Um, yeah. At this point I think we can probably say anything Apple or Gizmodo publishes on this or related topics isn't an objective piece of evidence and should be considered partial. Do you have corroboration from a non Apple or Gizmodo source (that isn't just a back reference to the Gizmodo story)?
The three parties who still have questions to answer are
a) The engineer - did he get drunk? Did he leave his phone behind? What efforts did he make to retrieve it?
b) The finder - Did they find it or did they take it? Why didn't they do the 'standard thing' - i.e. give it to the owner of the bar? Why didn't they take it to the police ? Why did they try to sell it to Gizmodo instead?
b) Gizmodo/Chen - Why did they pay for it? What legal advice did they get? Why, later, when they knew the possible legal consequences, did they continue to milk the story rather than trying to redress the wrong that was done?
Apple's involvement with the story as far as
any evidence or statement so far - and I AM going to ignore the wacky 'it's all been staged' conspiracy theories because I see no evidence to suggest they are anything but that - is to lose a piece of test equipment and, when it came to public light who was in possession of it, ask for it back. Then ask the police to investigate whether it was stolen or not. That is all they've done and, frankly, I don't actually see what else they could have done unless you assume someone at Apple is clairvoyant.
You apparently believe it's more likely that Apple engineered this whole farce than it just being a case of an opportunist thief and a journalist who saw dollar signs before his brain got into gear. I can't find a way to square that logic without assuming some sort of neural interference. As I've said many times 'never assume malice where incompetence is a valid explanation'.
That has yet to be finally decided.
Well it's hard to issue a search warrant for evidence you don't know about yet. Most search warrants are pretty much for 'anything you can find that might be related to the events under investigation on the premises against which the warrant is issued', at least in the UK - I'm not sure if the details differ in the US. If the police were required to list in detail everything they were going to take into evidence before the warrant was executed, search warrants would be effectively useless.
Wrong. If this were true every criminal would pose as a journalist. A warrant cannot be issued against the property of a journalist in the circumstances of an investigation into someone that provided information to the journalist. Is it perfectly possible to issue a warrant against the property of a journalist if the journalist themselves is under investigation. That's a very important distinction. The shield law is there to protect the sources of journalists and to stop journalists being forced to reveal those sources. It does not give journalists carte blanche to do what the hell they like and not be investigated for it.
In this case, things are clouded because we actually have two crimes allegedly being committed. The finder allegedly committed 'theft by finding' when he failed to return the phone to it's owner or hand it in to the police. Gizmodo/Chen allegedly committed 'receiving stolen goods' when they bought the phone. In the case of an investigation into the former, Chen's property is protected by the shield law. In the case of the latter, it is not. The key question is what were the terms of the search warrant in so far as which allegation they referred to.
And still having the item is the only viable form of evidence in the case of an accusation of 'receiving' is it? That's a new one. And very convenient for the accused, I must say. What about the financial records that show him paying for the phone? What about the phone records that show him communicating with the seller? What about the photographs he took while in possession of the phone? All those are also viable evidence in the investigation and all those are on Chen's property. Chen's lawyer may say they aren't admissible evidence but then he would say that. That's his job.
With all due respect, cobblers. Nobody pays five grand for something they think is a hoax. They knew exactly what it was and they knew (or should have known) what the legal consequences of keeping it were. They certainly would have known Apple just wouldn't be giving the things away and anyone that had one that wasn't an Apple employee shouldn't have had it. They either are stupid or are claiming to be now as a defense. Either doesn't reflect well on them.
Call me weird (and they certainly would) but if I go into the Nokia shop in Manchester and ask them about what prototypes Nokia are brewing up that they haven't announced yet, I'll get some pretty blank looks then too. I haven't heard one objective observer who says that what the finder did could be considered 'reasonable efforts' to return the phone. And selling it to Gizmodo definitely isn't.
Jon
