4 ms·

While I've argued in several places that Gizmodo should face the penalty for what they've done (buying stolen property, then taunting Apple with it), this doesn

by danudey 17y ago

While I've argued in several places that Gizmodo should face the penalty for what they've done (buying stolen property, then taunting Apple with it), this doesn't seem like the right way to go. As Derbyshire points out, it's illegal to seize computers used for journalism, and I would argue that, regardless of the quality of Gawker's work, Jason Chen counts as a journalist. I can only hope the court agrees. I want to see Gizmodo get penalized for this, but if the choice is between that and ignoring the rights of journalists, it's not worth it.

ubernostrum 17y ago
As Derbyshire points out, it's illegal to seize computers used for journalism Except that's not a carte blanche shield. If a computer used for journalism was also used to store, say, records of a drug-running ring, would that computer be inviolable? Or seizable, with a warrant, as evidence in the commission of a crime?
- kfury 17y ago
  This is the crux of the issue. The warrant wasn't issued to determine the source of a trade secrets leak. It was used to procure evidence for the buying and selling of stolen goods. Trade secrets are a civil matter. The fact that the police sought a warrant implies that they're pursuing the criminal case regardless of Gizmodo's publication. IOW: Running a blog or being a journalist doesn't protect your computers from being impounded when you break the law and happen to also blog about doing so.
  - eli 17y ago
    Theft of trade secrets is a criminal matter, actually. Google "Economic Espionage Act of 1996." It may well violate similar CA laws.
  - ubernostrum 17y ago
    The amusing bit is that we all see, and probably laugh at, so many stories of people posting evidence of their crimes on Facebook or YouTube and then being surprised when they're caught. Gizmodo basically did exactly the same thing, but on a far larger scale.
  - rbanffy 17y ago
    I think the biggest problem here is that the source of the leak (the guy who found the phone) is also suspect of selling stolen property (the said phone). BTW, was it really stolen? It's obviously wrong to sell something you found before doing a reasonable effort to return it to its owner, but where is the line between finding and stealing?
    - allwein 17y ago
      This has been covered elsewhere, but I don't have a current link to it. Essentially, there is a California law that says if you find something, you're compelled to either return it to its owner, or turn it over to the police if the rightful owner can't be found. So the very fact that he failed to turn it into the police converted it from an act of "finding" to an act of "stealing".
  - shadowsun7 17y ago
    >IOW: Running a blog or being a journalist doesn't protect your computers from being impounded when you break the law and happen to also blog about doing so. Well said. I'm surprised Gizmodo people are making 'I'm a news organization' noises at the moment - it's a flaky excuse, and has little to do with the charges.
  - anigbrowl 17y ago
    The warrant wasn't issued to determine the source of a trade secrets leak. Actually... Appendix B, paragraph 4: 'Printed documents, images, and/or notation pertaining to the sale and/or purchase of the stolen iPhone prototype and/or the sale and/or transfer of trade secret information pertaining to the iPhone prototype.'
lionhearted 17y ago
I've got extraordinary mixed feelings on this one. On the one hand, people shouldn't feel like it's okay to buy stolen property for their own gain at the expense of the people it was stolen from. But then there's reasonable search and seizure... Hmm, I don't know, I think I'm going to lean slightly towards stolen-property-bad side of the equation. If the editor wasn't a journalist, we wouldn't be having this discussion at all - if the head of engineering at another company bought a stolen trade-secreted device we'd be calling for his head. Buying obviously stolen property to profit from it is a bad thing and ought to be criminal - should there be exemptions made for doing it for journalism?
- smallblacksun 17y ago
  I see nothing at all unreasonable about this search and seizure. <edit>oops, didn't mean to downvote you. Can someone fix that for me?</edit>
  - techiferous 17y ago
    I gave an upvote for you. The triangles are too close; I've also accidentally downvoted someone before.
- maxharris 17y ago
  > should there be exemptions made for doing it for journalism? No. That would mean that journalists could steal anything, write a story about it, and not face justice. Suppose that you became famous for fifteen minutes (this happens to people from time to time: see Susan Boyle, etc.) The exemption you propose would allow the press to enter your home, steal things, and plaster images of you and those things everywhere, without any regard for your rights.
  - lionhearted 17y ago
    > The exemption you propose would allow the press to enter your home, steal things, and plaster images of you and those things everywhere, without any regard for your rights. It was a rhetorical question, I actually mostly agree with you and see it the same way, just some minor lingering doubt about letting authorities search and seize from people doing journalism. While I think stolen property probably outweights it, I'm still of two minds about it and will think about it over the next couple days as more discussion and commentary comes out.

