But if they CAN prove this then I don’t envy Giz.
A few days of extra traffic, thn thy gt bggrd n th prsn shwr fr whl. Not a good benefit/cost ratio, if you ask me.

Just another reason to always use full-disk encryption. Doesn’t make the seizure any less inconvenient for you, but it does prevent the cops from going on a fishing expedition through your entire digital life.

Of course, issuing a search warrant to your webmail provider is also becoming common. So common that the major providers have standardized published pricelists for these law-enforcement requests. This is a huge privacy problem that is only getting bigger.

They did not simply *report* on *someone* who bought an illegal phone, strip it to pieces, take a thousand pictures, detail everything it can/cant’ do, and “out” the person who lost it and make him look like an idiot.

No….they actually *did* all that themselves.

Big difference.

About time…

Even if it was ‘stolen’, it’s not valuable enough to be considered a felony, IIRC, the cutoff is $1000 for grand-theft, so at worst this is a misdemeanor.

2) Journalist or not, the fact that the cops didn’t respect the information given to them as CA state penal code, or even bother to look into it further, or give another reason is WRONG. Questioning authority is not a rebellious thing, it’s a responsible thing. The day we simply accept what our government, our military and our police do is the day we give up our liberty. There are far too many cases of police corruption going on in this country already.

3) The preferential treatment given to Apple is wrong. It’s a GD cell phone, it’s not like it contained state secrets. Are there not murderers and rapists to catch in the area? I’m fairly certain that the effort and resources put into searching Jason’s home and now rifling through all his personal information could have been (much) better spent on real crime.

Where would you draw the line? If all you need to do to safely fence stolen goods is to make sure they are written about on a blog you’re pretty much legalizing a lot of things that should not be legal.

Shield laws shouldn’t be there to allow theft. Being a blogger shouldn’t put you into a position where you can buy stuff a reasonable person would realize is stolen.

course then they could make him register for sexually assaulting stolen property…

There’s nothing inherently wrong with publishing unauthorised pre-release photos or specs of a product, and rightly there are laws to protect journalists and the confidentiality of their sources which can apply even in cases where the sources broke the law to obtain the information. However, none of this applies to Gizmodo: they don’t have a source of stolen information to protect, theirs is a source of stolen property, and they effectively demanded proof that it was stolen before handing over the cash for it. You don’t get a pass for that because you’re a journalist any more than Jalopnik would if they decided to try out cars by taking up joyriding.

The value of the item would be determined by Apple reporting their costs to have those prototypes manufactured and shipped to the US, which at best is a couple hundred dollars. The full retail price on the current iPhone is $600, because this product isn’t in distribution or have a retail price set, the cost of manufacture is the value of the item.

“In the absence of such a direction, the warrant shall be served only between the hours of 7 a.m. and 10 p.m.’”
But there WAS a direction for there not to be night search, at least according to the warrant. And according to the code you quoted, the discretion to serve it outside of a determined time was to be in “the absence of such a direction”. Again, IANAL, but that would be my reading of what you quoted…

in prototyping, the initial builds often cost an order of magnitude (or more) than the production build units will cost.

the value of the phone may well exceed $20,000 never mind the $5k Gizmodo paid for it

I’m tired of seeing this argument made whenever someone wants to question police behavior. Do you not want the police to investigate felonies unless they’ve solved all the murders in the area? Does that mean that I should have a license to steal and rob, so long as the police have “more important things to do?”

I highly doubt that the police involved were homicide detectives called away from the scene of a serial murder to do the work of officers whose job it is to investigate exactly the type of crime that may have been committed in this case.

Either way, if Apple’s hand is anywhere near this, that’s not good press. Not good press at all.

