Doors and locks are deeply ingrained symbols of privacy and access. The police busting down his door is, as Stewart notes, behavior we expect for /meth labs/, not bloggers.
And to play devil's advocate on /this/ side of the debate, paying for property of dubious ownership is considered a crime unto itself, and for pretty good reason.
Journalists aren't so heavily protected by shield laws that they can break crimes willy-nilly in pursuit of a story. Or any regular old story. It's one thing to break open Watergate - it's another entirely to buy a phone from a guy that they know doesn't have legal ownership of it, all for the sake of one-upping everybody else for the /review of a commercial product/.
It's arguably pretty bad precedent to just let it be. While Apple's, and the police's, actions have been comically overblown, /so was Gizmodo's/. If /nothing/ else, they really ought to be eating crow for engaging in sleazy checkbook journalism.
The movie scene I was referencing describes the situation exactly. Someone does something mildly bad and technically illegal, and a crowd forms that wants to kill for the sake of killing.
He gave back the phone. Give him a month probation or whatever, but don't take everything he owns.
