Slashdot Mirror
Apple Wins Against Bloggers
linuxwrangler writes "Saying that no one has the right to publish information that could have been provided only by someone breaking the law, judge James Kleinberg ruled that online reporters for Apple Insider and PowerPage must reveal their sources. No word yet on an appeal."
Dear Apple,
...
I heard it on Slashdot.org
There was this guy, I think he was call Anthony Coward or something, and he was telling me all about the fab new stuff.
liqbase
This isn't about protecting sources, this is corporate espionage plain and simple. They're not protecting reporting sources, they're shielding criminals.
From Slashdot:
No word yet on an appeal.
From the article:
He said the trio would appeal the judge's ruling.
Oi, this is getting bad. I mean, do the submitter read the articles they submit?
-Valiss
This blogger, whom I have become completely addicted to, wrote the best article I've read on the subject. It deals with only one of the several lawsuits filed, but the points he makes are real thought-provokers.
Sorry for being such a shameless pimp, but I really think people who are interested in this Apple story would be interested in this article.
(I got the link from MacSlash last weekend.)
This ruling is solely concerned with whether the journalists are entitled to be protected from Apple's subpoena of their records. Quoting the ruling:
"The order of this court does not go beyond the questions necessary to determine this motion seeking a protective order against that single subpoena, and it cannot and should not be read or interpreted more broadly," the judge said. "The court makes no finding as to the ultimate merits of Apple's claims, or any defenses to those claims. Those issues remain for another day."
Does this mean that Robert Novak has to reveal his sources in the Valerie Plame story? Since that involves TREASON, which is a bit more serious than revealing trade secrets, doesn't this ruling apply there as well?
- Spryguy
There are three kinds of people in this world: those that can count and those that can't
We could only be so lucky. Honestly, I won't mind too much if this hubbub results in ThinkSecret and the rest of the rumor mill going belly-up. Much like the judge mentioned in his ruling, I don't believe the "information" those sites provide actually serves the public interest. If the prognosticating were half-way reliable, perhaps it might have value to those to need to make purchase decisions. But it's not half-way reliable, so there really isn't any value being provided.
Those sites just take all the sizzle out of Apple's announcements, leaving people unnecessarily disappointed and let down. Good riddance to them.
Your entire post is irrelevant to the topic at hand, but I'll pick just this piece:
You're wrong in a million ways, but the most important one is this. This particular expression of speech does not in any way present a clear and present danger to life and limb and consequently, it not only "ought" to be protected, it is protected according to the Supreme Court of the United States of America. Threatening someone's profit margin is not the same thing as threatening their safety.
The speech IS protected. No one is going to throw the proprietors of Think Secret, PowerPage, or AppleInsider in jail over their speech.
What is NOT protected are their sources, who are breaking currently in force, legally binding confidentiality agreements to reveal the information, and the fact that the web sites, by publishing said information, are also in violation of the Uniform Trade Secrets Act, versions of which have been adopted by 45 states including California.
This is not about speech. This is not about the right to blog. And if you think it's about the employees' right to "speak" about topics covered under confidentiality agreement, apparently someone forgot to tell them, and you, that they don't have to work there if they have that little respect for good-faith agreements with their own employer.
Oh, come off it. Revealing the unethical and borderline murderous behavior of tobacco companies serves a clear and immediate public interest. What "public interest" does it serve to protect the guy who leaks confidential information about the next Power Mac revision?
As the judge wrote, an interested public is NOT the same as a public interest.
I disagree. The fact that wrongdoing was involved (and here I hesitate to characterize the act as criminal, as opposed to civil, being as I am not familiar with CA contract law) is empirically demonstrated by the fact that the only way that the information in question could have been released is if someone under prior restriction (as in an NDA) revealed it to the journalists involved.
The relevant question is, does Apple have a right to discover the identities of the violator(s)?
I believe that they do. Declan McCullagh's article (news.com) on the topic is indicative of the false assumptions made by many people as concerns this case. As the judge correctly surmised, an "interested public" does not equate with "the public interest". The Watergate scandal involved criminal acts that clearly reached to highest levels of government. Apple v. Doe involves a tort committed against a corporation inclear violation of prior agreements. The two are not equivalent.
Freedom of speech and freedom of the press do not, and should not, extend to an ability to withhold the identities of persons who have committed an illegal act. The same would be true even if we were discussing the attorney/client privilege. An attorney who is privy to physical edvidence that his client is guilty can be lawfully compelled to reveal that information.
This is not about corporate interests v. the public interest.
From the Judge's opinion, posted on the EFF's site:
In short, Apple had strong enough evidence that this information wasn't just accidently leaked to convince the court that trade secret laws had been violated and for the subpeonas to go forward.
I honestly can't see why these two reporters are protecting their sources in the Valerie Plame case. Supposedly, someone (or some people) wanted to settle a score with the operative's husband and decided that the best way was to ruin this lady's career. This was a criminal act under Section 421 of Title 50 of the United States Code (better known as the Intelligence Identities Protection Act) which is designed to protect the agent, the agent's contacts in the USA and in foreign countries, and prevent impairment of the country's national security efforts.
In short, these reporters were used to do someone's dirty work. They must have known this, but they still protect the person or persons who used them, possibly even to the extent of going to jail.
