I know my rights, so you gon' need a warrant for that

04/27/10

I know my rights, so you gon' need a warrant for that

I'll avoid the temptation to hard on the police being the puppets of our corporate overlords (in this case, Apple) to note:

Gizmodo said Monday that California police raided the home of an editor for the gadget blog who revealed details last week of a secret next-generation iPhone prototype.

Gizmodo published excerpts from a search warrant that gave police permission to seize property from editor Jason Chen's home that was "used as the means of committing a felony" or "tends to show that a felony has been committed."

The search warrant signed by a local judge specifically authorized the seizure of "printed documents, images and/or notations pertaining to the sale and/or purchase of the stolen iPhone prototype."

See, I'm wondering where theft was involved. As far as we know, this prototype iPhone was left at a bar. Did somebody at Apple tell a fib?

Gizmodo also published a letter from a lawyer for its owner, Gawker Media, objecting to the raid on Chen's home and arguing that a "search warrant may not be validly issued to confiscate the property of a journalist."

Yeah, that's just what I'm thinking.

• 5 comments ». Categories: News, Mac 'n' Trash.

Permalink • Send a trackback » 08:34:06 am by Ragamuffin

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5 comments

Comment from: ibotobob [Visitor]

If it was found at a bar and taken without handing it to the police (or lost property or whatever the appropriate place is in California), then that's theft. Nothing to discuss there.

Now, they seem to suggest that the thus-stolen iPhone was sold to the gizmodo guy. I don't know what they're basing that theory on, but if they have valid reasons to assume that to be the case, then I don't see any reason not to search his house. That the amount of stuff confiscated appears to be excessive is another matter.

I'm all for protecting journalists and their sources. But: 1) there's no political relevance to this case, so the bar of protection can be validly put lower, and 2) I don't see a reason to allow journalists to deal with stolen goods and how that can be understood as protection of the journalist's rights.

Finally, if the guy had taken the phone, taken a few photos, had handled its menus to find out who the owner was and then passed it on to the police or Apple, noone could complain.

04/27/10 @ 08:57

Comment from: ibotobob [Visitor]

Third paragraph should read

... I don't see a reason to allow journalists to deal with stolen goods, nor do I see how that can be ...

Let me take the opprotunity to qualify my post: I'm not familiar with the details of the story, I try not to follow the apple news that seem to have usurped a large part of news reporting.

04/27/10 @ 08:59

Comment from: grygus [Member]

I agree with ibotobob, but should note that I also did not read the article, not because I'm anti-Apple so much as this doesn't seem like a big deal to me; man stole phone (or received stolen phone, as the case may be), police tracked him down, got a warrant, and took it back.

Isn't that how it's supposed to work?

04/27/10 @ 09:45

Comment from: Ragamuffin [Member] · http://keephip.com

It does seem that it could be considered stolen goods, but they also claim no one claimed the phone, which suggests that there was some attempt to reclaim it. I don't know if that means it's no longer stolen at that point or not.

04/27/10 @ 10:09

Comment from: grygus [Member]

I read some on it. Gizmodo made a post saying they had a prototype phone, so they knew it wasn't supposed to be public yet. I'm pretty sure they knew it was Apple's property; that means that by paying $5,000 for it they may have opened themselves up to felony reception of stolen property. Obviously I'm not a lawyer, but it's a pretty shady deal all around and I don't approve of the argument that it's all cool because they're journalists.

04/27/10 @ 17:03

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