise a stink if their favorite platform’s prototype was “purchased” in such a fashion… maybe they wouldn’t be on the authority’s radar.
#41 MikieV
You lost your whole argument when you made the retarded comparison of Pawn Shop operators and journalists.
And BTW, it is up to the judgment of the publisher if a story is published or withheld in the public interest, not the DA or any other authority. And just how does the publication of information affect the investigation about the publication of information, when the publication of the information is the issue of the investigation?
Another BTW… if Apple was not on the “Steering Committee” of the agency in charge of the investigation, would the investigation have taken place at all? That is a VERY important question about corporate influence. After all, in the big scheme of things, this was a minor ‘theft’ (if it was a theft at all, still very debatable), and was the result of corporate ineptitude on Apple’s part, not the result of some major plot to steal corporate secrets by breaking into Apple’s headquarters laser beam protected ‘next iPhone’ vault. Again, a drunk employee lost their new toy and the world knows about it… tooo friggin bad Apple… man up, learn from your mistake and move on.
I bet the gizmodo nerd that got punk’d is now a bigger macfan that it was before
So it appears that journalism is a profession after all, one in which you had better know what you are doing, or you will face a sh-tstorm of unintended consequences. There are ways to break this story that will protect you should the police come and break down your door.
But these ways involve things like real thought, legal advice, and maybe the wherewithal to work out of someplace other than your apartment. Woodward and Bernstein weren’t allowed to publish their initial findings until their management at The Washington Post had done a lot of thinking and agonizing; same thing with the NYT and the Pentagon Papers.
Both the Post and the Times faced enormous pressure from the highest levels in government, but they prevailed because they had thought about their actions and decided to do what they thought was right, not just what they thought was cool and great fun.
In other words, they went about things in the right way.
I would think that going about things in the wrong way would entail a.) revealing the original source of the leak (in this case, the phone), thereby torching him without his knowledge b.) gloating freely and smugly about how you paid for what you assumed to be someone else’s private property c.) further gloating about how you were oh-so-clever in passively-aggressively contacting Apple d.) printing the letter from Apple’s counsel…all without having any sort of hard-nosed discussion with Apple about the story you intend to publish, why you intend to publish it, and what reaction the company has to your story.
Gawker appears to be a punk, amateurish organization, as does its blogger. Maybe, just maybe, this case will re-focus people on the difference between professional journalists and publishers, and the wanna-bes.
Gawker may end up OK with this deal, as there are some troubling issues about the nature of this police force, the court order, and the police intervention. But yuck, any victory they have will be an ugly, smelly one.
Why in Hell do so many call it “stolen” property? How many people go to a bar, get drunk and leave behind their cell phones? I would hazard a guess of “a lot.” Does that require SWAT teams to break down the doors of all bars looking for stolen property? I guess the next time I see a dime on the street, I’ll have to run as fast as I can in the other direction, move to another state, change my name and not answer the door.
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Part of the search warrant:
From
http://gizmodo.com/5524843/
Appendix “B”
Description of property to be seized:
1. Computer systems, digital storage devices, computer hardware (including peripherals and cables), and data, including but not limited to central processing units (CPUs), hard disk drives, thumb drives, flash drives, digital cameras, digital video cameras, floppy disk drives, tape drives, removable media drives, optical/CD-ROM drives, servers, workstations, display screens, thumb drives, memory cards, cellular telephones, digital cameras, input devices (including but not limited to keyboards, mice, and trackballs), printers, modems, peripherals, floppy disks, magnetic tapes, cassette tapes, removable storage media, and/or optical CD-ROM disks or cartridges, found together or separately from one another. Such systems also commonly include cables linking computer systems to other systems or phone lines.
2. Documentation or other material describing the operation of any computer systems, computer hardware, software, and/or computer peripherals found at the premises, including instructions on how to access disks, files, or other material stored within same, including but not limited to computer manuals, printouts, passwords, file name lists, “readme” and/or “help files.”
3. All records and data located and/or stored on any computers, hard drives, or memory storage devices, located at the listed location including digital photographs and/or video of the Apple prototype 4G iPhone, email communications pertaining to the sale of photographs of the prototype phone and/or the sale of the physical prototype 4G Apple iPhone, internet history, cache files, and/or Internet pages pertaining to searches and/or research conducted on Apple employee Gray Powell, call records, contact lists, text messages related to the sale of photographs of the prototype iPhone and/or physical prototype iPhone, and indicia that identifies the owner and/or operators of the computer or electronic device. I further request that the above items be allowed to be examined by a forensic computer examiner and that the examination be conducted at an offsite facility due to the need for special equipment to properly conduct the examination and preserve the evidence and that said search may be continued beyond the ten-day period beginning upon issuance of this Search Warrant, to the extent necessary to complete the search on the computer systems.
