Apple Investigators Posed as Police in New Lost iPhone Prototype Search?

[shompa]

OK, fine. Apple has it's own security forces which may, from time to time, break the law and impersonate official law enforcement. So what? Does Microsoft have it's own police force? Give 'em a few years and I'll bet they will.

Who would pay big money for the latest Windows phone?

I wish Apple went nuts and bought Blackwater since most non Apple people believe that Apple is a crazy corporation that wants to control everything. And that Apple users are stupid since a dell is 50% cheaper.

 

[DrDomVonDoom]

first of all im a police supporter & a gov hater, but why didn't this guy ask for his warrant? i dont care if i have nothing to hide, if somebody wants to invade my personal space; they need a warrant.

no warrant, real police searching your home/computer and not documenting it OR no fake apple police coming into your house and looking through your stuff…

if the story is true (who knows) than the guy probably does have it, but i find it peculiar it yet again happened at a bar...

A. There was no legal process here. They didn't have a warrent because they weren't seeking a injuction of some kind. They just wanted to know if the guy had stolen property.

The cops were there to facilitate a process, as they should, and to make sure something potentially illegal hadn't occured.

This is somewhat like having a baseball go into a neighbors yard, I would first knock on the neighbors door, ask if I or he can go into the back yard and retrieve my ball.

The guy had full rights to say, NO, and he didn't. Apparently he felt if something that didn't belong to him was somehow in his house, then it should be returned to its owner.

MY problem is now he is calling foul, and now apparently cops were involved. The thing is it was a private matter, the cops were only there, I assume for safety sake, which is smart.

Theres nothing illegal about going to my neighbor asking if I can come in and look in his house, he may tell me to **** off, and has full rights to, but he also has the right to let me in and let me look around.

The problem is now he is saying they were posing as police? I find that difficult to believe with police right there with them. If he let them in, theres no civil liberty problems, except with himself. If everything they did was sanctioned by the home owner, then this is just a big blown out of proportion story, or just bs from the owner who thinks he can get something out of it.

 

[atomwork]

Corporate investigators can be left to do whatever is necessary to get results.

If the company didn't directly authorize an action then they are not at fault. They just have to not care that much how results are obtained for investigators to have the leeway to do anything.

The government calls this "BlackOps" ...
I smell Jack Bauer somewhere.

 

[sclawis300]

Don't need to, I've seen it happen.

If this turns out to be true I guarantee the investigators will be held accountable and Apple will deny all wrongdoing.

That's probably how the News of the World hacking scandal will play out too. Murdoch won't see any blame passed to him or NewsCorp.

I am not saying Tim Cook or Steve will, but you better believe Apple will be paying out the butt since their employee did this while on the job.

 

[chris-st]

Shenanigans! Too much coincidence!

 

[shompa]

Microsoft should have their own police force. They are the most pirated company on earth.

Yes.
It was part in MSFT strategy to make their product easy to pirate.

Home users gets used to windows.
When they go to work, they want windows computers since they are used to it.

Corporations have to pay for its licenses to MSFT. Often crazy deals like MSFT select agreements. If you work with IT you know what Select is.

 

[cere]

San Fran police now admit they went to the house with Apple investigators:
http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2011/09/iphone_5_apple_police.php

But did not document their 'assistance' as required. And didn't own up to it, apparently, when the PD was asking around for any info on the matter. But of course now they say they didn't actually enter the house.

 

[kas23]

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This is becoming more shady by the minute. Apple has done this before with their Storm Troopers. Now SFPD is saying they were involved? Sounds like that former detective called in a favor. This is nuts. It's just a phone. Is it really a reason to lie and abandon all morals and values?

 

[*LTD*]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_5 like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8L1 Safari/6533.18.5)
Is it really a reason to lie and abandon all morals and values?

It's a little premature to claim such a thing. And also a little melodramatic.

 

[Apple OC]

Police are not the most honest folks out there ... if it serves them well ... they will fudge the truth.

 

[tuckrcsb]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_5 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8L1 Safari/6533.18.5)

I don't understand. So Tony is in possession of the alleged missing prototype? He answered it when SFTimes called and confirmed his employment with Apple...so the phone is no longer missing?

 

[AppleScruff1]

San Fran police now admit they went to the house with Apple investigators:
http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2011/09/iphone_5_apple_police.php

But did not document their 'assistance' as required. And didn't own up to it, apparently, when the PD was asking around for any info on the matter. But of course now they say they didn't actually enter the house.

They probably denied it initially since it was ridiculous of them to go there with two Apple employees. They should have gone to the door on their own and asked a few questions. They could have gotten a search warrant if necessary. Sending 4 cops to look for a lost phone? Absolutely, idiotic, over reacting and unprofessional. The citizens of SF should be in an uproar. Do you think they would do the same for you if you lost your phone?

 

[kas23]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_5 like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8L1 Safari/6533.18.5)

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_5 like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8L1 Safari/6533.18.5)
Is it really a reason to lie and abandon all morals and values?

It's a little premature to claim such a thing. And also a little melodramatic.

Where there's smoke, there's fire. Apple has sent people to private citizen's house before. All for a dumb phone. Tell me exactly how an iPhone 5 leak right now will hurt sales. State your case. It certainly didn't hurt the iPhone 4.

 

[sclawis300]

Why is America so bloody sue happy? Rights violated? Really? Do criminals have more rights in America than the average citizen or companies?

yes, yes they do.

 

[*LTD*]

They probably denied it initially since it was ridiculous of them to go there with two Apple employees. They should have gone to the door on their own and asked a few questions. They could have gotten a search warrant if necessary. Sending 4 cops to look for a lost phone? Absolutely, idiotic, over reacting and unprofessional. The citizens of SF should be in an uproar. Do you think they would do the same for you if you lost your phone?

My phone isn't a prototype belonging to a major tech company that's got billions of dollars riding on it.

And if the police weren't acting illegally by accompanying the employees, and were rendering services to Apple lawfully (which means the law provides for such a remedy), then there's not a whole lot that can be said.

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_5 like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8L1 Safari/6533.18.5)



Where there's smoke, there's fire. Apple has sent people to private citizen's house before. All for a dumb phone.

And Apple was convicted of no wrongdoing. If the law provides such a mechanism/remedy to an entity like Apple, then there's really no argument (provided the whole police + employees visit was lawful.)

That "dumb phone" is worth a helluva lot of money.

 

[weespeed]

Well well well.. Now the SFPD was there. So the story wasn't a hoax..

Wow..

Now Mr. Sergio Calderón can sue Apple an SFPD, if those allegations of him and his family were legal or not and their use of threats to search his house with out a warrant are true.

 

[tuckrcsb]

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So they visited the wrong house? Sounds like the GPS needs fixing!

 

[Hyper-X]

http://gizmodo.com/5837072/san-francisco-police-participated-in-search-for-lost-iphone-5
The San Francisco Police Department has changed its tune. It now says officers did come to the home of Sergio Calderon, looking for a missing iPhone 5, but that only Apple employees went inside, according to the SF Weekly.

I smell something really fishy about how they changed their stories. Dispatch is the person(s) tasked to keep tabs on what's going on at all times. If they weren't aware of a group of officers (not just 1) visiting Sergio Calderon's home, that goes to show that either SFPD has no idea what their officers are doing or Apple paid off SFPD to change their stories to save face.

 

[Glideslope]

Why would Apple, the most secretive company in the world, not contact the police who would make a police report?

hmm...

arn

LOL. It's so tough for people on MR to not be able to figure out such a simple , yet brutal truth.

 

[weespeed]

And Apple was convicted of no wrongdoing. If the law provides such a mechanism/remedy to an entity like Apple, then there's really no argument (provided the whole police + employees visit was lawful.)

We're talking about SF here.
You have allegations of an Apple employee leaning on Mr. Sergio Calderón and family about their immigration status.
Then searching the house on the false pretense of being SFPD while real SFPD stood outside and said nothing.
Then you have said SFPD not reporting it or documenting the fact they were there.
And now no one can say it was a hoax. The SFPD now says they were there.
So do you believe Mr. Sergio Calderón who has not tired to hide anything or the Apple employee who took all his info down from the web and the SFPD who now back tracked and made it seem as though Mr. Sergio Calderón was lying unless he comes to them and files a report.

I dunno in a city like SF, those things are not taken lightly.

 

[aluren]

How is it that Apple employees are better at searching out things than the police? So the police can transfer the search rights to a third party??

 

[Cartaphilus]

Don't they teach civics in high school anymore? Or is all this outrage coming from junior high kids?

Anybody can knock on anybody's door and ask to search, and if the homeowner agrees, there is no violation of anyone's rights. This homeowner, who admits having been in the bar where the prototype was lost, and being in the house to which the prototype was tracked, has very little to complain about.


There is no question that any magistrate would have issued a search warrant on these probable two facts alone: a crime has been committed--the theft of the prototype--and the stolen item was traced to these premises.

If anyone represented himself as a police officer who wasn't, they did wrong, but based on the published reports so far the facts won't support a conviction--the crime requires intent, not just that someone makes an assumption.

There are plenty of real injustices and real abuses of power that do serious damage to people's lives that the public can righteously do something about; a company trying to get back it's property without having to inform the world that a valuable prototype is at large is certainly not one of them.

 

[Glideslope]

My phone isn't a prototype belonging to a major tech company that's got billions of dollars riding on it.

And if the police weren't acting illegally by accompanying the employees, and were rendering services to Apple lawfully (which means the law provides for such a remedy), then there's not a whole lot that can be said.



And Apple was convicted of no wrongdoing. If the law provides such a mechanism/remedy to an entity like Apple, then there's really no argument (provided the whole police + employees visit was lawful.)

That "dumb phone" is worth a helluva lot of money.

Thank You.

 

[ChazUK]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 2.3.4; en-gb; Nexus S Build/GRJ22) AppleWebKit/533.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/533.1)

Wow. So many twists and turns, thanks for the update from Gizmodo *LTD*.

 

[AppleScruff1]

My phone isn't a prototype belonging to a major tech company that's got billions of dollars riding on it.

And if the police weren't acting illegally by accompanying the employees, and were rendering services to Apple lawfully (which means the law provides for such a remedy), then there's not a whole lot that can be said.



And Apple was convicted of no wrongdoing. If the law provides such a mechanism/remedy to an entity like Apple, then there's really no argument (provided the whole police + employees visit was lawful.)

That "dumb phone" is worth a helluva lot of money.

I don't know what police procedures are where you live, but where I am, there is no way the police would take the accusers to the home of a potential suspect. A report would be filed at the police station and then an officer would investigate. No way they would go to someones house and say, "these two guys say you have their phone" or even worse in this case, they didn't even talk to the homeowner. Sorry, I don't buy it.