Authorities Begin Evidence Examination in Gizmodo iPhone Case

[shakenmartini]

It would have made the phone stolen, still. Maybe it would have put all the crime on the finder, not sure.

Yes, the finder would still have committed a potentially illegal act, but Gizmodo could claim journalistic protection and not have to divulge sources and they could also have prevented their gear from being seized.

Because they were party to the crimes, their journalistic protections go away.

For example, a journalist can video, photograph and report on people stealing cars.

However, if that journalist steals one of the cars or rides in one of the stolen vehicles, then they are a party to the crime and journalistic protections no longer apply.

 

[tingly]

I know receiving the $5000 would still be illegal, just not positive about the paying. Seems like both sides should be illegal since the payment created a crime, but maybe it's a loophole like you're saying.

 

[tomccabe]

They'd be dumb not to attempt to grab information from Apple.

That attitude has worked well for them so far right?

 

[SandynJosh]

I guess California doesn't have real crimes to investigate

Let me get this right...

If someone steals from YOU it's a REAL crime.

If they steal from someone else, it's not???

 

[ULFoaf]

I'm at a loss as to how the "This isn't a real crime" thing can stand up in people's heads as a serious argument...

Imagine for a second that someone came to you with a bag full of diamonds, with the dealer's name embroidered onto the bag. The guy tells you that he found the diamonds in a bar, that he tried calling the diamond dealer but couldn't work out a way to return it, so would you like to buy the diamonds from him for a third of their market price?

At this point, if you don't have the guy clocked as a thief, you really shouldn't be allowed out on your own.

Even if we go with the iPhone 'finder''s story, he was still obliged by law not to profit from the sale of someone else's property. He should have handed the item into his local police station if he couldn't return it to Apple himself. Even if he innocently found the iPhone in a bar, the moment he tried to sell it on to a third party it became criminal theft.

You left out part of the story in your example of diamonds. To complete the analogy, you doubt they are even really diamonds at all, you buy them, show them to thousands on the internet and say you aren't sure they are real, then say they are real, and then give it back to the owners when they put it in writing it is indeed theirs. My point is Chen could never have believed that Apple was not going to claim that phone if real, and knew from day one that he would have to return it.

Ethics are another matter, but I doubt he will be convicted of a crime. The guy who picked it up is probably in more trouble, if as reported, he for at least some time saw the owner's Facebook account and didn't try to return it, but decide to profit from it. He can always claim he didn't remember the name when they "bricked" it. He definitely made an unethical choice, and he may get some punishment - $5,000 fine? He will probably also claim he knew the phone would be returned by Chen - his lawyer has already said Chen paid him for "access" to the phone, not the phone. I think it will be pretty hard to believe that Chen didn't know Apple would come calling and meant to keep it, and easy to believe he would pay $5K just to get the spotlight.

And by the way, there is a whole street in my town where you can buy fake designer handbags & clothes that look like they have the real logos on them. There is plenty of fake Apple stuff with their logo on it - look around the internet.

This is about scaring the next guy from reporting on an unreleased Apple prototype. Apple does have a financial interest in that, as secrecy is used as a marketing tool and to catch the competition unaware. Lots of opinions both ways on this, so good luck either party on finding a sympathetic jury one way or the other if it comes to that. It will be interesting. And no, I personally would not buy the suspect diamonds, fake or not.

 

[SandynJosh]

There is so much BS from Apple in this matter.

• Apple have never prosecuted a tear-down site for exposing their "corporate secrets".
• Apple have never prosecuted previous genuine "leaked" photos. They thrive on the publicity.
• Apple only decided the phone was "stolen" after Gizmodo published.
• Embarassed, Apple pushed their tech police into an illegal raid on a journalist's property. And don't tell me it wasn't, or they would have been going through Chen's gear the minute it was confiscated. All this "legal" nonsense is to save face because a judge authorised an illegal raid on a journalist.

You don't bloody Jobs' nose and not pay for it the rest of your life. And that's exactly what's happening here. A billionaire's childish revenge. This situation has Jobs written all over it.

Not that it matters, but there's a lot of hot air about this, so let's get it clear, Gizmodo had no proof it was "stolen" when they paid for access to it. Sure it came with a story, but a story isn't proof. Would you believe the teller of the story? It could have been made up to make a fake seem legit. The only difference this time is that it was a real Apple prototype. Apple's legendary secrecy created demand for information (if you don't believe me, count the hits). Apple gains a lot of "free" publicity from their secrecy and this is the down-side. Their situation, their creation, and now they want their cake and eat it too.

