Police Seize Gizmodo Editor’s Computers

I read this on CNET yesterday. Yet another reason I refer to that company as crApple. :mad:
 
HalifaxPete said:
Well, if Gizmodo remains a pro-Apple site, we will know it was all a publicity stunt.

If this is a publicity stunt, all of the involved Apple Tards better pay back the taxpayer money that was wasted during this charade. Police overtime, court time, DA time, REACT Team involvement.
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it's ok to take the tinfoil hat off now.
 
Oh boy this is getting great. Looks like these cops really had no business being there at all. These cops being part of REACT means they should have been there on counterfit/piracy issues which is clearly not the case here. They have gone out of the way to FXXK up someone on Apple's poopoo list. Apple has clearly abused their seat on the steering comittee to get the invalid search warrant served. No way the Judge, DA and Apple lawyers did not know the warrant would be invalid. They way I see it, the Judge and DA knowingly violated federal and state laws. This isn't even shaky legal ground, but settled law we are talking about. I think we need a special prosecutor to subpoena Apple's/the judge's/DAs phone records to see who they called to get this thing going.
 
Can someone clear something up.

1. What is the California requirements for a lost item of this phones estimated value (say the cost of a new iphone)?

2. At what point in time does it become the person that found the item their property. Given the finder follows the law ie tries to return it and then turn it in to the police for them to attempt to find its owner. (thats my understanding of the California lost item law but not positive)

3. And when the ownership switches to the person that found it can they do whatever he wants even if the original owner comes forward and requests it?

I am thinking like, if they would have followed the laws and taken ownership of the item after apple/powell did not claim it could you sell it to the highest bidder even if apples cries "thats ours give it back"?
 
Icestation said:
Can someone clear something up.

1. What is the California requirements for a lost item of this phones estimated value (say the cost of a new iphone)?

2. At what point in time does it become the person that found the item their property. Given the finder follows the law ie tries to return it and then turn it in to the police for them to attempt to find its owner. (thats my understanding of the California lost item law but not positive)

3. And when the ownership switches to the person that found it can they do whatever he wants even if the original owner comes forward and requests it?

I am thinking like, if they would have followed the laws and taken ownership of the item after apple/powell did not claim it could you sell it to the highest bidder even if apples cries "thats ours give it back"?
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That doesn't even matter. The Gizmodo dude is a journalist and he's protected by the constitution. The cops illegal raided his home via a warrant which is illegal. You can only go after journalist via a subpoena which they did not have. A subpoena would give the Gizmodo the chance to fight it, which is why APPLE PULLED AN ILLEGAL search warrant card.
 
The big question now is, "How much of the guy's stuff will 'accidentally' be lost in evidence storage?" and end up in Apple's possession.
 
Icestation said:
Can someone clear something up.

1. What is the California requirements for a lost item of this phones estimated value (say the cost of a new iphone)?

2. At what point in time does it become the person that found the item their property. Given the finder follows the law ie tries to return it and then turn it in to the police for them to attempt to find its owner. (thats my understanding of the California lost item law but not positive)

3. And when the ownership switches to the person that found it can they do whatever he wants even if the original owner comes forward and requests it?

I am thinking like, if they would have followed the laws and taken ownership of the item after apple/powell did not claim it could you sell it to the highest bidder even if apples cries "thats ours give it back"?
Click to expand...

I don't think they would be required to turn the item into the police if they attempt to find the owner and the owner shows no interest in retrieving the item. Contacting Apple, even through support shows an attempt at returning the item. Also the device was returned when apple requested it, this situation should have never happened.
 
Yay captialism, knocking down your doors at a company's discretion. Maybe this was the only way they could attempt to lure him into a polygraph about not knowing random guys in public places.
 
