∞ Police seize Gizmodo editor's computers

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Computers belonging to Gizmodo editor Jason Chen were seized last Friday night by California’s Rapid Enforcement Allied Computer Team, the gadget blog revealed late Monday.

The police confiscated four computers, two servers, a number of hard drives and digital cameras at Chen’s home while he was out with his wife for the evening.

The search warrant police obtained to enter Chen’s house gave them permission to confiscate computers, storage devices, thumb drives, CD-ROM drives and disks, servers, workstations, digital cameras, keyboards, mouse, printers and many other types of electronic devices.

Gizmodo parent company, Gawker Media, was quick to respond to the seizure. Gaby Darbyshire, COO of Gawker, sent a letter to the police claiming the search was invalid because Chen is a full-time journalist.

Citing section 1524(g) of the California Penal Code, Darbyshire said that a warrant cannot be issued for “a publisher, editor, reporter or other person connected with or employed upon a newspaper, magazine or other periodical publication.”


  • http://www.yourmaclifeshow.com Shawn King

    Man..this is gonna get *very* interesting….

    • http://intensedebate.com/people/jdalrymple Jim Dalrymple

      Oh, no shit!

  • Mike

    Darbyshire needs to stop pretending she’s a lawyer and get real legal counsel pronto. I’m not a lawyer either, but I can read the California Evidence Code.

    The section she uses to argue the search was illegal pertains only to search warrants connected with trying to suss out a confidential source (“for refusing to disclose … the source of any information procured while so connected or employed for publication”). This media shield law has no protections for a journalist accused of theft or misappropriation of stolen property, which as I understand, is what Chen is accused of.

    Furthermore, Darbyshire is nuts if she thinks the police are going to just hand over what they seized via the search warrant based on her letter of protest. That’s what actual legal motions are for — written by an actual lawyer and decided upon by an actual judge in a court of law, who approved the search warrant in the first place.

    Everything I’ve seen from her — from her supposed initial reading of the law that allowed Chen to publish his expose of the prototype to her current screed to the police — just reeks of amateur hour and too much time watching Law & Order.

    • http://twitter.com/ShawnKing @ShawnKing

      "Everything I've seen from her just reeks of amateur hour and too much time watching Law & Order."

      I get the same sense reading her statements. For example, she claimed the search and seizure was illegal because the warrant didn't allow for "Night Searches" and she claimed that the police were at Chen's house at 9:45pm. Chen himself said the police said they had been there for a couple of hours before he got home. CA law states that the "no night searches" warrant means they are prohibited after 10pm.

      Now, how come *I* know that but a lawyer representing Gawker Media doesn't?

  • http://twitter.com/ShawnKing @ShawnKing

    I've got the popcorn. Someone bring over beer – this'll be great to watch.

  • http://www.basilweb.net Walt

    LOL! Whether the police were wrong or not, I’m glad it happened. Serves them right. At the least it will have caused him some inconveniences.

    • Grapho

      Yep, lets see how he feels when strangers go through his belongings, I wonder if they will take them appart and photograph them?

  • Perry Clease

    I wonder if laws protecting journalists apply if he paid for the iPhone knowing that it was "hot."

  • http://twitter.com/d00d @d00d

    This is downright hilarious. If I were Jason, I'd be a little peeved at whoever was pretending to be legal counsel for Gizmodo when they bought that thing.

  • Kevin

    Hope he didn't have any embarrasing porn stashed on there! :D

    • Perry Clease

      I don't think that he works for the Securities and Exchange Commission. :)

  • http://intensedebate.com/profiles/deanlewis Dean Lewis

    It definitely looks like the D.A. is trying to gather evidence for various charges. If they find the name of the seller, that might come under the law about confidential sources, but I'd have to read the law and legal precedent more closely to see if that applies when the source and journalists are allegedly involved in buying and selling stolen property.

    • http://twitter.com/ShawnKing @ShawnKing

      Turns out, the DA already knew the name of the person who found the phone (not necessarily that of the seller but it's a fair assumption) and had spoken to him already. They haven't even gone through Chen's computers yet.

      So the police *weren't* looking for Chen's source on the computers.

  • http://rob-of-cleargraphics.blogspot.com/ cgrscott

    I'm glad you posted this story. I saw a number of headlines on Macsurfer.com about this. But, it's interesting that some Mac news sites won't carry this story. I guess they don't want to draw attention to a competitor.

  • http://intensedebate.com/people/jdalrymple Jim Dalrymple

    I'll link to whatever source I think the readers will like :)