No, Apple. Hopefully the law will win out. There's too much publicity around this and too many reputations at stake—judge, police, billionaires. I don't see any room for justice here.

Apple won't return stolen phones to their rightful owners unless they've been reported to the police. Deciding it's stolen weeks later, after photos have been published on several tech news sites should not wash in a democracy. Too many reputations at stake, I'm afraid. And Jobs revealed this week that he's decided to make an example of Chen. Money wins. Justice loses.

Highly respected journalist Andy Ihnatko has been quietly on Gizmodo's side and I completely agree with him.

I couldn't find a single statement of truth in your entire post, and at times it even veered off into fantasy. Apple's competition got a two month head start on planning their next move due to the actions of Gizmodo. There is a cost to that and damages to be collected.
From a criminal or civil perspective, I wouldn't want to be in Chen's shoes.

Several years ago one of the presidential campaign headquarters received a video of the opposing candidate practicing for a upcoming debate. This would have been like a perfect tool for blunting the other candidate's position. The first and only thing the campaign headquarters did was call the police immediately. Gizmodo/Chen should have done the right thing and made the 911 call too.

 

[Fluffy Bunny]

Man is Steve pissed that Gizmodo divulged the let down that iPhone HD is. I don't blame Jobs for wanting to jail bloggers.

What's next? iPad can't Wifi tether with iPhone?

 

[Cartaphilus]

Q

I'm not up on my journalism law, but doesn't the fact that a crime occurred during the transmission of the phone mean the journalist's protections are out the window?

As far as Chen is concerned, the crime of receiving stolen goods occurred when Chen received each iphone. It's hard for me to see where journalist privilege applies. If the seized items include statements from other civilians, they may very well be protected---something, no doubt, the special master is considering, or at least should be.

 

[.Andy]

"special master"? This whole theatrical fiasco has been entire nonsense from the get go and is just getting more absurd.

 

[ULFoaf]

It will be very, very easy for Apple to show actual harm that resulted from this criminal enterprise.

No sir. You cannot prove how many iPhones you did not sell, only how many you did. And when that number is in the millions in a few months, a lot of people will lose sympathy to that claim.

 

[cvaldes]

"special master"? This whole theatrical fiasco has been entire nonsense from the get go and is just getting more absurd.

Not a Hollywood term.

http://topics.law.cornell.edu/wex/special_master

Search the Internet for "special master" with your favorite search engine. You will get many other hits. It's a legal term.

Just to let you know...

 

[Atkins]

No, we don't see the distinction. Justice is supposed to be blind (you know, the blindfolded lady holding the "scales of justice"?) and it should not matter that the victim is a multinational corporation.

Then you agree that if your cellphone and car were stolen the police should put the exact same effort in both crimes, rather than more for the car (which means less for the phone)?

Fact is an apple employee took the most highly secret prototype of 2010 to a bar and got smashed, and lost it.

He got smashed and lost it? Interesting fact. Let's call it what it is - your personal assumption.

Stupidity should be a crime! Through the interpretation of the law in the given state this gets classed as theft.

I hope you never lose something. It became a theft when somebody exchanged money for it.

Shouldn't he be under investigation too? Or atleast lose his job. I believe he still works there. I mean since Apple isn't letting anything slide...

The victim? Under investigation?

That's a nice theory.
Oddly enough, Android manufacturers have not been closely copying Apple's design nor was the user interface (software) revealed in this leak.

Oddly enough there are other manufacturers too:
http://www.geeky-gadgets.com/apple-iphone-4g-clone-turns-up-in-china-03-06-2010-2/

I guess the droves of Apple lawyers and the Apple name provided for some, let's call it, leverage

Or maybe it is just the media coverage?

To be clear, I was making a moral and not a legal point. What California laws says, while relevant to what may happen to Mr. Chen, is of little relevance in a broader sense. Nobody smashed a window in Cupertino and pulled out an iPhone or picked someone's pocket. Morally, the actions involved are all blameless.

Selling and buying others' people property?

