

Police Seize Jason Chen's Computers - jsm386
http://gizmodo.com/5524843/

======
TallGuyShort
Gizmodo points out that the warrant was invalid because it violated section
1524(g) of the California State Penal Code:

(g) No warrant shall issue for any item or items described in Section 1070 of
the Evidence Code.

Section 1070 of the Evidence Code reads:

(a) A publisher, editor, reporter, or other person connected with or employed
upon a newspaper, magazine, or other periodical publication, or by a press
association or wire service, or any person who has been so connected or
employed, cannot be adjudged in contempt by a judicial, legislative,
administrative body, or any other body having the power to issue subpoenas,
for refusing to disclose, in any proceeding as defined in Section 901, the
source of any information procured while so connected or employed for
publication in a newspaper, magazine or other periodical publication, or for
refusing to disclose any unpublished information obtained or prepared in
gathering, receiving or processing of information for communication to the
public.

(b) Nor can a radio or television news reporter or other person connected with
or employed by a radio or television station, or any person who has been so
connected or employed, be so adjudged in contempt for refusing to disclose the
source of any information procured while so connected or employed for news or
news commentary purposes on radio or television, or for refusing to disclose
any unpublished information obtained or prepared in gathering, receiving or
processing of information for communication to the public.

(c) As used in this section, "unpublished information" includes information
not disseminated to the public by the person from whom disclosure is sought,
whether or not related information has been disseminated and includes, but is
not limited to, all notes, outtakes, photographs, tapes or other data of
whatever sort not itself disseminated to the public through a medium of
communication, whether or not published information based upon or related to
such material has been disseminated.

I am not a lawyer, but I would point out that even though the description of
evidence to be seized was extremely vague, the cops can seize the items on it,
since the warrant was not specifically for the items mentioned in 1070. If the
computer media contains such items, they are not admissible as evidence in a
trial. Other data, such as proof of a felony (the reason for the warrant),
should be, IMO.

~~~
maukdaddy
That seems to apply to undisclosed information or refusing to disclose
sources. Neither of those apply to this case, presumably since it is about
stolen goods or disclosure of trade secrets. Gizmodo is grasping for straws
here.

------
jonknee
It's pretty unfair how the cops can take all of the tools you need for work
without ever charging you with a crime. Jason's lucky in that he can easily
loan another computer/camera, but many hackers would be in a serious trouble
if all their computers were seized.

~~~
jolan
It's annoying but you should at least have an offsite backup in case of fire,
seizure, or other type of loss/theft if you depend on your data.

This is making think of pulling the trigger on using truecrypt or the like to
encrypt my on-disk data as well.

~~~
gte910h
In many states, you can be held in contempt FOREVER. The issue with truecrypt
type things is you can never _prove_ it is gone, therefore you can get stuck
in contempt with no way to stop it.

If you Google enough, you'll see a guy in jail for contempt for 10 years
because the judge didn't believe there aren't hidden foreign assets in a
divorce case...

~~~
CaptainMorgan
I believe this is only true for civil cases, as indicated in your last
sentence regarding the divorce. I found this definition on criminal contempt:

 _In a criminal contempt charge, which is aimed at punishing bad behavior, a
defendant is afforded the due-process safeguards of the criminal system,
including a possible jury trial._

I'm not a lawyer, but I would suspect that if Chen is under suspicion for a
felony, the above definition might apply.

~~~
gte910h
If they're going after Chen instead of after Chen's source. Then I doubt Chen
has protection under contempt laws. I bet he does under the journalist shield
laws though

~~~
olefoo
Not if he committed a crime (like receiving stolen property) because if it
did, all criminal hackers would get press cards, or stash their data on
computers owned by journalists and be able to conceal evidence of their crimes
that way.

edited for specificity.

~~~
jfoutz
crackers?

Maybe i misunderstood this site's title.

~~~
olefoo
> crackers?

If you're going to be pedantic about it, sure.

------
gte910h
I just have to republish this tech crunch comment, made me laugh so hard I
scared my dog:

From [http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/26/the-iphone-leak-gets-
ugly-p...](http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/26/the-iphone-leak-gets-ugly-police-
raid-gizmodo-editors-house-confiscate-computers/#ixzz0mFB1tQFt)

\--

Shan - April 26th, 2010 at 1:51 pm UTC

How it’s[sic] stolen property?

If you found a property which is unclaimed what you will do?

Since Gizmodo was unable to find owner of that iPhone.. they published on
their blog with various features so the owner would come and get it from
them..

\--

------
brandnewlow
The only one I really feel sorry for here is Chen's wife. He at least gets to
be the guy who broke this story. She gets to make wife-face at him for the
next 4 months.

