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District Attorney Critiques Gizmodo Emails In iPhone 4 Prototype Case
lee1 writes "After the police broke in to a Gizmodo editor's home and collected emails from computers found there as part of the investigation of the stolen 2010 iPhone prototype, the San Mateo District Attorney's office petitioned the court to withdraw the search warrant, because it violated a law intended to protect journalists. Nevertheless, the DA, rather than apologize for the illegal search and seizure, issued a critique of the seized emails, commenting that they were 'juvenile' and that 'It was obvious that they were angry with the company about not being invited to ... some big Apple event. ... this is like 15-year-old children talking.''"
What about that for "juvenile"!
Coming any minute for the way they treated him and seizure of non related materials. Someone forgot to tell the DA that when an Apple employee leaves a prototype phone in a bar or resturant it's usually just to hype the newest Idevice.
"We are just a war away from Amerikastan. When god vs god the undoing of man." Dave Mustaine
What are the chances of the government going to such lengths if an ordinary person gets robbed? The ordinary response from police is that's nice, we'll look into it if we have nothing better to do. The crimes they were alleging are not different than the crimes that would be applicable if this were to happen to an ordinary person instead of a powerful corporation.
And then, the chutzpah of the DA's to call out the Gizmodo editors (who may or may not have deserved it) after conducting an illegal search...
rather than apologize for the illegal search and seizure, issued a critique of the seized emails, commenting that they were 'juvenile'
Everyone does that.
At a formal meeting with participants from multiple departments or with customers/vendors, everyone is professional. After the meeting while you are walking to the elevator or calling your immediate co-workers to duiscuss the details, you comment on everyone else was clueless, "those guys" are a bunch of fucking idiots, what where they thinking etc... What is so juvenile about that? When you are around your own people that you are comfortable with, you act differently. I'd bet my left testicle that the San Mateo District Attorney and people in his office do the same thing.
Next you'll be telling me bears defecate in forested areas.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
As of late, that's been the direction Gizmodo has been heading. I used to visit there site all the time, now they're just obnoxiuos.
That is all.
"I don't know if Apple is on the [REACT] steering committee," Stephen Wagstaffe told Yahoo! News when asked about a link between Apple and the Rapid Enforcement Allied Computer Team (REACT) Task Force that entered Jason Chen's home and seized four computers and two servers as evidence in a felony investigation. Documents revealed that Apple did indeed sit on REACT's steering committee, which provided 'direction and oversight' to the law enforcement agency.
Since when does ones quality of writing play into if you are 'the press' or not? Scary precedent here.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Whether you agree with the reasoning behind it or not, and in spite of the fact that it was later withdrawn because it was illegal, the police served a search warrant on a Gizmodo editor's home, they didn't break in. Pretending those are the same is one of the things that makes having a conversation about truly illegal searches and seizures so difficult in the US. If they have a search warrant you blame the judge that issued it, not the police who executed it.
"Which would you prefer if you were a district attorney?
O To be found " juvenile"?
O To be found " unprofessional"?
O To be found professionally incompetent?
O To be found a snarky twit?
O To be re-employed in 'Family Law', where juvenile, unprofessional and snarky are the norm?
O To wake up from such a horrible nightmare!"
I doubt he'll feel so smug when he's hit with a federal civil rights lawsuit and is disbarred. Hey a guy can dream can't he?
LRN 2 SWM
The DA illegally seized these emails, right? And prior to that illegal seuzure they were the privately held information of Gizmodo, right? So... he only knows about them because the law was broken, and now he's spewing their contents all over the press? If this doesn't violate some ethical standard, it should. I'd file an ethics complaint.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
We're talking about a Gawker Media property. Sorry, but I'm not going to waste my brain cells being outraged about anything that happens to parts of the Gawker empire.
Call me when a responsible citizen's rights are being trampled, and I'll duly respond with all due outrage. But for these guys....live by the sword, die by the sword.
NO U
Gizmodo stopped being protected by any journalism shield the moment they actively participated in theft of private property. There also appears to be evidence of malicious motives on their part. I don't see journalism anywhere around this case.
Seeing how using text speak seems to be standard operating procedure for high ranking goverment officials . I would suspect "like 15-year-old children talking" would qualify you to hold a nice cushy post in goverment. Perhaps the goverment can look inward first before critiquing illegally seized evidence. Better yet why not just stop performing illegal search and seizures. Oh right, they are above the law, silly me.
Oh, they acted like juveniles. I guess that makes it okay that the authorities broke the law.
-
You broke the law.
DA: They acted like juveniles.
You broke the law.
DA: Cry babies.
You broke the law.
DA: na-na-na-na-na-na I can't hear you!
A large company with a lot of money and influence being capable of using law enforcement as their own personal security team? And that team still content with their actions despite them being proven illegal?
And people say OWS protesters have nothing to be protesting for.
