The story of Gizmodo and the purloined iPhone G4 has had more turns than a James Bond movie car chase. Since early this morning, this is my third rewrite of a blog post on certain issues of this case.
I started by taking on police for saying last night that Shield Laws do not apply. But, now police have announced they will “suspend” the investigation, because maybe those shield laws do apply.
It seems that the police, like just about everyone else have mixed views on the prevailing laws in this case. That is probably because–at least in California–the laws seem to directly conflict with each other. So do some of the relevant facts.
Probably like you, I’ve been following the story second-hand, from the comfort of my computer screen, so I don’t know the precise sequence of events that took an iPhone G4 prototype from the pocket of an Apple Computer employee and put it into the hands of Gizmodo editor Jason Chen.
I cannot clear up conflicting reports on whether Jason Chen’s door was battered down or just forced open. I don’t know if he was frisked or handcuffed one report says.
I most certainly do not know what the sequence of events was after the Apple employee left a Redwood City beer garden without the G4. I cannot tell you was drunk, or whether or not Apple Computer really did refuse an offer to return the device because they thought it was a hoax, as a British blog claims.
Furthermore, like you, I do not have a clue as to what role Apple Computer played in a judge issuing a search warrant against the Gizmodo for suspicion of receiving stolen property, a crime punishable by up to a year in the slammer. I didn’t even know that a Mateo County judge could order the search of a home located outside the country. Jason Chen lives in Fremont, in Contra Costa County.
Besides, all that stuff is, in my view, detail confetti. There are bigger issues going on here and anyone looking at it can see that laws relevant to the case conflict with each other. They are not little ordinance, but they are large with Constitutional repercussions, or so it seems to me.
This is about free speech versus protection.
Much of what I see comes from points of view that seem embedded and stilted. The Apple User Forums have likened the disassembly of the iPhone prototype to the dismemberment of a kidnap murder victim
Thereare also the entrenched Gizmodo haters. I fall short of that, but I have never been a great fan of the Gawker group’s approach to journalism. I don’t think the world will much suffer if Valleywag dies. I remember a stunt that got Gawker itself temprarily banned from the CES trade show for using a hidden device that shut off exhibitor’s HDTV sets.
But like Voltaire, I am big on defending the rights of journalists–even shabby ones–to the freedom to do their jobs. I may take a dim view of bribing someone to get hold of an iPhone prototype, and question whether the world was better served by knowing that the new iPhone has an improved volume button, but I think it is terribly important that Gizmodo has that right.
Journalists in California are protected by state and Federal Shield laws that protect journalists from revealing sources and supposedly prevent police from breaking through doors and confiscating computers, which is precisely what happened to Jason Chen last Friday night.
That’s probably why the the New York Times, chief counsel, stating that the venerable paper, the original publisher of the stolen Pentagon Papers, would have published the iPhone G4 video and pictures as well.
What stop this from being a slam dunk no-brainer is that there are also laws that make receiving stolen property a crime. One states, in part:
One who finds lost property under circumstances which give him knowledge of or means of inquiry as to the true owner, and who appropriates such property to his own use, or to the use of another person not entitled thereto, without first making reasonable and just efforts to find the owner and to restore the property to him, is guilty of theft.
Based on that paragraph, you can reasonable see why the judge and police did what they did. This was not an example of the Gestapo coming in the night and anyone who owns property has the right to expect police to investigate the unlawful abuse of that property.
Like I said, this is a complex situation. It’s free speech versus the right of property and if police decide to resume the investigation and prosecution, it very well may become a Supreme Court issue.
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