police raid Gizmodo editor's house

[simsimi1004]

Police have raided the home of a technology blog editor after he revealed details of Apple's next iPhone.

Detectives are investigating whether Jason Chen, an editor at the leading tech blog Gizmodo, broke a law covering the appropriation of stolen property for personal benefit.

Gizmodo paid $5,000 for a top-secret iPhone 4G prototype after a hapless Apple software engineer left it on a bar stool.

The handset was found by an unknown person who hawked it round various blogs.

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/to...cle7109063.ece


pwned. i think he partially deserved it.

[slammer111]

More publicity for him. Dunno if the charges will stick.

[Vansterdam]

pwned lol buying stolen property is a no-no

and epic fail by the employee

[Kim Jong Un]

meh just another one of apple's publicity stunt

[LiquidTurbo]

Full details here:

http://gizmodo.com/5524843/police-se...hens-computers

lol@ this guy.

[StylinRed]

I take it none of you read the article??


The phone was bought by Gizmodo (according to the article).
The phone was returned to Apple when they asked for it.
The police raided this editors home anyway and seized all his equipment and personal info.
According to Gizmodo, under US law, their editor should be protected under Journalists rights
Also paying informants for information is legal (journalists, police, etc, do it all the time) the only thing that comes into question from this point is the credibility of the information.


so Apple probably had the law "bent" to stick it to gizmodo for letting out their details

Its not like the editor sold the information to another cellular company

[SkinnyPupp]

Police are probably trying to get to whoever originally stole it. And despite what they may argue, it was stolen. They claimed to have contacted Apple about it, but if that had been the case, Apple would have asked for it back right away. That, and the fact that they knew who the original owner was, and never contacted him before selling it.

So knowing that it is a stolen phone, Gizmodo bought stolen goods, which of course is illegal. The editor may not have bought it, but he was knowingly in possession of it too.

I don't think the shield law protects journalists from being charged with purchasing stolen goods... It's amusing to me that they think that.

My theory is, they fucked themselves over by unnecessarily releasing the identity of the guy who they stole the phone from. That was a real asshole thing to do, and I hope karma fucks them in the ass for it. No lube.

As big as Apple is, I don't think they have the ability to 'bend' the laws . California prosecutors LOVE going after high profile cases. Look at what they did to MJ for instance.

And while they didn't directly sell it to another company, they did reveal it to them. But I think the bottom line is, they stole an extremely valuable item and flaunted it.

[CP.AR]

this fiasco is getting more and more interesting. I would love to see how the journalistic protectionism regulations will go after this. Reading back on their posts regarding the phone, I can actually pick out their carefully worded paragraphs - to tread through the legal waters carefully.

[SkinnyPupp]

The funniest part is, the guy who stole it is risking a LOT for the $5000 he was paid. And Gizmodo ended up with millions and millions of new visitors for it...

[sleazyho]

I woulda sold it for way more than $5000

[FerrariEnzo]

man, how many things is apple gona do to promote their iphones?

First it was the guy in shanghai, now this shit where the "ACCIDENATLLY" leaves it behind at a BAR? WTF????

[wouwou]

Originally Posted by FerrariEnzo

man, how many things is apple gona do to promote their iphones?

First it was the guy in shanghai, now this shit where the "ACCIDENATLLY" leaves it behind at a BAR? WTF????

if you know anything about AAPL, you would know that there is no way it's doing this to "promote" the iphone.

[Mancini]

Originally Posted by nwen

meh just another one of apple's publicity stunt

Do you really believe that police routinely help companies with marketing campaigns by getting search and seizure warrants?

Originally Posted by StylinRed

Also paying informants for information is legal (journalists, police, etc, do it all the time) the only thing that comes into question from this point is the credibility of the information.

Sounds like a great way to legally buy stolen property cheaply. Become a journalist and relate the "hot" property to a legitimate news story so the law won't touch you.

No.

[StylinRed]

Originally Posted by Mancini

Sounds like a great way to legally buy stolen property cheaply. Become a journalist and relate the "hot" property to a legitimate news story so the law won't touch you.

No.

no, your being too general and mixing information, etc with stolen equipment; you can't purchase, knowingly, stolen equipment

they can pay for information; they can pay for items (as long as they have no reason to believe its stolen)



Gizmodos side of the story is they didn't believe this was Apples, Iphone
they didn't know anything about it, they had no reason to believe it was stolen, but they knew it was lost
and when they found out it was Apples, they gave it back to them



lookit this article on wired, us law has it that the items can't even be seized even if the police are investigating a crime

The federal Privacy Protection Act prohibits the government from seizing materials from journalists and others who possess material for the purpose of communicating to the public. The government cannot seize material from the journalist even if it’s investigating whether the person who possesses the material committed a crime.

Instead, investigators need to obtain a subpoena, which would allow the reporter or media outlet to challenge the request and segregate information that is not relevant to the investigation.

“Congress was contemplating a situation where someone might claim that the journalist was committing a crime [in order to seize materials from them],” Granick says.

California state law also provides protections to prevent journalists from being forced to disclose sources or unpublished information related to their work.

“California law is crystal clear that bloggers are journalists, too,” she says.

Apple is on the steering committee for the REACT task force that raided Chen’s house. Formed in 1997, REACT is a partnership of 17 local, state and federal agencies tasked with investigating computer- and internet-related crimes.

Originally Posted by StylinRed

so Apple probably had the law "bent" to stick it to gizmodo for letting out their details

^^

[Mugen EvOlutioN]

Originally Posted by nwen

meh just another one of apple's publicity stunt

indeed

[$_$]

Why are people saying this phone was stolen ? Idk, everywhere I've read it said the programmer lost the phone at the bar.