\
Mate these are the factors that generally determine what you tolerance is
your weight
whether you’re male or female
your age
how quickly or slowly your body turns food into energy (your metabolism)
your stress levels
how much food you have eaten
the type and strength of the alcohol
whether you’re taking medication and, if so, what type
your theory of drinking and waiting...

And last, but not least how well you control yourself.

That doesn't answer my question and where does it state that the person who lost the prototype wasn't intoxicated? But what do I know, I'm a European and always drunk whilst you Yanks are teetotallers

So because you can't handle yourself, nobody can?

There is so much BS from Apple in this matter.
[*]Apple have never prosecuted a tear-down site for exposing their "corporate secrets".

Maybe because they tear it down after the release.

[*]Apple have never prosecuted previous genuine "leaked" photos. They thrive on the publicity.

Because they are just leaked photos. Not stolen phones.

[*]Apple only decided the phone was "stolen" after Gizmodo published.

Apple decided to complain. The law decided it was stolen.

[*]Embarassed, Apple pushed their tech police into an illegal raid on a journalist's property. And don't tell me it wasn't, or they would have been going through Chen's gear the minute it was confiscated. All this "legal" nonsense is to save face because a judge authorised an illegal raid on a journalist.

Nothing illegal about it. All done in due form.

A billionaire's childish revenge. This situation has Jobs written all over it.

Protecting your own stuff is childish?

Not that it matters, but there's a lot of hot air about this, so let's get it clear, Gizmodo had no proof it was "stolen" when they paid for access to it. Sure it came with a story, but a story isn't proof. Would you believe the teller of the story?

So they should not believe him when he says it's not his phone? They didn't pay for "access to it", they paid for it.

Apple won't return stolen phones to their rightful owners unless they've been reported to the police.

Of course, how can they know who's the real owner?

Deciding it's stolen weeks later, after photos have been published on several tech news sites should not wash in a democracy.

What a nonsense.

The facts have not yet been established. There have been a lot of "stories", and a lot of after-the-fact armchair lawyering going on here. Unless you're a lawyer (and clearly you're not), stick to celebrity gossip sites.

You should read the affidavit. Many facts are already established.

A complaint to the police is not the facts. Given Apple's legal muscle, you'd expect it to look bad for Gizmodo. What I'm pointing out here is that the order of events is important in establishing the facts from the "two sides of the story". And Apple fails miserably in a rational assessment of their "story".

The affidavit is a bit more than a complaint to the police. What "Apple story"?

There's an example on this page of someone locating their lost phone. If you're telling me Apple couldn't do the same if they wanted to, you really are naive.

And when they do locate it, they should call the police.

This is a publicity stunt gone out of control. iPhone sales are falling and Android has passed Apple in a fraction of the time iPhone took. Apple needed the publicity badly and they've fumbled it.

Hahaha. Lol. Whatever.

 

[Cartaphilus]

"special master"? This whole theatrical fiasco has been entire nonsense from the get go and is just getting more absurd.

The arrogance of the ignorant. You can't criticize what you don't understand.

 

[ULFoaf]

I couldn't find a single statement of truth in your entire post, and at times it even veered off into fantasy. Apple's competition got a two month head start on planning their next move due to the actions of Gizmodo. There is a cost to that and damages to be collected.
From a criminal or civil perspective, I wouldn't want to be in Chen's shoes.

Several years ago one of the presidential campaign headquarters received a video of the opposing candidate practicing for a upcoming debate. This would have been like a perfect tool for blunting the other candidate's position. The first and only thing the campaign headquarters did was call the police immediately. Gizmodo/Chen should have done the right thing and made the 911 call too.

Any cost due to the competition getting a head start is going to be based on a made up projection. That truly will be a fantasy number. You just can't prove what would have happened. Saying "The competition got a head start and came out with a phone some people liked better" is not going to get you damages. That is competition. There is nothing that forces the rest of the world to maintain a company's secrecy on marketing information, even if worth money to the company. That is their business concern & their job to protect it. That is what Apple is trying to do now - make sure this doesn't happen again by every legal step they can take, and throwing a little fear into anyone who thinks it is worth his while to do this next time.

 

[Penguissimo]

You left out part of the story in your example of diamonds. To complete the analogy, you doubt they are even really diamonds at all, you buy them, show them to thousands on the internet and say you aren't sure they are real, then say they are real, and then give it back to the owners when they put it in writing it is indeed theirs. My point is Chen could never have believed that Apple was not going to claim that phone if real, and knew from day one that he would have to return it.

