Cops Seize Four Computers, Two Servers from Gizmodo Editor
Linked by Thom Holwerda on Mon 26th Apr 2010 23:11 UTC, submitted by UglyKidBill
Legal Well, this is unexpected. The iPhone 4G saga just got a whole lot crazier - dare I say it, a whole lot more ridiculous. Have you ever reported anything like a phone or something similarly small stolen to the police? What was their reaction? Did you ever get the device back? Did they send an army of officers to get your device back? No? Odd. They raided Jason Chen's house, and took four computers and two servers. Update: And thus our true colours reveal. "The raid that San Mateo area cops conducted last week on the house of Gizmodo editor Jason Chen came at the behest of a special multi-agency task force that was commissioned to work with the computer industry to tackle high-tech crimes. And Apple Inc. sits on the task force's steering committee." Update II: According to TechCrunch, the investigation has been put on hold while the DA ponders Gizmodo's shield defence. Update III: Some legal insight from a constitutional law and first amendment expert and a law professor. The gist? The DA has said no one has been charged with anything here, making this just an investigation - however, this makes the search and seizing of material worse. "If the police are literally just gathering information, with no suspect targeted yet, then a subpoena against a journalist would have probably been smarter than a search warranted that resulted in the front door of Chen's home being bashed in."
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RE[3]: Kind of scary
by Morgan on Tue 27th Apr 2010 15:12 UTC in reply to "RE[2]: Kind of scary"
Morgan
Member since:
2005-06-29

What tinfoil hat? In case you haven't gathered from this and other posts by me, I work in law enforcement. I have for the past 11 years. I've seen this kind of harassment and intimidation before, more than once at my prior job.

I agree, a crime was committed, my point was not that the police shouldn't be involved. My point was that a company like Apple can get a search warrant, a SWAT callout and a near immediate response over a damn cell phone. Have someone steal your phone and try to get the police to do more than file a report. It's unfair, imbalanced, and unfortunately the way the world works today. Anyone can see that.

Reply Parent Score: 5

RE[4]: Kind of scary
by macUser on Tue 27th Apr 2010 16:10 in reply to "RE[3]: Kind of scary"
macUser Member since:
2006-12-15

What tinfoil hat? In case you haven't gathered from this and other posts by me, I work in law enforcement. I have for the past 11 years. I've seen this kind of harassment and intimidation before, more than once at my prior job.

I agree, a crime was committed, my point was not that the police shouldn't be involved. My point was that a company like Apple can get a search warrant, a SWAT callout and a near immediate response over a damn cell phone. Have someone steal your phone and try to get the police to do more than file a report. It's unfair, imbalanced, and unfortunately the way the world works today. Anyone can see that.


What if I simply lost my USB keystick with classified government data on it (as seems to happen readily over in the UK). And Gizmodo bought it for $5000 and published all the contents. It is after all just a USB Keystick. They are a dime a dozen.

This was not simply a phone. That Gizmodo bought it for $5000 makes it abundantly clear that they knew it was not just any old phone...

Reply Parent Score: 2

RE[5]: Kind of scary
by Morgan on Tue 27th Apr 2010 16:21 in reply to "RE[4]: Kind of scary"
Morgan Member since:
2005-06-29

And since when is an unreleased iPhone classified government data? Since when is Apple the government or a government contractor? Try a better analogy please.

Reply Parent Score: 3

Read more of this thread... >
RE[5]: Kind of scary
by bert64 on Wed 28th Apr 2010 10:05 in reply to "RE[4]: Kind of scary"
bert64 Member since:
2007-04-23

Classified government data being leaked would be a threat to national security and could potentially be classed as treason. It would be a direct attack against the government and you would expect that government to use their agents to deal with the issue.

Stealing a cellphone from apple (assuming it was even explicitly stolen, rather than simply found) is no different than stealing a cellphone from a guy on the street - a crime which occurs every day. It happens so often that the police don't have enough time or resources to deal with it.

I had my phone stolen a few months ago, it was an iphone 3g and i could see from my mail server logs that it was still active. The police weren't interested and just gave me a crime number, the telco weren't interested either and just disabled the simcard. The police could have recovered my phone quite easily by tracking its location via cell tower triangulation, and doing so might have solved other crimes too (the thieves might have other stolen items in their possession)... But they weren't interested because an individual has no influence in this corporate dictatorship.

Reply Parent Score: 3

RE[4]: Kind of scary
by StychoKiller on Wed 28th Apr 2010 03:02 in reply to "RE[3]: Kind of scary"
StychoKiller Member since:
2005-09-20

I wanna know the phone number that Apple used to get this response from the Police in case some of MY property gets stolen -- or is this just a Silicon Valley phenomenon?

Wake up America, the Police are almost completely out of Public control -- this case is just one more indication!

Reply Parent Score: 1