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EFF: Dissecting the Gizmodo Warrant

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Re: EFF: Dissecting the Gizmodo Warrant

#41

Post by jcl »

johSho7w wrote: post #27
ynniv wrote: post #17

This analysis hinges on some large assumptions. First, Chen must be considered a professional journalist, and securing journalist protections for bloggers seems to be actively pursued by the EFF (a conflict of interest to keep in mind). Second, he must not have directly committed a crime himself, and receiving stolen goods is a crime. The claim that this was "lost" property may be the argument of the defense, but any…

How's that a conflict of interest? It's valid context, but in what ways are EFF obligations in conflict?

Yes, "conflict of interest" is not quite the right term. He probably meant something like "source of bias".

Re: EFF: Dissecting the Gizmodo Warrant

#42

Post by swombat »

wvenable wrote: post #10
sjsivak wrote: post #3

From the end of the article: "... the task force should freeze their investigation, return Chen's property, and reconsider whether going after journalists for trying to break news about one of the Valley's most secretive (and profitable) companies is a good expenditure of taxpayer dollars." If someone purchased stolen property, why does it matter who it came from? In my eyes, the analyst loses a lot of credibility wi…

Purchasing stolen property should be a much smaller investigation -- police do it all the time. While they shouldn't do nothing, this is a significantly more expensive reaction.

If someone purchased the stolen Mona Lisa the police would be down on them like a ton of bricks.

It's all a matter of relative value. This iPhone prototype was worth a lot more than the parts inside (which was obvious to Gizmodo since they paid upwards of $5000 for it).

Re: EFF: Dissecting the Gizmodo Warrant

#45

Post by ashishbharthi »

smallblacksun wrote: post #44
ashishbharthi wrote: post #24

I have a question: Why they are not acting against Gizmodo as a company and bothering Chan?

Because he is the one who (allegedly) received stolen property.

But he works for Gizmodo and I am sure he did not pay that $5,000 from his own pocket.

Re: EFF: Dissecting the Gizmodo Warrant

#46

Post by mrkurt »

tptacek wrote: post #37
hga wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" The reporters shield law doesn't protect reporters who themselves commit crimes. " According to Orin Kerr's analysis on The Volokh Conspiracy ( http://volokh.com/2010/04/27/thoughts-on-the-legality-of-the... ), while the US Federal law has this exception it's missing from the California state law.

Thanks for the link! To sum it up: it is possible to argue that the Shield Laws as written in CA protect Gizmodo, but the result of that interpretation would be "weird" (their word), in that it would essentially protect journalists from prosecution for their own criminal activities. Extrapolating: we won't know until a judge (or, most likely, series of judges) interprets. [update: more fodder, some of it from Volokh,…

What's interesting is that the shield laws are there for the journalist and their sources. I'd almost argue that it's more important to protect the sources than the organization in most cases.

It's scary to me that prosecutors and cops now have a whole ton of information that may be related to sources for other stories Jason Chen's worked on independently of this particular iPhone thing. What if some whistleblower at REACT was working with him to expose deeply rooted corporate corruption of the task force for instance? It's unlikely, but if a shady officer thought something like that was up, it's a pretty big incentive to go for an overly broad warrant on a convenient public issue.

Re: EFF: Dissecting the Gizmodo Warrant

#47

Post by ryoshu »

ynniv wrote: post #17

This analysis hinges on some large assumptions. First, Chen must be considered a professional journalist, and securing journalist protections for bloggers seems to be actively pursued by the EFF (a conflict of interest to keep in mind). Second, he must not have directly committed a crime himself, and receiving stolen goods is a crime. The claim that this was "lost" property may be the argument of the defense, but any…

Apple gave Gizmodo bloggers press passes to Apple events, so Apple seems to believe they were part of the press.

Re: EFF: Dissecting the Gizmodo Warrant

#48

Post by tptacek »

mrkurt wrote: post #46
tptacek wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the link! To sum it up: it is possible to argue that the Shield Laws as written in CA protect Gizmodo, but the result of that interpretation would be "weird" (their word), in that it would essentially protect journalists from prosecution for their own criminal activities. Extrapolating: we won't know until a judge (or, most likely, series of judges) interprets. [update: more fodder, some of it from Volokh,…

What's interesting is that the shield laws are there for the journalist and their sources. I'd almost argue that it's more important to protect the sources than the organization in most cases. It's scary to me that prosecutors and cops now have a whole ton of information that may be related to sources for other stories Jason Chen's worked on independently of this particular iPhone thing. What if some whistleblower at…

"It would be frivolous to assert--and no one does in these cases--that the First Amendment, in the interest of securing news or otherwise, confers a license on either the reporter or his news sources to violate valid criminal laws," the U.S. Supreme Court has said. "Although stealing documents or private wiretapping could provide newsworthy information, neither reporter nor source is immune from conviction for such conduct, whatever the impact on the flow of news."

If there is one word that does not apply to this situation, it is "clear".

Re: EFF: Dissecting the Gizmodo Warrant

#49

Post by sophacles »

swombat wrote: post #39
sophacles wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it was that important Apple should have been more careful than to let their engineer take it out and about. Given that people are prone to losing cell phones, how could they expect that not a single one would be lost?

Shit happens. No measure could have prevented one prototype from being lost eventually. And mobile phones have to be field tested before release. There is a measure that could prevent a prototype from being stolen or sold to a blog that would take it apart bit by bit and post videos of it: it's called the law. I think they passed that a few hundred years ago.

There are ways to field test that don't involve people taking phones to bars. That is just carelessness. Sure, shit happens, but c'mon, a little responsibility might be in order on the part of the company with so much to lose. Law or no law, Apple should take more care with such prototypes.

Re: EFF: Dissecting the Gizmodo Warrant

#50

Post by jcl »

tptacek wrote: post #30
DrSprout wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trade secret and top secret are two very different things. In any case, while it is possible that the loss of such a prototype could have devastating implications for a company, it seems pretty clear that this publication was not a serious problem for Apple.

Why, exactly, is it "clear" to you that this publication isn't an ongoing serious problem for Apple? As you can tell, I'm a bit baffled by how blase people are about what's happened here. Just because it happened on the Internet, and the sky didn't immediately erupt with lightning and fireballs, doesn't mean that something momentously bad didn't happen.

I think the reason people are blase is because the story makes it seem like Apple brought the problem on themselves. The leak was utterly mundane; no one broke into the Apple campus or smuggled anything out, no one bribed or attacked an employee. As far as we can tell from the story, Apple regularly dresses up its research prototypes and takes them for walks outside. This practice is so obviously prone to leaks that people are speculating that Apple leaked the phone on purpose.

Either Apple had calculated the risk and found it to be acceptable, or they never planned against the possibility of losing the phone. If the former, then Apple is merely experiencing an inevitable downside of its chosen (wildly successful) development model. If the latter, then Apple was foolishly optimistic and should never have let a readily identifiable prototype off-campus in the first place.

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