...the house wouldn't have been raided. Are we really saying journalists should be exempt from such laws but the government should be held to it? If I was going to pursue a career in politics for power, I'd drop it to go into journalism. Chen/Gizmodo bought stolen property when he should've been suspicious enough to know better. Fucking plain and simple. $5000 of stolen property to increase my advertising revenue 10x that? And the law is on my side about it? What a deal. Sorry, I'm not buying the demagoguery bullshit.
Chewbacon
The Bible is like Wikipedia: written by a bunch of people and verifiable by questionable sources.
What is that DA? 14 years old?
Regardless of whether Chan was reporting on the stollen/lost iPhone, the fact that he participated in the crime (sale of property known to not belong to the seller) means he is no longer protected by the law that is intended to protect journalists reporting on other people's crimes.
What is juvenile is the court or D/A commenting on possibly illegally obtained E-Mails, rather than commenting on the merits of the filing that Gizmodo has journalism protection. Private E-Mails have nothing to do with this protection whatsoever.
IANAL, but if I am not mistaken, if the issue does not involve imminent danger to the public, or (I think) high probability of escape in the case of felonies, warrants are typically supposed to be served when the property owner (or resident) is present, the warrant is supposed to be read to said property owner or resident before a search, and it is supposed to be served during daylight hours. This ain't CSI or SWAT. The fact that police on television shows regularly storm residences does not make it proper or legal procedure.
I don't know what time of day it was, but from all appearances, and contrary to law, the police actively avoided confronting the resident and owner of the seized property, nor did they read him the warrant.
That should be very troubling to everyone here. Every time they get away with something like this, is one more example to the public that they CAN get away with it.
Because they illegally deprived Chen of the use of his property, and illegally searched his personal records (and, also illegally if I am not mistaken, made public comments about those illegally-seized private records), Chen and whoever is representing him should probably prosecute them under 18 USC, Section 242, "Deprivation of Rights Under the Color of Law".
That is a Federal law that applies to everybody, even State and Federal prosecutors, and it has teeth. Depending on what they did, the penalties range all the way up to death.
I strongly urge you to read the page at that link, because it is a very handy law to know about if you are ever harassed or victimized by the police or any government official. Don't threaten them, but if they are aware of this law (they probably are), and they know that YOU know about it, that alone could cause them to back off.
In my state, for example, it is no longer allowed to prosecute a policeman for any crime they commit against a citizen, unless actual malice can be shown. That was a well-intended law that has backfired and led to all kinds of police abuses. But they can still be prosecuted under the Federal statute, 18 USC 242.
I've had conversations with Gizmodo, IO9 and Kotaku's editors and writers in the past, "15 year olds" is a good way to describe their "professionalism".
.. is it possible to have your home invaded by the Police, and then also be insulted over the information the police stole.
Fantastic.
The emails were private. They were unlawfully seized. The DA takes those private, unlawfully seized emails and compounds the wrong by commenting upon them in the media in a derogatory way.
He has absolute immunity for being a prosecutor, but he has no immunity for making stupid-ass statements based on illegally obtained information.
This is an easy section 1983 case, albeit for limited damages. This stupid DA just cost his municipality a few thousand dollars.
The summary for this Slashdot article was so ignorant and biased that I actually registered just to comment on it.
"After the police broke in to a Gizmodo editor's home [...]"
They didn't "break in" -- they had a search warrant.
"[...] the San Mateo District Attorney's office petitioned the court to withdraw the search warrant [...]"
The San Mateo District Attorney's Office didn't petition the court to withdraw the search warrant. The San Mateo District Attorney's Office petitioned the court to issue the search warrant.
"[...] because it violated a law intended to protect journalists [...]"
The search warrant didn't violate any laws. Journalistic shield laws exist to protect the sources of journalists. The identities of Gizmodo's "sources" (or "sellers") were already known to police. They were in custody and cooperating with police. Journalistic shield laws do not exist so that journalists can purchase stolen goods.
It isn't a crime to execute a search warrant. It is a crime to purchase a stolen iPhone prototype, damage, and dissect it in order to publish trade secrets before the product has hit shelves, or even been announced to the public. It is damaging not only to Apple, but to their employees and shareholders.
"[...] Nevertheless, the DA, rather than apologize [...]"
Why should the DA apologize for doing his job? The DA deserves an apology from whoever authored this article stub.
and a search warrant was issued. The judge took into account the journalism angle and concluded (properly) that being a journalist doesn't make you immune to being prosecuted for theft, and being prosecuted for theft requires the same kinds of searches for stolen goods and other evidence of being complicit in a crime. They are free to argue that such evidence isn't admissible in a trial, but they are going to lose that fight (if they haven't already).
Basically, a crime was committed here.
In my state, for example, it is no longer allowed to prosecute a policeman for any crime they commit against a citizen, unless actual malice can be shown. That was a well-intended law that has backfired and led to all kinds of police abuses. But they can still be prosecuted under the Federal statute, 18 USC 242.