4. Printed documents, images, and/or notations pertaining to the sale and/or purchase of the stolen iPhone prototype and/or the sale and/or transfer of trade secret information pertaining to the iPhone prototype.
5. Any article of personal property tending to establish the identity of persons who have dominion and control over the premises and vehicles to be searched, including all keys to the described location and vehicles, rent receipts, utility bills, telephone bills, addressed mail, purchase receipts, sales receipts, and articles of personal property tending to show ownership of vehicles including, but not limited to vehicle pink slips and vehicle registration. All personal property and documents used by the persons named as means of identification, including but not limited to driver’s licenses, credit cards, passports, social security cards, and photographs relative to the person(s) described.
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If they showed up at my place with that list, they’d better have brought a good-sized truck with them. That would clean out about half my house, including the entire contents of my wallet except the actual cash (if any). And how the hell am I supposed to keep the other half from being stolen if they take all my keys, even assuming I can get the door back on its hinges?
And no, it’s not a typo on my part; the warrant does mention “digital cameras” twice in the same paragraph, along with “digital video cameras.”
Uncle Patso, lots of people get drunk and leave their cellphones in bars. But the right & proper thing to do, the thing 99% of people do, the common sense thing to do, the LAWFUL thing to do, if you find any kind of property in a bar that someone has lost, is to GIVE IT TO, OR TELL THE BARTENDER about it! According to Gizmodo’s own article and statements from the owner and bartender of the bar in question, this did NOT happen. The “unknown person” found the phone, took it home with him, kept it and played with it for a week, and maybe tried to call Apple.
This is a strange aspect to the incident. Why call Apple? Why not try to get the phone back to the owner? The person who lost their phone at the bar. If you find some Ford keys on the floor of a bar, do you take them home with you, keep them for a week, and then call Ford to see who owns them? In a word: NO!
This is when the whole case turned into a theft, when the finder made no effort to notify the bartender or owner of the bar and just took the phone home with him and then sold it to Gizmodo, who by buying it becomes a part to the theft.
Jail the twat and move on, he’s a thief. Hate Apple’s tactics, hate thieves more.
In the 2nd paragraph, I don’t think “wreaks” is the correct word – “reeks” is the word. As a journalist or a journalist fan you need to get this kind of thing right.
#49 go back to school, wreaks is as correct as reeks.
Liberal journalism professors had nothing to do with this, just an incomplete understanding of journalistic first amendment rights. It takes a neocon idiot to claim liberals had something to do with this at all.
A) The guy got the wrong people pissed off by not following due diligence in obtaining it in the first place, exposing the poor dude who lost it then parading it all over the place and taking his good time in returning it (if he ever did at all).
B) (speculation) A judge saw he got too many people pissed off and was acting like either an idiot, an a**hole or both so issued a warrant for search and seizure.
C) The guy yells “first amendment” either because he is confused, an idiot or both.
#51. Yes.
#42: “You lost your whole argument when you made the retarded comparison of Pawn Shop operators and journalists.”
Just like you lost your argument with that retarded ” …stolen documents that show that an auto-maker know his vehicles were dangerous and defective. ” example you used.
You can’t tell the difference between what the public might be interested in, as compared to what is in the public interest.
“And BTW, it is up to the judgment of the publisher if a story is published or withheld in the public interest, not the DA or any other authority.”
You are an idiot.
You should want to arrange for immunity from prosecution before you publish illegally-obtained material.
Or else you can be like Judith Miller – undoubtably a heroine of yours – and go to jail for your beliefs.
Its a free country, you can make that choice.
Strange I’ve yet to hear about any of this on network Tv news. It’s all earthquakes, volcanoes, and oil well fires. But for such a flap about a future iPhone gone missing. It’s only been an item here, and on other internet news sites. I don’t get cable. So I don’t know if CNBC or the FOXNEWS channel has covered it. And I haven’t heard Jimmy Kimmel mention it yet. So maybe there’s a news blackout, about it.