Additionally, as has been discussed at length there seems to be a law in California regarding expending reasonable energy towards giving an item back. As the “finder” (or thief) actually went into the owners facebook account (among other things) he knew exactly to whom the device belonged, yet he did not return it. The owner called the bar repeatedly to try to get it back, but as the “finder” had just taken it for himself…
The finder then told all this to Gizmodo, who then knew that the finder was not the legal owner (and could therefore not sell it legally), bought a device for $5000 which should have cost one tenth of that unless something was fishy, accessed the device, screwed it apart and then informed Apple (not the person who had been established as the owner) to tell them that Giz had the device.
They then had the nerve to tell Apple that they would only give it back if Apple publicly admits that this is their property (when they already had all details necessary to give it back to the owner).
Giving conditions so someone can get their property back sounds suspiciously like blackmail to my ears.. and that would be against the law (adding to the other possible charges of buying stolen property, property damage and others)
This could be serious for Giz, if the real lawyers are to be believed.

And serves them right for their low morals (buying an item which was obviously ill gotten), butterfingered handling of the whole thing (naming the owner publicly) as well as general sleaziness (they seemed proud of their checkbook journalism).

§ 2080.1. Delivery to police or sheriff; affidavit; charges

(a) If the owner is unknown or has not claimed the property, the person saving or finding the property shall, if the property is of the value of one hundred dollars ($100) or more, within a reasonable time turn the property over to the police department of the city or city and county, if found therein, or to the sheriff’s department of the county if found outside of city limits, and shall make an affidavit, stating when and where he or she found or saved the property, particularly describing it.

They paid 10x retail value for something that was obviously someone else’s and basically attempted blackmail on Apple. “Admit something, and then you can have it back.”

It might be one thing if Gizmodo were uncovering evidence of a crime, other abuse, or shady activity on the part of Apple. But this was a paid for attempt to obtain trade secrets that have no more impact than revealing a product before the company is ready to release it.

Looks like they’re guilty under California law, and I think they deserve the search and should be prosecuted.

Unattended does not equal free for the taking.

The poor guy who lost it should have got it back from the barman the following day, if someone hadn’t been so pleased with finding himself his very own iPhone that is.

…But after reading this story, maybe I should go back and ask that they start kicking in doors for me?

Second, Gizmodo was clearly knowingly receiving stolen goods, a felony. (Cal. Penal Code 496)

Third, the Shield Law only protects Gizmodo from held in contempt for failing to divulge the name of the original owner. It doesn’t provide any protection against criminal or civil charges. (Cal. Evidence Code § 1070.)

Re Journalism, quality has nothing to do with it. You just have to research, publish and be read. The gray area, even outside of the Blogger Rights Outrage Zone, is whether unpaid local amateur types get the same protections as professionals.

Some of you make it sound like someone has the “right” to take something that is not theirs depending on the circumstance.

Whenever I “find” something I turn it into the manager of the establishment I found it. Whenever there is no establishment, I try to contact the owner (if applicable). As last option I turn it over the police.

This all went wrong from the time someone “found” this phone. Gizmodo was just the exclamation point on a series of wrongs. Personally, I hope they are prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Every single one of the people involved after the engineer LOST his phone.

Keep in mind, this is coming from a person who pretty much despises Apple. This isn’t about the phone or the company…this is about ethics, morality, and crime.

If they had reported the story, without facilitating it themselves, they likely would have more protection from police intrusion.

If the thief had, for instance, taken a video with the phone and posted it on YouTube describing how it was stolen, the police response might have been a bit different. Your story = needle in haystack. Gizmodo story = needle jabbed into face.

To Gizmodo / Jason Chen:
Publicly telling everyone that you paid for something you believed/assumed/hoped was something that could not possibly belong to the person selling it is admitting to buying what you believed to be ill-gotten goods.

If you think the stolen phone is stolen, but aren’t positive – it doesn’t cancel itself out because you aren’t sure. You should have at least FEIGNED ignorance.

This is not a case where a *real* journalist had a story given to him from a source and was reporting a story third person.

This is the equivalent of me buying *your* stolen car, driving it for two weeks, tearing it apart, and then blogging about it to protect me.

Ridiculous.