-PK- said:
Yay captialism, knocking down your doors at a company's discretion. Maybe this was the only way they could attempt to lure him into a polygraph about not knowing random guys in public places.
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polygraphs are not admissible in court.
 
keenan said:
So I can claim my blog qualifies me as a journalist and get indemnity from unrelated offences? Nice.
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Journalist or not, that warrant was still way overly broad and shouldn't have been served. The extra protections he has as a journalist makes it so they can't just seize all his journalistic equipment when accused of a crime. Funnily enough, he hasn't even been charged with anything. They also never issued a subpoena for a computer. They just went in and took all his electronic devices via a warrant that looks like a giant grab all fishing expedition. How about all the sources, stories, and articles completely unrelated to apple. What if he's working on an insider story about something about microsoft, should the police/apple be able to see those files?

If a journalist is working on a story about goldman sachs screwing people out of money, he's protected from having all his files/notes/sources etc taken by police due to an accusation. If he wasn't, any journalist looking to report on something big, could be accused of a crime by the company being investigated and lose all information that he has. The laws are there for a reason to prevent these types of abuse.

Having apple sitting on the steering committee of this special task force just adds to the ridiculous abuses that have happened in this instance.
 
How was Gizmodo to know that it was really a lost Apple prototype that was found without examining it? They examined it and puplished what they found. That did a really good job of advertising that they had it to whoever it belonged to. When Apple claimed that it was theirs it was returned to them.

It would have done nothing to help Apple get their property back for Gizmodo to not have paid to gain posession of the device. Their actions actually allowed Apple to claim their property. Publishing a story about the phone is not an unreasonable way of finding the owner of it. It was quite effective.

It is not unreasonable for someone who finds something to take pictures of it. You don't have a reasonable expectation of keeping images of something secret when you leave it in a public place.

I would not be surprised if the police were trying to get communications between Gizmodo and the person that found the phone since there is a much more credible argument that he broke the law. However, that would leave them with the uphill battle of trying to get details of communications between a journalist and his source. This has been handled ineptly by the authorities especially since days have passed and they had time to consider how to approach this.

I wonder if Apple is insisting something be done to show that such behavior will not be tolerated and such pressure overode common sense.
 
thesmokingman said:
You really have a hard on right now (for Apple) don't you?
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I think Apple is a disgusting company, and I'd never buy any of their products. I'm not sure why people keep bringing this to Apple's feet. It was the DA's decision and I do believe there is a potential crime here that should be investigated.

My attitude is more driven by the fact that Gizmodo and the guy who 'found' the phone have acted like morons and been douchebags through this thing. I think this search is going too far, but the people defending their actions I just don't understand. The one guy took property that wasn't his, made a half-assed attempt to return it and then sold it for a huge profit. Gizmodo paid for property they knew was stolen or mislaid, and have been quite upfront about this - I believe that doing this is a felony, and they deserve to be dragged through the mud for it.

Journalist or not, that warrant was still way overly broad and shouldn't have been served.
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Possibly. Even quite probably. Not defending what looks to be a pretty ridiculous warrant, especially with Apple's involvement with REACT. I just don't think the protection for journalists extends far enough to indemnify them from charges of theft or receiving stolen property.
 
flatrock said:
I wonder if Apple is insisting something be done to show that such behavior will not be tolerated and such pressure overode common sense.
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It's a strongarm tactic against bloggers letting them know that Apple will fuck with them if they cross Apple. They tried to run Gizmodo thru federal statutes to circumvent California's position defines bloggers as journalists. Big fail... wtf are the Feds running doing around acting as a corporations hit squad for?
 
niconx said:
Pictures of a phone are IP? That's stretching a bit. Gizmodo didn't post circuit diagrams, chip designs, and firmware. It's pics of a damn phone that Apple gave to it's employees to use and apparently carry around in public. Apple is going get roasted in court over this one. The police too. Totally inappropriate use of police powers.
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Even if they might have been considered a trade secret if it were kept secret. Leaving the phone in a public place would seem to make images of it public knowledge.

You can't prosecute someone for exposing trade secrets when it was a employee who was responsible for exposing the information to the public.

Don't show off your prototype in a bar if you want it to remain secret, and definitely don't leave it sitting unattended on a bar stool.
 
