Police Breaks Into Gizmodo Editor's Home After iPhone 4 Leak
It looks like the iPhone 4G leak story is only getting started. Following Gizmodo's unveiling of the iPhone 4G prototype last week, Californian authorities have apparently decided to look into it and open an investigation.
Their first order of business was to storm Gizmodo Editor's Jason Chen home for anything electronic and connected to the story. Gawker media, Jason's employer objected obviously, claiming that bloggers, as journalists, have the right to protect their sources and the warrant was therefore illegal (Journalist shield laws). Unfortunately for them, if the Police is actually going after Gizmodo/Gawker media here for buying a stolen good; then this argument might not hold, unlike the EFF seems to claim. Nevertheless, the police is apparently not going through the evidence while they're figuring out if they messed up.
If you ask me, this is a huge scandal. When we find news, we publish it. It's as simple as that and it's the essence of what we do. I've worked closely enough with news broadcasting to tell you that paying for information is a completely common standard practice and I believe there is nothing wrong with it. I mean, they had a huge scoop there and it would have been irresponsible and purely stupid not to exploit it (and they love gadgets, of course they wanted to see it).
On top of that, nobody (besides sickos) should ever have to see strangers violate their home and even worse, take all their gadgets. Come on folks, he's is a blogger/journalist, not a pedophile.
I'm hoping for two things here. First, I hope he keeps all this data off-site and Gutmann'd his HD recently. Second, that he'll get a nice settlement out of this screwup.
Let's finish with some humor though, apparently Apple just received Jason's systems:
