“Jennifer Granick, civil liberties director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said Chen is protected from a warrant by both state and federal laws,” Zetter reports. “The federal Privacy Protection Act prohibits the government from seizing materials from journalists and others who possess material for the purpose of communicating to the public. The government cannot seize material from the journalist even if it’s investigating whether the person who possesses the material committed a crime.”
“Instead, investigators need to obtain a subpoena, which would allow the reporter or media outlet to challenge the request and segregate information that is not relevant to the investigation,” Zetter reports. “‘Congress was contemplating a situation where someone might claim that the journalist was committing a crime [in order to seize materials from them],’ Granick says. California state law also provides protections to prevent journalists from being forced to disclose sources or unpublished information related to their work. ‘California law is crystal clear that bloggers are journalists, too,’ she says.”
Zetter reports, “Apple is on the steering committee for the REACT task force that raided Chen’s house. Formed in 1997, REACT is a partnership of 17 local, state and federal agencies tasked with investigating computer- and internet-related crimes.”
Read more in the full article here.
Note to Jason Chen –
You already have two solid charges that can be leveled against you.
Trafficking in stolen goods. and Conspiracy.
I would really stop listening to lawyers that are looking out for your employers best interests and hire one to look out for yours. You are one misstep from life in prison right now. So unless you want to blog about anal rape and prison food smarten up and seperate yourself from Giz.
@ Rev. Dr. – Don’t forget that gizmodo had put out what amounts to a bounty for any new Apple tech. It seems to me that that would effect the choices someone finding a prototype might make. If no one had offered money for stuff like this then it would be more likely that they would just bring it back to Apple.
I think this is exactly why the police are handling this the way they are. By putting out a bounty the way they did, Gizmodo were giving people an incentive to steal, and a disincentive to return stolen or lost property to Apple. And once they paid the five grand for the stolen item itself, they demonstrated that they weren’t just posturing, but that their bounty offer was in fact real.
Seems like that would offer sufficient grounds for a felony investigation into the trafficking of stolen goods. Good luck using the journalist shield laws to wriggle out of that one. (And prepare for the crime bonanza that would follow if the EFF does help Gizmodo wriggle out of this one…)
Whatever the outcome, this is going to be entertaining. I am sure Mr. Chen did not like it when others take possession of his stuff and take it appart.
SO where is the ACLU when you need them, this racist police action was clearly racially motivated against Chen…
Oh my!
This whole thing is a conspiracy against Apple – the small defenseless blogger against the tech giant… Gizmodo especially gets lots of publicity out of this – I wonder if their servers are keeping up with the number of hits they are getting – What is an ad worth on Gizmodo now?? Apple gets the perception of an overly zealous company… Gizmodo saw this coming all the way and decided to milk it for all it was worth.
MDN word “truth” – as in unfortunately perception becomes truth
NEVER trust a lawyer named ‘Jennifer’.
EFF isn’t a law firm, it’s a lobbying firm. Which pretty much makes their opinion on this irrelevant.
If you have to consult with a lawyer to ask if the action you’re about to take is illegal, you already know the answer. Chen and Gizmodo got some seriously bad advice throughout this whole bounty/theft/trafficking/publishing-about-it scenario. Too bad. I don’t think incompetent legal advice is going to help them as a defense in any of this. Very sad if they relied on stupid legal advice.
Come on guys, you keep saying “he broke the law!”, but, as the facts we HAVE show, he did NOT.
1. The iPhone was FOUND not STOLEN. Gray took the iPhone into a public place, LOST it and someone else FOUND it.
2. After finding the iPhone, the person CALLED APPLE several times to return it and was told several times,”We don’t have any information about a missing iPhone. That isn’t ours.”
3. Person then calls Gizmodo (and other sites) and says “I THINK I have an Apple prototype and here are some pictures” and Gizmodo chooses to buy what COULD have been either a prototype or Chinese knock-off with no guarantee it was an Apple prototype. They were told by said person that they had tried to return it but Apple kept telling him they weren’t missing one. Gizmodo took a chance it was real and didn’t realize, until cracking it open, that it probably was real. They didn’t know UNTIL they received the letter from Apple legal that it WAS real.
4. They RETURNED IT TO APPLE. After finding out FOR sure it was real, they RETURNED it without fighting. At the point they KNEW FOR SURE it belonged to Apple, they returned it to the proper owner. They didn’t bitch about paying $5,000 and want reimbursement, they just delivered it straight back to them.
At no point did they break any of the laws in question.
1) They didn’t Steal trade secrets because they didn’t go to the Apple employee and pick his pocket or buy it from him. They didn’t KNOW it was real until Apple contacted them.
2) They didn’t RECEIVE STOLEN PROPERTY because the property in question was FOUND and a return was ATTEMPTED and denied, therefore, the one who found it became the rightful owner. He then chose to sell the found property to Gawker Media whom DID NOT KNOW if it was real or not.
3) The did not “Fail to return stolen property to owner” because they DID return it to the owner when ownership was established and return was requested.