Couple notes:

1.) The phone actually looks pretty good, hard to say without using one but I like the design.

2.) Apple typically makes terrible products, but has a marketing strategy that is just hot right now.
Let us look at apples marketing/advertising strategy. Apple controls the mainstream media outlets by releasing demo devices to a few journalists. They do this selectively to "nudge" those who will be reviewing products in a positive light. Not that this is wrong or anything. In fact, its a nice strategy for the masses. However, sites like gizmodo and engadget get neglected because Apple likely feels that they will be more honest with reviews. So by agreeing that gizmodo should have never broke this story, you agree that the media should be essentially controlled by apple. That all Apple products should only be reviewed by selected journalists. I am not saying this should be illegal or anything, I just personally disagree with it as a discerning tech-industry follower. I loved gizmodo before this incident, and I love them even more now. I want raw coverage from journalists who have a similar background and taste as me to review devices, not some newb from cnn or wsj.

3.) Gizmodo is good, when I saw this story break my jaw dropped. Not because I really give a fuck about apples shitware but because this proves to me that giz is out there hustling for the latest tech. Why you clowns think "OMG GIZMODO IS GOING TO GET WHAT THEY DESERVE" is wild, you should be embarrassed.

4.) Now that the shit hit the fan and an editor is under fire, gawker should be re-appraising the entire situation. Hopefully this blows over with no legal recourse. It will be a nice learning experience as to how to break unreleased products.

5.) Next time just destroy the evidence?
-That would have me grining, if gizmodo just took a bunch of pics/vids and posted the review then destroyed the exif-data and threw away the phone.
 
Just three things:

Apple's biting the hands that help feed them. Gizmodo is (or perhaps was) one of Apple's largest and more popular review and preview site and staunch supporter. Nice way of showing gratitude.

And who the hell raids a house, kicking a door down for a fucking phone? Seriously? I don't care how pro or anti-Apple you are, who the fuck raids a house over a phone?!

And finally, I wonder what Apple's going to do with the guy who, ahem, "lost" his phone at the bar. Nobody seems to be bringing him up in this thread.
 
x3sphere said:
I'm not sure how Gizmodo can claim they didn't know the phone was a legit prototype before buying. The fact they paid $5k for it negates any plausible deniability. That's a hefty sum of money to pay for something that could have been a Chinese knockoff.
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Risking $5000 for a potential lead on a big story is not unreasonable. It's a considerable amount of money, but the potential reward is sizable as well. If he could have known for sure it was a 4G iPhone I suspect he would have been happy to pay even more to get his hands on it for even a few hours.

Publishing an article about the phone is also a really good way to let the owner know they have the phone and allow them to claim it. They didn't try and keep their posession of the phone secret and try to keep it. They took reasonable steps to find the owner and see that the phone was returned. They weren't the steps Apple would have liked for them to take, but they were effective.
 
Azhar said:
Gizmodo is (or perhaps was) one of Apple's largest and more popular review and preview site and staunch supporter. Nice way of showing gratitude.
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Would this be a good time to point out Apple has shutdown several of its most popular review sites through legal means in the past decade that head gotten inside info and posted it. There was that fat kid who ran that Apple blog site that able all but financially ruined through harassment by its legal department after he got real info about an iPod or iPhone a few years back.

Since I don't have any source to link, take what I just said as hear say, I remember that some of that crap has happened over the past few years. Point being Apple doesn't care, they believe they have their cult following and that is all that matters. Word shall spread through the faithful, who needs review sites and blogs.

I don't know what it is about all this that reminds me of the old days when Bibles where written in Latin so the masses couldn't read them, but were forced to hang on every word from a priest for spiritual guidance. And Jobs really didn't help it with, "Even we rested on the seventh day" comment.
 
stiltner said:
I'm just baffled at this point by all of this. To me it was stupid enough they paid money for the POS, exclusive or not, who cares, in a few months everyone will have a review and hands on, and their story will be nothing more than yesterdays news.

