Gizmodo Writer Jason Chen Gets House Raided by Police
After publishing pictures and video of an allegedly stolen new iPhone, Gizmodo writer Jason Chen last Friday had his house in California raided by police. Officers came to Chen’s house while he wasn’t in and took four computers and two personal servers as well as other smaller devices amounting to a total of 22 of Chen’s items.
In the official filings, the documents mark that the computers taken were used ‘œas the means of a felony’ but Gizmodo has already responded to the police by highlighting laws that protect journalists from police raids: ‘œUnder both state and federal law, a search warrant may not be validly issued to confiscate the property of a journalist’ said Gawker’s chief operating officer, Gaby Darbyshire.
Nick Denton, founder of Gawker Media, said in an instant message to The New York Times ‘œAre bloggers journalists? I guess we’ll find out’.
The gadget blog had paid $5,000 for the phone which was, according to Gizmodo, lost in a bar, where the tipster found it and went looking for a prospective buyer. This move places more pressure on Gizmodo as the legal standings of this area are fairly vague. Our resident legal expert Dan Rosenthal offers this analysis:
Gawker Media COO Gaby Darbyshire claims that the search warrant to remove these computers was invalid under section 1524(g) of the California Penal Code. That section simply references section 1070 of the California Evidence Code. The relevant part of that provides exemptions for “periodical publications”, but do those apply to blogs?
It’s questionable, according to legal scholars. Darbyshire cites “O’Grady v. Superior Court”, a 2006 California case, which appears to lend some support for their claim. Simultaneously, however, they’ll have to overcome the difference between the two cases — O’Grady involved trade secrets in emails, whereas Gizmodo involves arguably stolen property. And Kotaku has referenced themselves in the past as bloggers, not journalists. In any event, the law is still unclear, and Gizmodo’s case isn’t a slam-dunk defense.
Denton may already know the answer to his question. In an interview with New York Time’s journalist Howard Kurtz, Denton said:
“We don’t seek to do good,” says Denton, wearing a purplish shirt, jeans and a beard that resembles a three-day growth. “We may inadvertently do good. We may inadvertently commit journalism. That is not the institutional intention.”
Note: This post was amended to highlight that the raid happened on Friday 23rd April 2010 and to add the last paragraph and quote.
Another great reason to avoid dealing in stolen goods for profit. Annoyingly all the info we’re getting is from Gizmodo themselves, I’d be curious to see what the Police have to say.
What’s bad apart from the cause of this itself is that if Gizmodo do get classed as journalists pretty much blog that’s of the same size will go “we’re journalists too!”…
Under Nukezilla rules, this would be it’s own post;
Tough week for Gizmodo and Chen, but hell they fucking deserve it,
@wardrox: As in, “here’s something funny by someone else”? As long as we keep some sort of input than that seems fine, I’d just be cautious about the whole site going a bit too Tumblr.
I hope the intrusion was loud, surprising and made his dog defecate violently on the most expensive flooring in his house.
Serves them right.
I’m uncomfortable with the police raiding his home and confiscating personal computers, especially as he might be something of a “journalist”. Maybe….
But it’s tough to feel bad for him since Gizmodo acted like such douchebags
I’m not cool with one time raiding a house and taking all that shit away just for a fucking iphone….unless its the power of apples lawyers, on the other hand if it was some peder ass I’m all for it. then again what do I know.