As for whether or not Gizmodo is “Journalism”, In a day and age where people turn to the internet for most of their “news” consumption, Web logs are the new newspapers. These people who spend the money to host a web page, sell ads, go to events and pay for them, right investigative articles and reviews, are GIVEN JOURNALIST CREDENTIALS to major tech events are every bit the Journalists that the New York Times or Washington Post are. They aren’t mooches that just post as trolls on some forum but CREDENTIALED people who make their living reporting tech news, they just do it with a website that is in blog form. They are JUST as protected by the shield law as any other form of media.
Now, if anything comes out that they facilitated the theft of this phone, it becomes a whole new ball game, but if the facts, as presented are correct, then neither Apple NOR the courts have a leg to stand on here.
MDN Word : Return as in “When asked to RETURN the iPhone to Apple, Gizmodo happily complied”
I’m pretty sure the judge who signed the search warrant was aware of these statutes and would not have signed the warrant if he/she thought it would be an illegal search and seizure.
The attorney for the EFF has an agenda because she represents the EFF, and its clients/members want to be able to do what they want. Of course, law enforcement and Apple have their agendas as well. This will be an interesting case to watch because it will really get to the heart of paying for products, not just paying for information.
Finders keepers, losers weepers. Only in the second grade. In the real world finders may well be the losers. Jail these aholes and ef the EFF jerk as well I say.
@Vin
Just who speaks for Apple. Who did he call. If I steal something from Apple, call their corp number and ask whoever takes the call if they are missing said article. And they say I don’t know. Can I keep it? Or maybe I need to make a little more effort like go down to Infinite Loop and show them the item? Seems the least one would do. But really, why did he not just call and ask to Gray Powell? Powell could tell him if Apple owned the phone.
Hey! I just “found” this BMW sitting on the side of the road, so I called BMW and they said they weren’t missing a car, so I kept it. That’s ok, right?
And then I blogged about finding it, so I’m super ok now, right?
Was Apple hurt by this? NO, they got nothing but positive press and people completely hyped about the next iphone. If they take this to far Apple will be hurt by this though.
If someone posts a reward for the delivery to them of trade secrets against the will of the owner of those trade secrets that’s conspiracy to commit a felony; industrial espionage. The crime is committed as soon as any party takes a material step toward completion of the crime. Whether Chen is a journalist or not, he’s a participant in a criminal conspiracy. There’s no protection from that for him or anyone else at Gizmodo who was involved, including their CEO.
If an apple employee found an HTC or any other prototype phone by a competitor what would apple do with the phone?
If I post on line that I buy stolen guns, and I then pay for one that someone brings me, it doesn’t matter whether I can be considered a “journalist” or not. I’ve committed a crime, and a search warrant issued on reliable evidence of probable cause will be valid.
@Marc
“If an apple employee found an HTC or any other prototype phone by a competitor what would apple do with the phone?”
Well that’s just silly… HTC doesn’t innovate, so clearly the Apple employee would just throw the prototype away.
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”grin” style=”border:0;” />
But seriously, the question isn’t relevant; one thing Apple wouldn’t do if they found a phone prototype is SELL it to a blogger. And if they BOUGHT a stolen prototype (which is what Gizmodo admitted they did, literally using the word STOLEN), they would be committing a crime, and they wouldn’t put it up on their web page.
They bought a lost phone from everything I have read not a stolen one. Of course they wouldnt sell the phone they would dissect it to benefit them. All gizmodo did was show ever one what was already known or speculated to be coming to the phone any way. They didnt reveal no trade secrets. So yes the question is valid. And its 2 months b4 the phone comes out not 2 years.
If the person who found the phone was really interested in returning it to the owner, they should have just turned it over that night to the folks who run the bar. Surely they have a lost and found there.
At the very least the finder could have left their name and phone number with the bar so the phone’s owner could have a chance of finding it.
Maybe they do things differently out West.
I think greed took over, fed by Gizmodo’s desire to land a huge scoop. Even bad PR is good PR, isn’t it? I wonder if their surge in web traffic will cover all the attorney’s fees.
@Marc
Actual scenario:
Company A employee loses the phone. Person X finds/steals the phone. Person X sells the phone to Blog G. Blog G dissects and publishes info about phone.
Your scenario:
Company A employee finds Company H’s phone. Company A dissects phone.
See the difference? That’s why your question isn’t relevant. Pay attention next time. Also, use proper grammar.
@Galloway: ‘Wow, I’d make the exact same statement, except I’d substitute “right wingers” with “left wingers”. Go figure.’
The ACLU has, on many occasions, sacrificed memberships (and a few ACLU lawyers their careers) representing extreme rightwingers in order to vindicate First Amendment principles. Some of those cases have defined the broad scope of free speech rights we enjoy today. Name a conservative civil liberties legal outfit that has even represented a liberal organization/individual.
BTW, both the ACLU and EFF have been instrumental in the legal efforts to strike down federal laws attempting to regulate speech on the Internet (it’s one of the main reasons EFF was founded). For that, both orgs. should get at least a little respect around here.
@Bokweb
My comment was not about the ACLU. It was about the Bill of Rights. LeftCoastDude said (paraphrasing here) that right wingers think it only applies to their rights. I said I find the left wingers think that.
And I was exaggerating.
Oh boy I got schooled. No point in going forward since you obviously dont get my point. Why would I worry about using proper grammer, theirs always someone anal about it like you to point it out to someone that does it. Like me