I guess I just don't see the need to be "THE cutting edge resource" especially if it lands ya in federal pound you in the ass prison.
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That exclusive got them a massive number of page hits, which likely resulted in far more than a mere $5000 in advertising revenues. I chance to photograph and examine a prototype iPhone 4G is likely worth considerably more than $5000 to them. Because Apple does such a good job of preventing leaks, any solid leak generates a huge amount of interest.
 
Zellio2010 said:
I love how the apple cult like disposed and such ignores such things as the DA, the police, and apple, breaking numerous laws, while bitching about what some guy may or may not have broken.

Selling it for $5000 may have been a bad move, but the item was already returned, the police had no right to break in, and esp. not at night, etc.
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LOL you called me apple cult? I fucking hate apple and will never buy a single product of theirs. Search my posts and it should be pretty clear...

I just think they need to make an example out of these assholes. Now that gizmodo paid 5k for a prototype phone if no legal action was taken can you imagine how many people would start stalking known engineers for different companies waiting to snatch the next such prototype?

Theres nothing illegal about what the DA and police are doing i dont know what makes you think they are breaking any laws. I also dont get how so many people are tying apple directly into this as though they are pulling the strings.

Without an example being made it would happen again and again. Now that this big hoopla has been made its not very likely any would be thieves will make an attempt.

I doubt any real charges will be made i think this is more to make an example and prevent it from happening again.

And again for those ignorant enough to actually think apple is pulling the strings get real, its the DAs call and his alone. The tinfoil hat theories are silly, now if the LAPD all of a sudden where all seen sporting iPads or something then you could start pointing fingers but as it is its about a multi thousand dollar theft on top of the IP aspect and what they are doing is appropriate for for the crimes.

He may of only got $5k for the phone but when you get down to it its worth far more than that.
 
I still think Gizmo was wrong, they get this phone and instead of immediately returning the phone to Apple, they exploit it at their earliest convenience to make a buck or two. That is cheap, unethical and put themselves at the lowest form of life!
Pathetic at best, and yes they do deserve it!!
 
Disposed said:
Theres nothing illegal about what the DA and police are doing i dont know what makes you think they are breaking any laws. I also dont get how so many people are tying apple directly into this as though they are pulling the strings.
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Multiple lawyers disagree with you.
Colorado Law Professor Paul Ohm
Santa Clara University School of Law: Margaret Russell, a constitutional law and first amendment expert and also Eric Goldman, who is an associate law professor at Santa Clara University: Link Here to ZDNet.
EFF's Jennifer Granick, civil liberties director

As far as apple pulling strings, they're on the steering committee of the special taskforce that went and raided his home. You don't think apple talked to the people that work for the committee they help direct?
 
Disposed said:
This is all 100% bullshit. The guy found a phone in a bar and took it home for starters, that was the first stupid mistake. There is a legal way to handle this exact situation and he did not follow it one bit, that was his second mistake. He sold it to gizmodo days not weeks after he found it, thats the third mistake.

In the other thread about this someone posted California's exact laws about finding property and this guy clearly broke those laws and is a thief.



You cant just go picking up shit people leave behind and think its yours.

What he should have really done from the get go is give it to the bartender there was absolutely no reason whatsoever for him to take it home. Even then he didnt leave a number or anything with the bar for them to contact him with.

His motivations where pretty clear from the very beginning. How else do you justify his actions?
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Taking it home and attempting to contact the owner was not unreasonable.

If he is telling the truth he did make a reasonable attempt to return the property on his own, but didn't manage to reach to right people at Apple.

His story obviously had value to the media, and selling an exclusive of that story is not a crime.

He also had a reasonable expectation that Gizmodo publishing a story about the phone would reach the appropriate people at Apple and allow them to claim the phone, something he was unsuccessful on his own. It's a far more effective way to make Apple aware of who had the phone than giving it to the bartender.