by danudey 17y ago

ubernostrum 17y ago

As Derbyshire points out, it's illegal to seize computers used for journalism Except that's not a carte blanche shield. If a computer used for journalism was also used to store, say, records of a drug-running ring, would that computer be inviolable? Or seizable, with a warrant, as evidence in the commission of a crime?

kfury 17y ago
This is the crux of the issue. The warrant wasn't issued to determine the source of a trade secrets leak. It was used to procure evidence for the buying and selling of stolen goods. Trade secrets are a civil matter. The fact that the police sought a warrant implies that they're pursuing the criminal case regardless of Gizmodo's publication. IOW: Running a blog or being a journalist doesn't protect your computers from being impounded when you break the law and happen to also blog about doing so.
- eli 17y ago
  Theft of trade secrets is a criminal matter, actually. Google "Economic Espionage Act of 1996." It may well violate similar CA laws.
- ubernostrum 17y ago
  The amusing bit is that we all see, and probably laugh at, so many stories of people posting evidence of their crimes on Facebook or YouTube and then being surprised when they're caught. Gizmodo basically did exactly the same thing, but on a far larger scale.
- rbanffy 17y ago
  I think the biggest problem here is that the source of the leak (the guy who found the phone) is also suspect of selling stolen property (the said phone). BTW, was it really stolen? It's obviously wrong to sell something you found before doing a reasonable effort to return it to its owner, but where is the line between finding and stealing?
  - allwein 17y ago
    This has been covered elsewhere, but I don't have a current link to it. Essentially, there is a California law that says if you find something, you're compelled to either return it to its owner, or turn it over to the police if the rightful owner can't be found. So the very fact that he failed to turn it into the police converted it from an act of "finding" to an act of "stealing".
- shadowsun7 17y ago
  >IOW: Running a blog or being a journalist doesn't protect your computers from being impounded when you break the law and happen to also blog about doing so. Well said. I'm surprised Gizmodo people are making 'I'm a news organization' noises at the moment - it's a flaky excuse, and has little to do with the charges.
- anigbrowl 17y ago
  The warrant wasn't issued to determine the source of a trade secrets leak. Actually... Appendix B, paragraph 4: 'Printed documents, images, and/or notation pertaining to the sale and/or purchase of the stolen iPhone prototype and/or the sale and/or transfer of trade secret information pertaining to the iPhone prototype.'

lionhearted 17y ago

I've got extraordinary mixed feelings on this one. On the one hand, people shouldn't feel like it's okay to buy stolen property for their own gain at the expense of the people it was stolen from. But then there's reasonable search and seizure... Hmm, I don't know, I think I'm going to lean slightly towards stolen-property-bad side of the equation. If the editor wasn't a journalist, we wouldn't be having this discussion at all - if the head of engineering at another company bought a stolen trade-secreted device we'd be calling for his head. Buying obviously stolen property to profit from it is a bad thing and ought to be criminal - should there be exemptions made for doing it for journalism?

smallblacksun 17y ago
I see nothing at all unreasonable about this search and seizure. <edit>oops, didn't mean to downvote you. Can someone fix that for me?</edit>
- techiferous 17y ago
  I gave an upvote for you. The triangles are too close; I've also accidentally downvoted someone before.
maxharris 17y ago
> should there be exemptions made for doing it for journalism? No. That would mean that journalists could steal anything, write a story about it, and not face justice. Suppose that you became famous for fifteen minutes (this happens to people from time to time: see Susan Boyle, etc.) The exemption you propose would allow the press to enter your home, steal things, and plaster images of you and those things everywhere, without any regard for your rights.
- lionhearted 17y ago
  > The exemption you propose would allow the press to enter your home, steal things, and plaster images of you and those things everywhere, without any regard for your rights. It was a rhetorical question, I actually mostly agree with you and see it the same way, just some minor lingering doubt about letting authorities search and seize from people doing journalism. While I think stolen property probably outweights it, I'm still of two minds about it and will think about it over the next couple days as more discussion and commentary comes out.