So much for the 'clever marketing ploy' theory.
No such thing as bad publicity. Imagine gizmodo's ad revenues for today!
No doubt. But I think dschobel meant the theory that Apple planted this phone to be found.
Police raid Gizmodo editor's house
51–60 of 306 posts
Re: Police raid Gizmodo editor's house
#52An important New Jersey appellate court decision, interpreting New Jersey law, just came down ruling that bloggers are not journalists and are not entitled to the protection afforded by the shield laws. (See the write-up here: http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202451742674&No_R... ). Regardless of the legality of this particular search, this confirms that the authorities are likely looking at this as a felony in…
The article you linked to says bloggers are not journalists by default. However, it does seem to indicate that "online news reporters" are protected. I suspect Gizmodo would be viewed as an online news source.
Re: Police raid Gizmodo editor's house
#53An important New Jersey appellate court decision, interpreting New Jersey law, just came down ruling that bloggers are not journalists and are not entitled to the protection afforded by the shield laws. (See the write-up here: http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202451742674&No_R... ). Regardless of the legality of this particular search, this confirms that the authorities are likely looking at this as a felony in…
It's certainly traumatic. What's worse is that Brian Lam, Gizmodo's editor-in-chief, apparently chose to leave Chen holding the bag; in their flippant response to Bruce Sewell, they directed him to recover the device from Chen, rather than at their editorial offices in San Francisco - I presume the REACT unit don't have jurisdiction in SF and a separate warrant will need to be issued.
Re: Police raid Gizmodo editor's house
#54Seems a bit overkill? JUST for a moment, forget about the your bias on Gizmodo or Apple... When's the last time you or someone you know reported something stolen, knew who took it and possibly had just as much evidence of who has possession, and there was no search warrant and raid done on your behalf? I experienced several examples where there was video evidence of the theft, the value of the goods were anywhere bet…
The trade secrets at stake here are probably worth WAY more than $5000 to Apple. Just because Gizmodo hasn't published any more details about the phone, or left out specific things, doesn't mean they don't know them. That information could be damaging to Apple and it's business relationships (say, if for example, it was shown that it's an LTE phone on VZW, and AT&T didn't know Apple was going to do that).
Re: Police raid Gizmodo editor's house
#55Seems a bit overkill? JUST for a moment, forget about the your bias on Gizmodo or Apple... When's the last time you or someone you know reported something stolen, knew who took it and possibly had just as much evidence of who has possession, and there was no search warrant and raid done on your behalf? I experienced several examples where there was video evidence of the theft, the value of the goods were anywhere bet…
My house got broken into a few years ago, they took everything I owned except furniture and one tv. I later found my anime collection for sale at a local used dvd store (complete with my name written inside the cases of all the DVDs). I talked with the owner, he had photocopied the guy's drivers license who came in with them. Despite this, and my continually pinging the police, nothing ever happened. He got away with…
The treatment of your case was underkill.
Re: Police raid Gizmodo editor's house
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've got extraordinary mixed feelings on this one. On the one hand, people shouldn't feel like it's okay to buy stolen property for their own gain at the expense of the people it was stolen from. But then there's reasonable search and seizure... Hmm, I don't know, I think I'm going to lean slightly towards stolen-property-bad side of the equation. If the editor wasn't a journalist, we wouldn't be having this discussi…
> should there be exemptions made for doing it for journalism? No. That would mean that journalists could steal anything, write a story about it, and not face justice. Suppose that you became famous for fifteen minutes (this happens to people from time to time: see Susan Boyle, etc.) The exemption you propose would allow the press to enter your home, steal things, and plaster images of you and those things everywhere…
> The exemption you propose would allow the press to enter your home, steal things, and plaster images of you and those things everywhere, without any regard for your rights.
It was a rhetorical question, I actually mostly agree with you and see it the same way, just some minor lingering doubt about letting authorities search and seize from people doing journalism. While I think stolen property probably outweights it, I'm still of two minds about it and will think about it over the next couple days as more discussion and commentary comes out.
Re: Police raid Gizmodo editor's house
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sorry—definitely didn't mean to frame you guys. Definitely aware of that, which is why I mentioned law enforcement in general. The whole thing kind of makes sense (holding equipment to make sure no potential evidence is released without a final decision)—but it's still frustrating and it doesn't seem like there's a good solution that makes it easier for both parties.
Heh, no worries :) in many cases illegitimate delays are simply due to incompetence, so it's good to complain then. Turn around is pretty good; we serve a mid to large police force in the UK (around 5000 computer investigations a year). Average return time for evidence where no charges were brought last year was about 2 1/2 months. Complaints over delays were in the 10's.
Wait a minute -- even when no charges are brought, you keep other people's computer gear, ON AVERAGE, for two and a half months? Like hell that's "pretty good" turnaround.
Re: Police raid Gizmodo editor's house
#58An important New Jersey appellate court decision, interpreting New Jersey law, just came down ruling that bloggers are not journalists and are not entitled to the protection afforded by the shield laws. (See the write-up here: http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202451742674&No_R... ). Regardless of the legality of this particular search, this confirms that the authorities are likely looking at this as a felony in…
Does the NJ decision have any bearing on the CA shield law? My understanding is that they don't have much in common.
You are correct that a decision such as that in New Jersey involves completely different statutes and otherwise has no binding effect on California courts. Its effect, if any, would be strictly that its reasoning might be persuasive for a court in California interpreting an analogous statute.
I referred to the New Jersey just to illustrate how courts that are carefully considering such issues might rule on them (this takes the discussion at least a step deeper from that of "don't bloggers and reporters do the same thing" by showing the factors a court will look at in making such a determination).
If, on the other hand, what we have here is a true online media organization (as noted by nailer), then point well taken and the issue must be analyzed on that basis as opposed to standards that might apply if only a blogger were involved.
Re: Police raid Gizmodo editor's house
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
My house got broken into a few years ago, they took everything I owned except furniture and one tv. I later found my anime collection for sale at a local used dvd store (complete with my name written inside the cases of all the DVDs). I talked with the owner, he had photocopied the guy's drivers license who came in with them. Despite this, and my continually pinging the police, nothing ever happened. He got away with…
What happened to the DVDs?
The police confiscated them as evidence. I'm sure they ultimately just threw them away. Towards the end when I started to accept they were never going to pursue the case, I started to ask if I could at least get the DVDs back. No dice.
Re: Police raid Gizmodo editor's house
#60Why do people automatically assume this has anything to do with journalism? What if it's about one company illegally obtaining the trade secrets of another and then releasing that trade secret to a global media? The whole thing smelled fishy to begin with. I honestly can't say what I believe. However, if this was some kind of setup and they find evidence that Gizmodo intended to steal that prototype then that would d…
Because there's:
- a news organization
- matters of public interest
involved?