(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); Recently many of you have read the recent expose on the new 4g iPhone posted on gizmodo.com. The author of the near famous blog had his house broken into by cops and about 2 dozen pieces of equipment siezed. Including computers, laptops, and digital cameras.




Apparently Shen and his wife arrived home shortly before 10pm to see that their front door was broken in by officers. Shen was searched for weapons upon arrival.



There is a shield law in place in California, that does also apply to web journalist that is to protect material not yet published. No matter what form that data is in. So the parent company of gizmodo, Gawker Media, is stating that the warrant and congruent search and siezures were illegal. However, it is yet to be determined if a blogger is the equivalent of a web journalist.

The article posted by Chen about the 4g iPhone is one of the most popular articles on gizmodo. The manner in which gizmodo recieved the iPhone is slightly questionable since, they paid 5000USD to a guy who found it at a bar in silicon valley.

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---UPDATE----

After posting this information yesterday, many more news posts have come up about this incident. The most interesting of which details an interview with a source who was very close to the finder of the 4g prototype. Possibly the finder himself or his room mate.

The source suggests that the "sale" to gizmodo wasn't actually a sale, but a price for 'exclusive rights' to examine the phone and then return it to its owner or to Apple. Gizmodo did return it to Apple after Apple's request to return the phone, but this was after Gizmodo posted many pics and detail about the prototype.

Apparently a lot of the neighbors and friend's knew about the phone, but no one could tell if it was a new iPhone or something else iPhone related. The source also said that they made several attempts to verify what the phone and to locate the owner. The source said they went as fair as trying to contact Apple about the phone, but yielded no succesful results in any of these endeavors.

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To me, a blogger IS a Web Journalist.

The Staff of QJ.Net are Web Journalist too.

Our News staff here would be considered Amateur Web Journalist. (No offense guys)


So he should be protected.

I think chen should definitely qualify, but this like just happened. The COO of Gawker Media is backing him, as is Tom Newton, general counsel for the California Newspaper Publishers Assn.

Again this just happened like friday night, so who knows what will happen in the near future. The LA times article was just posted over an hour ago. I'll keep an eye out for updates.

Awesome post Mudd!!!

Who sells a leaked iphone for only $5,000?!?!? I'd hold that for ransom and call AAPL.