Gizmodo will have trouble selling the idea that they didn't know the phone was real after they paid $5000 for it, published an article called "This is Apple's Next iPhone", and included details on the Apple engineer who lost it. The hypothetical diamond guy would be an idiot to pay anywhere near a third of the market value for the diamonds if he suspected they were glass.

Ethics are another matter, but I doubt he will be convicted of a crime. The guy who picked it up is probably in more trouble, if as reported, he for at least some time saw the owner's Facebook account and didn't try to return it, but decide to profit from it. He can always claim he didn't remember the name when they "bricked" it.

Again, a tough claim to back up, given that Gizmodo included Powell's name and contact information in the article about the phone, and Hogan was the only way they could have possibly gotten this information.

Gizmodo really did a perfect job of cooking their own goose on this one. The guy who compared it to videotaping your own crime nailed it.

 

[tkingart]

I do agree with the "armchair lawyer" comment made, as I've read comments stating "not eluding" that "facts have been established in the affidavit", perhaps it would be prudent to look up the definition of "affidavit". These contain statements made without cross examination, I believe.

 

[Atkins]

I do agree with the "armchair lawyer" comment made, as I've read comments stating "not eluding" that "facts have been established in the affidavit", perhaps it would be prudent to look up the definition of "affidavit". These contain statements made without cross examination, I believe.

An affidavit states facts under oath.

 

[tkingart]

An affidavit states facts under oath.

Not to sound like a broken record, but these so-called "facts" are to be determined whether or not to be fact by cross examination. I'm no legal expert, but I've at least had the impression that this is how it works- again, I could be wrong. I'd hate to think that people lie under oath, but you know how that goes.

 

[tingly]

Some things in the affidavit were more along the lines of hearsay, but it doesn't matter when the gizmodo articles proved heaping helpings of guilt all around.

Powell may have some reason to conceal since he may need to protect his job at Apple and the roommate may as well to worm her way out of trouble. I wouldn't take what anyone says at face value unless they're shooting themselves down. I wouldn't dismiss their stories, either.

 

[.Andy]

The arrogance of the ignorant. You can't criticize what you don't understand.

I understand what a special master's role is (and think it an overtly grandiose term). As I said in my opinion this whole saga is 99% theatrical. That it even made it to court is absurd.

 

[Atkins]

Not to sound like a broken record, but these so-called "facts" are to be determined whether or not to be fact by cross examination. I'm no legal expert, but I've at least had the impression that this is how it works- again, I could be wrong. I'd hate to think that people don't lie under oath, but you know how that goes.

I'm no legal expert either, but from what I understand the cross-eximantion would be there to confirm those facts. For the purpose of this discussion, the affidavit is the best reference we have now IMHO.
Also, what I call facts are the selling, buying, destroying of the phone mostly.

 

[Cameront9]

I know everyone hates grammar nazis, but I can't stand it anymore:

Two the posters arguing a few pages back about whether or not it was a restaurant or a beer-garden: It's "dinner." Not Diner. You eat dinner AT the Diner.

Now back to your regularly scheduled uninformed posts by people that haven't read the affidavit

 

[tkingart]

I'm no legal expert either, but from what I understand the cross-eximantion would be there to confirm those facts. For the purpose of this discussion, the affidavit is the best reference we have now IMHO.
Also, what I call facts are the selling, buying, destroying of the phone mostly.

Gotcha. I don't have a full understanding of the legal process, just principles, and that statements taken should be cross examined as people could be liars, even under oath. The whole justice system is very confusing to me.

 

[tkingart]

I know everyone hates grammar nazis, but I can't stand it anymore:

Two the posters arguing a few pages back about whether or not it was a restaurant or a beer-garden: It's "dinner." Not Diner. You eat dinner AT the Diner.

Now back to your regularly scheduled uninformed posts by people that haven't read the affidavit

The only one that gets to me is when I read "your" when it should read "you're", we all have our pet peeves.

 

[Atkins]

Gotcha. I don't have a full understanding of the legal process, just principles, and that statements taken should be cross examined as people could be liars, even under oath. The whole justice system is very confusing to me.

Well, I hardly think that everything from the affidavit is set in stone, but many things are pretty clear. It just bothers me when I read comments saying it's not a theft etc.
Also, for sure, anybody can lie, but at some point we must trust someone.