Here's an example of the difficulty in allowing the reporters to keep secrets. Suppose that I happen to know that a friend of mine is a spy and I tell anyone this fact, then I can go to prison for 10 years. But (by the reporters reasoning) if I tell a journalist, he can publish that information with impunity and doesn't even have to say where he got the information. Doesn't that seem wrong somehow?
In any case, how does it serve the interests of the country to publish the name of an American spy? The idea of shielding journalists is so that they are free to communicate freely and to report on scandals that need to be exposed to public scrutiny. In this case, the sources that the reporters are protecting were not whistleblowers with knowledge of a scandal. Indeed, the sources ARE the scandal. They are not brave tellers of truth, determined to get a dastardly plot out in the public eye - they are nothing but craven scoundrels bent on settling a score. I would have thought that real journalists would hate being used in this fashion. I know I would.
Wouldn't it serve the best interests of the press to expose these people rather than protect them?
Back in 1995 Steve Young of CNN told me "CNN protects its sources." I was on the phone with him discussing having CNN send a camera crew to interview me the next day.
I had just told him there was no way he could put me on the air. Intel was at that time reeling from the consequences from the fiasco that was the math flaw in the Pentium processor.
What I had in my possession made that math flaw look like a minor hang nail.
I had trade secret documents from Intel, legally released to me under non-disclosure agreement (since expired, so now the tale can be told).
The contents of those documents revealed flaws in Intel 486 processors that basically rendered them "Unsafe at any speed".
Countless users were suffering crashes, data loss, God alone only knew what forms and totals of lost productivity, revenue, opportunities were being wracked up daily due to the serious flaws. And even Microsoft was being unfairly painted with creating even less reliable software than they genuinely deserved to be excoriated for (the infamous BSOD's weren't always their fault...)
Steve was trying to convince me that "the public good" out weighed my honoring Intel's non-disclosure agreement.
He told me that I could mail the documents to him and that "CNN protects its sources."
Here it is 10 years later and I wonder, how many folks would agree with Steve and how many will support my decision to not hold Intel accountable for their abuses of the public trust.
The simple math flaw had reportly cost Intel $600 million for a few million chips shipped. The cost of a recall for the far more serious flaws in the 100's of millions of 486 processors shipped could very well have bankrupted Intel, many 486 chips were soldered to their boards.
Or at the very least have damaged their reputation so badly they would have had a very hard time regaining the public's trust.
I just wanted to say, the Judge today served up a nice fat juicy sound bite for the press to report. But he's wrong. The right of large corporations to protect their trade secrets is not absolute.
I also can't help but wonder what the Judge in today's case would have had to say to CNN if I had been at risk in breaking my non-disclosure agreement with Intel?
Apple has their problems, and if enough customers are persistent enough they generally own up to them and take responsibility for making things right. And today's ruling didn't cover the kinds of information being disclosed that I had from Intel.
But if Apple rides success with their iPod's upwards and loses the ability to take responsibility, I hope today's ruling doesn't come back to bite us in the ass.
Yeah I know, sounds great coming from the guy that covered Intel's ass when he had the chance.
But for a moment, just a moment there, I was tempted to mail those documents.
What motivated me to silence wasn't a fear of CNN being forced to turn me over. No, it was the advice I got from the local Intel distributor: if anything about the 486 showed up on CNN, Intel would act like I had released it to CNN, whether Intel could prove it or not.
Turns out, the company I worked for had already gone to Intel and covered their asses... (and Intel paid them off very nicely too)
After today's ruling, I wouldn't even be tempted.
Bravo Judge, on this day that will live on in infamy for the actions of a few in Spain this date 3/11/4, you have indeed struck a blow to protect truth, justice and the American way.
As others have already pointed out, there's plenty of evidence that the 3 webpublishers knew well in advance the information they were given by their sources was protected under an NDA. That's not what I'm going to talk about, or freedom of the press. I'm all for it, my wife is a newspaper reporter for chrissakes. No I'm going to talk about the concept of trade secrets and how it applies to our capitalist economy.
Trade secrets are inventions,(new products) and revisions to existing products, if there are more things that might fall under the definition, they don't really matter in this case so don't flame me for omitting a few. If a company invents something(ipod) or revises a currently shipping company product(new g5 powerbook, new powermacs, etc) they are allowed to issue NDAs to their employees to keep their traps shut about them with good reason. If company x finds out about the new products before Apple in this case is ready to release it, and company x copies product and releases at the same time before patents have been issued, then Apple is screwed and loses revenue because of it.
As you may or may not know, under capitalism companies generally invent and innovate new products so that they themselves can gain the revenue from their research. With no trade secrets or NDAs there is no longer an incentive to do research as a company and capitalism fails.
With that out of the way, the judge was right to back Apple, if he hadn't many other companies would be severely put in a pickle fiscally by employees leaking detailed specs to other companies. Our economy would be in shambles, and you would all be out of jobs. Granted there is a bit of a slippery slope implied there but thats the fundamental logic behind the case.
The fact that people are upset about Apple getting a big boost in this stage of the case is absolutely astonishing to me. Freedom woohoo and all but there are limits to every freedom, press, speech, right to arms, every single one of them. The websites in question and the sources should be punished, for different reasons, the sources for breech of contract and the websites for publishing information they knew to be acquired in an illegal manner.
cheese logs keep my wang warm at night.