Ha. That wouldn't be Illinois, would it? I know in that State the police cannot be taken to court for false arrest, and any number of other things.
It's funny, you would think that politicians would be very aware of the disease of unaccountability (most of them already being infected themselves) but apparently the idea of gun-toting cops with immunity from consequence being a problem never occurred to them.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Wakeup moron.
Apples loss is -100000000000000000
Apple regardless will make 12 billion per quarter ok, now shut up!
What really is criminal is apple not having a microSD slot in the iPhone, utter madness stupidity fukcers.
They make a phone which can record HD videos, but you can't just swap out the microSD card and place another in to record.
What a fucked up design. Not user friendly. Yeah wireless sync to iCloud my ass, show me an HD video thats 5GIG in size syncing in 30 seconds over wifi to iCloud. Or your laptop.
Face it, iPhone is useless for such things, unless apple get their 250% over priced flash extended iPhone 64GIG.
Can't wait for 2013 when all Samsung phones have HD 1080i recording to samsung 128GIG microSD cards.
Look record home movies anything, with out ever syncing or worrying about running out of storage space, buy microSD cards anywhere , in any super market. Does apple support it NO. Lamers.
Apple touts such great features as downloading apps/books/magazines/itunes movies/tvshows, but THEIR DEVICE RUNS OUT OF SPACE, stupid MOFOS.
Hopefully now without steve to say, NO microSD, Tim Cook, will say, FUCK IT, we are missing one important feature, microSD slot.
Dont give me, consumers dont know how to use microSD cards, if they can afford to buy an iphone they have a job which requires an IQ beyond a 5 year old. Consumers arent that dumb unless they are retards with brain damage.
Can't wait when no one gives a shit what apples next iPhone will be coz samsung owns patents for the best LCD, or for 1TB microSD.
iPhones are just iOS, and 3rd party HW, nothing more.
Android is THE WINDOWS of mobile devices, apple is just apple again like in the 80s, great for the first 10 years, then downhill coz of smugness.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
You do know the CIA commits crimes daily against Europe/Asia, in helping USA corps win contracts and beat competitors right.
Who cares if moto got the phone, it takes months and months to prep factories to make large quantities of orders. Besides apple didnt invent the LCD, they just ordered it from LG.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
"That wouldn't be Illinois, would it?"
Nothing personal, but I make it a point not to give out location information on Slashdot. I may have slipped on occasion, and accidentally given clues, but my policy is to not do it on purpose.
"It's funny, you would think that politicians would be very aware of the disease of unaccountability..."
Ah, but see, they never seem to consider it happening to THEM. I don't know why that is so, but it does seem to be so. For example, a Republican-dominated Congress voluntarily cedes some power to the President (often unconstitutionally, but they have done it anyway, like the War Powers Act for example although I do not know what party is mostly responsible for that.) They do it because he is the President and he can help their party by furthering their cause. But it is like they've never stopped to consider what will happen when the next President comes along, who may not be a member of their party. Then the Democrats give the President a little more power, because he's a Democrat... but the next President is as likely as not to be a Republican. And so on. They keep shooting themselves in the feet, but unfortunately it hits the rest of us higher up.
At the time I posted this comment, nobody else had mentioned the issue. So why did it get modded "redundant"?
I would thank you to use proper discretion with your mod powers. Disagreeing with me does not equal "redundant", nor does just not liking me for whatever reason. Try to be more adult next tiime, eh?
Nice try submitter - you almost had me thinking 'Wow, someone must stop these rogue police from breaking into innocent citizen homes!'.
Then I recalled it was in the process of serving a legitimate search warrant on the home of someone who committed an (alleged? .. laffo) crime.
Such a crock of of biased shit. Gizmodo broke the law and paid for a story.. Journalistic ethic may be an anachronism these days but what they did was slimy.
If the stolen prototype they paid for was a garage-creation from a single person or small company and they published the specs and pictures, people would be all over Gizmodo for being terrible and heartless journalists ruining their edge.. But because Apple isn't en vogue with the non-fanboy base it's suddenly 'ok'..
Just because it didn't actually hurt Apple doesn't mean it's not a crime, and doesn't mean it's not slimy behavior.
See Conspiracy to Purchase Stolen Goods.
A 1983 case? For what? Defamation? Opinion is protected under the First Amendment.
As someone who defended 1983 cases, I can tell you this case is not a layup.
As has been previously pointed out, the warrant was issued legally. It was withdrawn later because Chen chose to cooperate and withdrawing it removed any ambiguity. Withdrawal does not imply illegality. That is a logical fallacy.
Thank you for signing up and owning his ass. I was so frustrated with everyone here saying the warrant was "illegal" just because the article implied it was so. My god people are stupid. I wish I had mod points to give you. Your posts were all excellent and yet the coward that claimed you were wrong didn't even bother to respond because you owned him so thoroughly.