Look at it this way, with all the protocols that apple has, why would they let THAT programmer take around a phone that is so important to him? On top of that, most of us take good care of our phone to not lose it, so if you were someone that carried around a phone of THAT value, would you not double triple check it constantly to know that it's on you?

What's the point of raiding gizmodo's house? They already sent a formal letter requesting the phone back. They got it back. The guy who found it apparantly tried calling customer service back to return it. Easy to pull up the records to see if it happened.

Having said all that, I still think everything is a big publicity stunt. With the iPad released so close to when the 4g is suppose to come out, it is bound to cannabilize some of their sales. Have you realized that all of these news come out in waves? The "rumour" of this new 4g has been around for MONTHS. At first it was just in the internetz, where only the nerdz will see. Now it made it's way into the news, making the general public aware that the "new iphone is on it's way out!" Gotta hand it to apple, no matter how this turned out, they will end up selling more phones. No publicity is bad publicity.

[penner2k]

This is gonna be a tricky case. Its obvious that the lawyers that work for Gizmodo knew what was going on and were prepared for this to happen. If I were them I would have stopped searching when they saw the email. Right now they are putting themselves at huge risk of getting sued by continuing with the search.

[simsimi1004]

Originally Posted by T.H.C

Why are people saying this phone was stolen ? Idk, everywhere I've read it said the programmer lost the phone at the bar.

Look at it this way, with all the protocols that apple has, why would they let THAT programmer take around a phone that is so important to him? On top of that, most of us take good care of our phone to not lose it, so if you were someone that carried around a phone of THAT value, would you not double triple check it constantly to know that it's on you?

well in apples defence it was in a cover that made it look like 3g. no one would try to probe someone elses phone when their using it lol especially something that is so common.

its considered stolen because the law said something about it being misplaced and upto a certain time, there is a legal obligation to return it.

[Manic!]

Apple Nazi's strike again.

An Apple engineer was fired for showing Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak an Ipad at midnight on the day of release. What's more bizarre is he had to wait in line to get one.

http://www.macworld.co.uk/ipod-itune...NewsID=3221603

Also you have the trouble at foxconn and Apple forcing website ThinkSecret to shut down.

[taylor192]

Originally Posted by SkinnyPupp

Police are probably trying to get to whoever originally stole it. And despite what they may argue, it was stolen. They claimed to have contacted Apple about it, but if that had been the case, Apple would have asked for it back right away. That, and the fact that they knew who the original owner was, and never contacted him before selling it.

You're assuming a lot. My turn.

Gizmodo made it very clear the original finder and themselves both contacted Apple. I will assume they have this documented since they probably ran this by their lawyer first. Any media company that would not contact their lawyer before posting this type of information would be very dumb, and I give Gizmodo more credit than that.

The added plus is that if the search and seizure is found to violate the journalist clause, then all evidence is now inadmissible in any other related case against the editor.

Thus this all comes down to who's team has better lawyers - meanwhile swearing Apple's reputation and opening more eyes to just how far Apple will go to control its products - and ultimately the end consumer.

IMHO this is not a smart case for Apple to pursue if they are behind it.

[orange7]

what happened to the good old rule of finder keeper?

[Great68]

Originally Posted by T.H.C

Why are people saying this phone was stolen ?

You have to make a legitimate attempt to return the "found" property to the owner.

It's no different than if you loose your wallet at the bar. Someone can't just take it and say "I found it, it's MY wallet now". That would be stealing.

I think there was a case a few years back where some dude found a few thousand dollars in a bag by a bus stop in Vancouver or something. He turned the money into the police, and if no one claimed it within xx days he would get to keep it. The owner ended up claiming the money, but gave the dude a nice reward for finding it.

[Expresso]

Originally Posted by Great68

You have to make a legitimate attempt to return the "found" property to the owner.

It's no different than if you loose your wallet at the bar. Someone can't just take it and say "I found it, it's MY wallet now". That would be stealing.

.

I'm not sure if you actually read the actual details but, the original guy who found it at the bar contacted Apple but no one took him seriously. Customer Service gave him a Ticket # for the incident and told him they would call him. No follow up calls were made.

[Mancini]

Originally Posted by Great68

You have to make a legitimate attempt to return the "found" property to the owner.

It's no different than if you loose your wallet at the bar. Someone can't just take it and say "I found it, it's MY wallet now". That would be stealing.

I think there was a case a few years back where some dude found a few thousand dollars in a bag by a bus stop in Vancouver or something. He turned the money into the police, and if no one claimed it within xx days he would get to keep it. The owner ended up claiming the money, but gave the dude a nice reward for finding it.

Exactly.

What is known at this point is that the "finder" did not make any attempt to turn in the lost property to the authorities. Then, he sold it purely for profit.

Originally Posted by HachiSix

I'm not sure if you actually read the actual details but, the original guy who found it at the bar contacted Apple but no one took him seriously. Customer Service gave him a Ticket # for the incident and told him they would call him. No follow up calls were made.

That's insufficient action. What if it didn't belong to Apple in the first place? It still needed to be turned in to the authorities to be claimed (or not).

[Sky_2000]

Originally Posted by Mancini

Exactly.

What is known at this point is that the "finder" did not make any attempt to turn in the lost property to the authorities. Then, he sold it purely for profit.



That's insufficient action. What if it didn't belong to Apple in the first place? It still needed to be turned in to the authorities to be claimed (or not).

I highly doubt a local police officers would know what a iphone prototype phone would look like. The phone would have just ended up in a bin with a bunch of other lost or stolen phones at the police station. Gizmodo didn't even know it was actually a prototype till they took it apart.

In the end only Apple and Gizmodo gain from this situation. Everyone else is just a pawns in their game of world domination.