On the other hand it is not reasonable to expect that Gizmodo would take the phone and not tell anyone in an attept to keep it for themselves.

What is the difference between giving the phone to Gizmodo or the bartender other than that he got paid to tell his story, and it was more effective at contacting the appropriate people at Apple?

The government has to prove that a crime was committed, and having Gizmodo publish a story about the phone was obviously a very effective way of getting through to the right people at Apple. The fact that he got paid for his story does not make it a crime unless there is proof that he didn't intend for Apple to get their phone back.

Otherwise you could be arrested for giving the phone to the bartender like you suggested.

Apple got their phone back. This isn't about theft of the phone. This is about Apple being upset that an embarassing story along with pictures of the phone was published. Steve Jobs is pissed that he lost control over marketing how this phone is first seen by the public. This is about Apple discouraging the media from publishing info about Apple's upcoming products unless Apple explicitly releases the information.

Steve Jobs adamant about preventing any leaks whatsoever to the point or irrationality. It is an obsession with him that he control every aspect of how product info is released to the public. He is a marketing genius, but his ego will not allow this to go unpunished.
 
Crax said:
Multiple lawyers disagree with you.
Colorado Law Professor Paul Ohm
Santa Clara University School of Law: Margaret Russell, a constitutional law and first amendment expert and also Eric Goldman, who is an associate law professor at Santa Clara University: Link Here to ZDNet.
EFF's Jennifer Granick, civil liberties director

As far as apple pulling strings, they're on the steering committee of the special taskforce that went and raided his home. You don't think apple talked to the people that work for the committee they help direct?
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What a shocker lawyers disagreeing with a DA someone call the media!! :rolleyes:
 
flatrock said:
Taking it home and attempting to contact the owner was not unreasonable.

If he is telling the truth he did make a reasonable attempt to return the property on his own, but didn't manage to reach to right people at Apple.

His story obviously had value to the media, and selling an exclusive of that story is not a crime.

He also had a reasonable expectation that Gizmodo publishing a story about the phone would reach the appropriate people at Apple and allow them to claim the phone, something he was unsuccessful on his own. It's a far more effective way to make Apple aware of who had the phone than giving it to the bartender.

On the other hand it is not reasonable to expect that Gizmodo would take the phone and not tell anyone in an attept to keep it for themselves.

What is the difference between giving the phone to Gizmodo or the bartender other than that he got paid to tell his story, and it was more effective at contacting the appropriate people at Apple?

The government has to prove that a crime was committed, and having Gizmodo publish a story about the phone was obviously a very effective way of getting through to the right people at Apple. The fact that he got paid for his story does not make it a crime unless there is proof that he didn't intend for Apple to get their phone back.

Otherwise you could be arrested for giving the phone to the bartender like you suggested.

Apple got their phone back. This isn't about theft of the phone. This is about Apple being upset that an embarassing story along with pictures of the phone was published. Steve Jobs is pissed that he lost control over marketing how this phone is first seen by the public. This is about Apple discouraging the media from publishing info about Apple's upcoming products unless Apple explicitly releases the information.

Steve Jobs adamant about preventing any leaks whatsoever to the point or irrationality. It is an obsession with him that he control every aspect of how product info is released to the public. He is a marketing genius, but his ego will not allow this to go unpunished.
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Picking up a phon book and calling random apple numbers saying "hey i found a special iphone!" is not reasonable.

The guy should have taken the phone to the police if he was really concerned about it getting back to who it belonged to. Instead he decided to make some money for himself on something he didnt own.
 
What a shocker, you completely disregard something that differs from your viewpoint with no valid links or articles to show outside experts agreeing with the search. I didn't link to gizmodo's lawyers disagreeing with the search as that would be obvious. How about you link me to someone other than the involved parties?
 
Crax said:
As far as apple pulling strings, they're on the steering committee of the special taskforce that went and raided his home. You don't think apple talked to the people that work for the committee they help direct?
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I doubt they had to talk to them. Steve Job's obsession with controlling every aspect of how product info is released to the public is well known. Apple is an important employer of their constituants and a significant contributer to their tax base. They wouldn't be doing their jobs if they didn't look into this. The problem is that they are doing so ineptly.
 