------
jamesbressi
Seems a bit overkill? JUST for a moment, forget about the your bias on Gizmodo
or Apple...

When's the last time you or someone you know reported something stolen, knew
who took it and possibly had just as much evidence of who has possession, and
there was no search warrant and raid done on your behalf?

I experienced several examples where there was video evidence of the theft,
the value of the goods were anywhere between $1000 to $5000, there was
identification of the person and there was nothing remotely as swift or stern
taken here to recover.

~~~
qq66
Yes, but in those instances was the person who received the stolen goods
loudly boasting about it to tens of millions of people?

~~~
jamesbressi
How is that relevant or matter? (I mean that in the most polite way for
arguments sake)

Action is action. Theft is theft. Evidence is evidence. I can understand if
you mean because the iPhone became "high profile", but that shouldn't make a
difference in how our system works my friend.

~~~
anigbrowl
As has been observed by many, it's not simple theft. If this was about an
expensive cashmere sweater belonging to Steve Jobs, I would agree with you
completely.

But there is a strong argument that the acquisition and subsequent publicity
in this case infringed heavily on state and federal laws which protect trade
secrets. You might or might not agree whether those laws apply here, but
enough qualified people think they do that it explains the intensity and speed
of the investigation.

~~~
chc
It seems like that just begs the question. It doesn't really explain why
police action is so swift to protect trade secrets but so slow to protect
actual property rights.

------
stevenbedrick
I'm surprised that nobody's commented on Gawker's legal response to the
search, in which they point out that the search warrant (or, at least, the
scanned copy on Gizmodo's web site) clearly shows that a "night search" was
unauthorized, whereas the search of Chen's home just as clearly took place at
night. Does that mean that the search was unlawful?

~~~
zephyrfalcon
According to <http://law.onecle.com/california/penal/1533.html>:

"Upon a showing of good cause, the magistrate may, in his or her discretion,
insert a direction in a search warrant that it may be served at any time of
the day or night. In the absence of such a direction, the warrant shall be
served only between the hours of 7 a.m. and 10 p.m."

~~~
stevenbedrick
Huh. Well, I guess that answers that... thanks (to both repliers) for looking
into it.

------
jsm386
Nick Denton, the Gawker Media CEO tweeted an interesting question:

 _Do bloggers count as journalists? I guess we'll find out. Police raid
Gizmodo editor's home:<http://gizmodo.com/5524843/*>

<http://twitter.com/nicknotned/status/12902208226>

~~~
Lazlo_Nibble
The question's not whether or not bloggers count as journalists for the
purposes of the shield laws, it's whether or not the shield laws apply when
_the journalists themselves_ are under suspicion of committing a crime.

------
postfuturist
The warrant states that the search and seizure was to acquire evidence of a
felony. It seems like there are worse things that could happen to him than
having his computers seized. (Like getting convicted of a felony)

------
gorm
At least it was the real police and not the Apple secret police.

~~~
vaksel
for those who don't know what he is talking about:

<http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/07/22/on-the-apple-suicide/>

~~~
gorm
Not really. I was thinking about this article from some months back on
Gizmodo: [http://gizmodo.com/5427058/apple-gestapo-how-apple-hunts-
dow...](http://gizmodo.com/5427058/apple-gestapo-how-apple-hunts-down-leaks)

------
darrenkopp
isn't this a bit excessive over something that would have been out in ~3
months anyway?

An engineer leaves phone in a bar. Gizmodo purchases phone, does their expose,
then returns phone. Cops seize all of authors computers, phones, etc.

~~~
amock
They purchased known stolen property and used it to make some money before
returning it. That's illegal and I don't see why they shouldn't be held
responsible for what they did.

~~~
sophacles
No. They purchased a phone "found at a bar". They acted in good faith that it
had been lost. When asked to return the property, they did. There are
exceptions for good faith actions in most "receiving stolen goods" type laws
for a reason.

~~~
wmf
Disassembling the phone and posting pictures on the Web for profit then
returning the phone counts as good faith?

~~~
sophacles
Buying an item that is not blatantly restricted (e.g. is not marijuana), on
claims of the seller that it is legit, is good faith. Further, upon request
from the original owner, it was returned. This is also good faith... aka "oops
my bad". What they did in between is called "I do stuff to my property", and
perfectly ok.

Note: this was my thinking before I found out CA has weird laws about this
(see other replies in this thread).

~~~
wmf
There's no way to legitimately acquire a 4G iPhone prototype. So if the seller
said "I've got a 4G iPhone here" then it sounds like he was basically
admitting at least theft of trade secrets.

