I’m pretty sure I speak for everyone here at IntoMobile when I say that our heart goes out to Jason Chen. Poor guy had his computers taken away by the police last night while he was out with his wife having dinner, all because Steve Jobs is pissed off as all hell about the fact that he leaked the next iPhone 2 months before it was due to be unveiled.
Is this legal? Jason Chen isn’t just any old blogger with a lame XYZ.blogspot.com blog about his cat, he’s in charge of Gizmodo, arguably one of the largest, most read technology blogs on the internet. Now I’m not going to get into the semantics of whether or not he, or any other blogger, is a journalist, but when did search and seizure become something you could do whenever a large corporation picked up the phone and called the local donut munchers? Gawker Media, the guys who employee Jason, told the cops they’re breaking the law, that the proper thing to do would have been to issue a subpoena for all data related to the iPhone case, NOT to go into his house while he wasn’t home and take his computers.
When the iPhone story broke we all guessed he bought it off someone, and we pretty accurately predicted the amount he paid for said prototype. Would we have done the same thing? Abso-fucking-lutely. The people who are pissed off about this Apple leak are the people who admire the spectacle that is Apple, more so than they enjoy using the products. Was some of the magic stolen from the inevitable presentation Steve Jobs will be giving? Sure, but you know what … who cares?
When the Foxconn suicide story broke, everyone paused for a moment and realized that an iPhone is just a gadget, no one should lose their lives over it. The same goes to this story, that prototype is not worth a police investigation and the trampling of rights.
Stay strong Jason. Gawker Media, and all the other cool bloggers, are behind you.