Police Raid Gizmodo Editor’s House Over iPhone 4G Leak
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California police seized computers from Jason Chen after the blogger posted the first picture of the iPhone 4G online.
California police have raided the house of Gizmodo editor Jason Chen to seize computer equipment after Gizmodo published an exclusive scoop on the next generation iPhone 4G model.
A multi-agency task force were granted a warrant to search the residence of Mr Chen in Fremont, California by a Superior Court judge in San Mateo County. According to state law, Mr Chen, and Gizmodo may be guilty of a felony, after the gadget blog made significant personal gain from the appropriation of stolen property.
Last week, the story broke online that Apple Software Engineer Gray Powell had lost his prototype of the new iPhone 4G in a German beer garden in California. The phone was cleverly disguised as a normal iPhone 3GS, but upon further investigation, an unnamed source realised what he had stumbled upon, and got in contact with Gizmodo.
Gizmodo confirmed that they paid $5,000 for the prototype, and then proceeded to dissect it and unveiled all the juicy details about Apple’s new phone including the fact that the 4G will have a front facing camera.
As a result of the scope, Gizmodo’s website went into meltdown, as they received millions of hits from avid fans, desperate to see the new look iPhone gadget. Apple requested that the prototype be returned to them immediately, but now Gizmodo could face a law suit for their profiteering from Apple’s lost property.
However, civil liberties director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Jennifer Ganick told the BBC that the search warrant was invalid: “You have a reporter who is disseminating newsworthy information to the public that are supposed to be protected from search and seizures. These protections apply to people who collect information in order to report it to the public regardless of what name you slap on them; blogger, journalist or whatever.”