I really wish Gizmodo had sent the prototype to Blendtec for further testing. :D
 
On the other hand for 5K buckaroos Gizmodo is being blurbed all over TV. You can't buy that kind of coverage for $5K or can you?
 
Disposed said:
Picking up a phon book and calling random apple numbers saying "hey i found a special iphone!" is not reasonable.

The guy should have taken the phone to the police if he was really concerned about it getting back to who it belonged to. Instead he decided to make some money for himself on something he didnt own.
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Just because it's not the method you think was best, doesn't make it unreasonable.

It sure seems like a reasonable place to start. I also doubt that getting lost property back to its owners is generally a high priority for the police.

Since he was having trouble reaching the right people in Apple aware that he had the phone, maybe he could have some media outlet do a story on how the phone was found so that the right people at Apple would hear about it and then could claim the phone?

Does that sound like a reasonable effective way of notifying the owner to you? If he can get paid for the story, so much the better for him. He didn't try to extort money out of Apple, or prevent them from finding out where their property was.

Do you really think that when he sold his story and transferred posession (not ownership) of the phone to Gizmodo that he thought they were going to keep it for themselves? They couldn't do that and write a story about it.
 
flatrock said:
Risking $5000 for a potential lead on a big story is not unreasonable. It's a considerable amount of money, but the potential reward is sizable as well. If he could have known for sure it was a 4G iPhone I suspect he would have been happy to pay even more to get his hands on it for even a few hours.

Publishing an article about the phone is also a really good way to let the owner know they have the phone and allow them to claim it. They didn't try and keep their posession of the phone secret and try to keep it. They took reasonable steps to find the owner and see that the phone was returned. They weren't the steps Apple would have liked for them to take, but they were effective.
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They bought stolen property from a guy that knew it wasn't his to sell, therefore stolen goods being sold on illegally, good reason why no one else wanted to deal with the guy.
 
flatrock said:
It sure seems like a reasonable place to start.
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Didn't the guy also leak the name of the engineer whose phone it was, and access his facebook from the phone? So let's see, you know the name and contact information for the owner of the phone, but you call a faceless corporation's tech support call centre to return it to him instead?
 
I don't know how many of you have found wallets and stuff, but I never leave it there for some other dishonest person to profit off of. I take it home and leave my information, then contact the owner and have them come get it. Because that's what I'd want someone to do for me. Leaving it there usually means someone else including an employee is just going to pocket it. That to me is reasonable.
 
Azhar said:
Just three things:

Apple's biting the hands that help feed them. Gizmodo is (or perhaps was) one of Apple's largest and more popular review and preview site and staunch supporter. Nice way of showing gratitude.

And who the hell raids a house, kicking a door down for a fucking phone? Seriously? I don't care how pro or anti-Apple you are, who the fuck raids a house over a phone?!

And finally, I wonder what Apple's going to do with the guy who, ahem, "lost" his phone at the bar. Nobody seems to be bringing him up in this thread.
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i agree with what you said about kicking down the door for a phone

A pedophile, rapist, or a serial killer is out there on the streets right now breathing free air, because our judicial police have such high priorities like keeping a prototype phone out of the hands of criminal masterminds.
 
from: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUS...ia_ow=t0:s0:a49:g43:r1:c0.565517:b33071546:z0

Cohen hesitated to define Gawker's liability, but said that the firm would be unlikely to face charges if, in fact, the iPhone had been lost. If it had been stolen, as others have speculated, things could change.

"There are criminal statues on [states'] books for the receipt of stolen property," Cohen said. "I would be wary of buying something from someone not knowing the provenance. Everyone knows that Apple keeps a very tight lid on these kinds of things."

Barry Cohen, is an intellectual property attorney at Thorp Reed & Armstrong LLP.
 
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