Ignoring a Crime

April 27th, 2010

The EFF’s Jennifer Ganick on Jason Chen:

“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,” Jennifer Ganick, the EFFs civil liberties director told BBC News.

Those protections apply to journalists collecting information from sources. Gizmodo did not just receive information and photos of the new iPhone from his “source” (like Engadget did). Instead, they purchased property they knew was not their “source’s” rightful property, and appropriated it for their own economic gain.

If they merely received information and photos from the individual who stole the phone, they would not be the subject of a criminal investigation. They decided to commit a crime.

People defending Jason Chen and Gizmodo on the grounds they are journalists and, by law and justice, should not be subject to searches by police are either batshit-insane or intentionally ignoring a crime so as to (1) criticize the police and/or (2) criticize Apple.

The police may not search his property to try to find his source, but if they believe he potentially committed a crime, then they certainly can. And they should. Apple doesn’t deserve its property stolen any more than individuals do. Their size and success doesn’t make it any less immoral to steal from them.

People’s willingness to absolve Chen and Gizmodo, and even laud them, for involving themselves in the stealing of property is quite worrying. These people are willing to accept crimes as long as they are committed against people or groups they personally dislike.

What they did was wrong. If the DA decides to bring charges against him or Gizmodo, there will be absolutely nothing wrong with that. I won’t have an ounce of sympathy for them, because they knew what they were doing. They knew it was an actual prototype iPhone, or else they wouldn’t have paid $5,000 for it. You don’t pay that for Chinese knockoffs.