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Journalist shield laws are about journalists being able to protect sources who may have committed crimes. They’re not a license for journalists to commit crimes

by sabat 17y ago

Journalist shield laws are about journalists being able to protect sources who may have committed crimes. They’re not a license for journalists to commit crimes themselves. But the Apple employee, Gray Powell, admits to having lost the iPhone prototype. It was not stolen, and no one is accused of having stolen it. http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/apple-engineer-gray-powell-lost-iphone/story?id=10430224 http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/apple-engineer-gray-powell-... So where's the felony? Chen couldn't have bought stolen goods if the goods were not stolen but merely lost.

seb 17y ago
The phone was sold. The finder made a profit from the phone he found, instead of turning it in to the police or bringing it to the owner.
- ryoshu 17y ago
  Apparently he attempted to contact the owner (Apple Inc.). Just because Apple's bureaucracy prevented the phone from being recovered immediately doesn't mean he stole the phone.
  - danudey 17y ago
    He called tech support. If he'd called Apple's main switchboard and asked for Grey Powell, or mailed it to him at 1 Infinite Loop, or e-mailed pictures to sjobs@apple.com, or turned it in to the police, then he'd be faultless. As it was, he did the minimum necessary to say 'Yeah, well I tried to call them but they didn't want it back.'
    - pyre 17y ago
      What he did sounds like the equivalent of knocking lightly on a door once, and then declaring that no one is home.
  - protomyth 17y ago
    In CA it does. He is supposed to turn it into the police. Now, some people will turn it into the bar, but that is not what the law says you should do.
- gte910h 17y ago
  Either way, the POINT of the shield law is to protect all other items not connected to the case. So if Gizmodo say, talked to a source who committed a crime last Feb, THAT correspondence should never ever should end up in the hands of a prosecutors office unless they subpoena it and Gizmodo gets to go in front of a judge and move for the subpoena to be quashed. For journalists, you have to subpoena items, not seize them. That's the important point now. The DA's may or may not be allowed to see what giz knew and when they knew it about this case. But it's very unlikely they are allowed to know everything else on that hard drive, and they went about getting what they are allowed to know the wrong way (search warrant rather than subpoena).
  - danudey 17y ago
    'For journalists, you have to subpoena items, not seize them. That's the important point now.' Not if it's the journalists you're investigating because you suspect THEY committed a crime (in this case, purchasing stolen property). The police aren't doing this to find his source, they're doing this to determine how much Chen/Gawker knew about the phone being stolen before they bought it, and what they did about it once they found out.
    - gte910h 17y ago
      Actually I believe that is exactly the case. The point is to protect all the sources of all the other stories. It's not to protect Chen.
    - pyre 17y ago
      > The police aren't doing this to find his source, they're doing this to determine how much Chen/Gawker knew about the phone being stolen before they bought it, and what they did about it once they found out. That's what we suspect and what seems to be the case, but unless I missed an update, I don't believe the police have said what they are looking for specifically.
- sabat 17y ago
  The phone was sold. The finder made a profit from the phone he found, instead of turning it in to the police or bringing it to the owner. Does California state law, or federal law, mandate that you have to attempt to return found items? That would be news to a lot of people.
  - djcapelis 17y ago
    As most articles on this have mentioned, California state law does indeed mandate exactly that: * http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/cacode/PEN/3/1/13/5/s485 http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/cacode/PEN/3/1/13/5/s485 * http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/cacode/CIV/5/d3/4/6/4/1/s2080.1 http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/cacode/CIV/5/d3/4/6/4/1/s2080.1
tzs 17y ago
Losing something does not extinguish title in that thing.

by sabat 17y ago

seb 17y ago

The phone was sold. The finder made a profit from the phone he found, instead of turning it in to the police or bringing it to the owner.

ryoshu 17y ago
Apparently he attempted to contact the owner (Apple Inc.). Just because Apple's bureaucracy prevented the phone from being recovered immediately doesn't mean he stole the phone.
- danudey 17y ago
  He called tech support. If he'd called Apple's main switchboard and asked for Grey Powell, or mailed it to him at 1 Infinite Loop, or e-mailed pictures to sjobs@apple.com, or turned it in to the police, then he'd be faultless. As it was, he did the minimum necessary to say 'Yeah, well I tried to call them but they didn't want it back.'
  - pyre 17y ago
    What he did sounds like the equivalent of knocking lightly on a door once, and then declaring that no one is home.
- protomyth 17y ago
  In CA it does. He is supposed to turn it into the police. Now, some people will turn it into the bar, but that is not what the law says you should do.
gte910h 17y ago
Either way, the POINT of the shield law is to protect all other items not connected to the case. So if Gizmodo say, talked to a source who committed a crime last Feb, THAT correspondence should never ever should end up in the hands of a prosecutors office unless they subpoena it and Gizmodo gets to go in front of a judge and move for the subpoena to be quashed. For journalists, you have to subpoena items, not seize them. That's the important point now. The DA's may or may not be allowed to see what giz knew and when they knew it about this case. But it's very unlikely they are allowed to know everything else on that hard drive, and they went about getting what they are allowed to know the wrong way (search warrant rather than subpoena).
- danudey 17y ago
  'For journalists, you have to subpoena items, not seize them. That's the important point now.' Not if it's the journalists you're investigating because you suspect THEY committed a crime (in this case, purchasing stolen property). The police aren't doing this to find his source, they're doing this to determine how much Chen/Gawker knew about the phone being stolen before they bought it, and what they did about it once they found out.
  - gte910h 17y ago
    Actually I believe that is exactly the case. The point is to protect all the sources of all the other stories. It's not to protect Chen.
  - pyre 17y ago
    > The police aren't doing this to find his source, they're doing this to determine how much Chen/Gawker knew about the phone being stolen before they bought it, and what they did about it once they found out. That's what we suspect and what seems to be the case, but unless I missed an update, I don't believe the police have said what they are looking for specifically.
sabat 17y ago
The phone was sold. The finder made a profit from the phone he found, instead of turning it in to the police or bringing it to the owner. Does California state law, or federal law, mandate that you have to attempt to return found items? That would be news to a lot of people.
- djcapelis 17y ago
  As most articles on this have mentioned, California state law does indeed mandate exactly that: * http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/cacode/PEN/3/1/13/5/s485 http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/cacode/PEN/3/1/13/5/s485 * http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/cacode/CIV/5/d3/4/6/4/1/s2080.1 http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/cacode/CIV/5/d3/4/6/4/1/s2080.1

tzs 17y ago

Losing something does not extinguish title in that thing.