ZDNet article at:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=33652&tag=nl.e019
says:
quote
Police raided the home of Gizmodo editor Jason Chen late Friday, busting down the door to serve a search warrant that suggests that the site?s role in obtaining an iPhone prototype is being investigated as a felony, according to a post and documents published on the Gizmodo website.
The search, which reeks of violating journalists? protections against such warrants, involved the seizure of four computers and two servers, among other things, from Chen?s home, which doubles as his workplace.
The warrant was approved by a judge in San Mateo County, home of the bar where Apple software engineer Gray Powell lost a prototype of Apple?s yet-to-be-revealed next iPhone. Cupertino, which is home to Apple HQ, is in neighboring Santa Clara County. Chen lives in Alameda County, which is just across the bay from San Mateo County.
The warrant alleges that the property seized was ?used as the means of committing a felony? and ?tends to show that a felony has been committed or that a particular person has committed a felony.? In addition, in a description of property to be seized, the warrants reads:
All records and data located and/or stored on any computers, hard drives, or memory storage devices, located at the listed location including digital photographs and/or video of the Apple prototype 4G iPhone, email communications pertaining to the sale of photographs of the prototype phone and/or the sale of the physical prototype 4G Apple iPhone, internet history, cache files, and/or Internet pages pertaining to searches and/or research conducted on Apple employee Gray Powell, call records, contact lists, text messages related to the sale of photographs of the prototype iPhone and/or physical prototype iPhone and indicia that identifies the owner and/or operators of the computer or electronic device.
But hold on just one second there.
Chen is a journalist – and that immediately puts the validity of the warrant into murky waters. In the legal response to the warrant issued by Gawker, the parent company of Gizmodo, the company is calling for immediate return of the items seized, saying that they fall into the protections granted to journalists.
end quote
There’s more to it.
This is not about protecting a source, but about gathering the legal evidence, allowed under the law, about the commission of a crime. I’m glad they’re doing this, as it’s about time the media people realised they are NOT above the law. They commited a crime of buying stolen goods, and should be prosecuted for it. If the police and DA take this to the limit, we may see a reduction of the cases of the media paying people for stolen property to make a story, even stolen information.
However, we can expect the media to muddy the waters to try and crawl out of the light and back under their rocks.
