“Gawker’s chief operating officer, Gaby Darbyshire, said it expected the immediate return of the computers and servers,” Stelter and Bilton report. “‘Under both state and federal law, a search warrant may not be validly issued to confiscate the property of a journalist,’ she wrote in a letter to San Mateo County, Calif., authorities on Saturday. ‘Jason is a journalist who works full time for our company,’ she continued, adding that he works from home, his ‘de facto newsroom.'”
“‘It is abundantly clear under the law that a search warrant to remove these items was invalid. The appropriate method of obtaining such materials would be the issuance of a subpoena,’ Ms. Darbyshire continued,” Stelter and Bilton report. “The letter was shared on Monday afternoon by Nick Denton, the founder and president of Gawker Media. ‘Are bloggers journalists? I guess we’ll find out,’ Mr. Denton said in an instant message.”
MacDailyNews Take: Can a blogger, or a journalist (which for quite some time, in America at least, is a blogger who pretends to be impartial) commit a robbery at gunpoint and then claim journalist shield laws protect him from handing over or having the gun seized by warrant or from even being charged with a crime? Are bloggers and/or “journalists” allowed to do whatever they want and then hide behind freedom of the press? If so, cool. We’re off to the bank, we’ll be back in a jiffy assuming things go smoothly.
Seriously, though, there are many questions: Gizmodo is claiming they didn’t know for sure that the device was Apple’s, so that’s why they rolled the dice and bought it for $5,000, but once Gizmodo established that it was Apple’s property, did they have the right to publish information about it, including photos, videos, and even going so far as to publish an amateur teardown of the device? Do any industrial espionage laws apply in this case? Did the police take Chen’s computers and devices in order to find out who sold the iPhone to them? If so, does that breach the blogger’s right to protect his source(s)? Should the cops have used a subpoena instead of a search warrant? What’s the difference between finding lost property and theft? What, if any, are the penalties for selling lost or stolen property in California? What, if any, are the penalties for buying property that you know or suspect is lost or stolen in California? Obviously, there are many open questions left to be answered.
Stelter and Bilton report, “According to people familiar with the investigation, who would not speak on the record because of the potential legal case, charges would most likely be filed against the person or people who sold the prototype iPhone, and possibly the buy.”
Full article here.
John Gruber writes for Daring Fireball, “In other words, if the only target of the criminal investigation is the kid who found the unit and sold it to Gizmodo, then yes, Jason Chen should be considered protected by California’s shield law. They should have issued a subpoena (which means asking Chen to talk to them), and not used a warrant to break into, search, and confiscate items from his home. But if Chen (and, presumably, his employer, Gawker Media) is himself the target of a felony investigation, the shield laws aren’t relevant. The shield laws are about allowing journalists to protect sources.”
Full article here.
If a blogger is a journalist, then every Facebook, Twitter and MySpace active account holders are journalists….
Of course bloggers are journalists; however journalists have rules, and these so-called bloggers have not been following them.
Found the answer to my stock question: “U.S. stocks are following European markets lower after Portugal’s debt was downgraded, deepening fears that Europe’s debt problems are spreading.”
Doesn’t Gawker have lawyers? Their executives are the ones doing the commenting. If they had any brains, they would refer all questions to their lawyers at this point. “We’ll find out?” They should have known before they pulled this stunt. Not very smart. These guys come off like a bunch of high school kids pulling a prank. They seriously need to STFU and get some representation.
I’m just wondering if Apple will make me wait a few more months for the next iphone. I tried to contact Mr. Chen but I was told he’s being “detained” in Arizona for not having proper ID (which was taken in the raid on his home).
If the person who “found” the phone had bothered to call even ONE person in the phones contacts, they could have determined the owner of the phone (before it was bricked). It’s obvious that NO good faith effort was made to find the phone’s rightful owner.
If you would have had stolen the iPhone out of the developers pocket, and you want to sell it to a tech blog – when they ask you, “where do you got this thing from?”… Which would be your answer:
1. I’ve stolen it out of his pocket
2. I just found it on a chair
This isn’t a case of protecting a whistle blower, or informed source. Gawker Media is trying to protect the name of someone they received suspected stolen property from.
Splashing Apple’s stolen prototype all over the internet isn’t news, and it’s not journalism.
Apparently the people over at Gawker Media like to pretend they’re a lot of things they’re not. Technology websites are not part of the Press, Bloggers are not Journalists, and CEOs are not DAs.
To answer an earlier question, apparently the guy in possession of the phone didn’t think to turn it over to a bar employee, and the bar’s owner noted that the Apple employee who lost it was frantic calling in with inquires as to whether or not his phone had been found at the bar. Simply turning it in to the bar would have solved everything.
I’m also wondering if the guy receiving the $5000 is going to report it as income.
This case has had people citing the law that makes property stolen even if lost, if a just effort to return it to the rightful owner isn’t made, along with the finder using the item for personal enrichment. If these guys had simply paid the $5000 for the phone and just turned it over to Apple, I think they probably wouldn’t have been served with search warrants. What they did was disassemble the thing (I believe the penal code section that says “appropriates such property to his own use” would apply here), and admit to what they did publicly.
@ Asterix
3. I need more potion Getafix!
I’m guessing that the Police have a better understanding of the law than Gizmodo. The are not trying to investigate a journalists source but find out who did what in a case of theft. The value of this phone as a prototype will be more $5000 as it will be a custom made small production run. Gawker can’t plead innocence especially as they were previously offering cash for hands on with the iPad before launch, this heads into industrial espionage territory.
Engadget were offered the same deal but their legal advice was not to touch it with a barge pole.
Finding it in a bar is a decent smoke screen. If that’s true or not, there’s still a lot more to this story than we know and I’m very interested to see it all unfold.
From what I do know, I support Apple and the authorities and have zero sympathy for the gizmorons.
Also, it doesn’t matter. The ‘finder’ is not a ‘source’ in this story.
They have no leg to stand on no matter how they spin it.
It would have been a lot more interesting if the giz story was about a mole inside Apple.
Are bloggers journalists???
Nonsense!
I post shitload of articles on my blog, and often post on different forum, did that make me a journalist too? And also grant me permission for doing anything???
I call it bullshit!
Blogger != Journalist
Legal or no legal right… “journalists”/”bloggers” still have an opportunity to use ethics and discretion. Was posting all the details they could see in the dismantled pre-release 4G iPhone ethically sound? IMHO, Chen could have used better judgment and went too far in “reporting” details of the device. Too bad there’s no, “don’t do anything stupid”, law.
Gizmodo has mentioned that they weren’t sure at the time of purchase whether or not it was legit. But that almost makes it worse, because they did pay $5000 for something that they HOPED was stolen property, and they turned out to be correct. If I were Denton, I would leave that out of my next tweet.
@ ChrissyOne,
I am beginning to think that this was a sting on Gizmodo to stop other Bloggers from offering a bounty on Apple IP. It was a risky move by Apple if true. I hope Apple was working with The Authorities if and when they did this.
I’d they got a search warrant they have the law on their side.
The problem with calling bloggers journalist are that it makes everyone a journalist.