technocracy & the matrix

Warrent Used to Raid Journalist's Home Possibly Invalid

Welcome to Steve Jobs' police state. Literally. California, enamored by Apple hype, sanctioned a possibly unconstitutional police raid on a journalist. Below is Wired's account of the events. Is Jobs worse than Gates at this point? Is it time for an Apple boycott?

Police raided the house of an editor for Gizmodo on Friday and seized computers and other equipment. The raid was part of an investigation into the leak of a prototype iPhone that the site obtained for a blockbuster story last week. Now, a legal expert has raised questions about the legality of the warrant used in the raid.

On Friday, officers from California’s Rapid Enforcement Allied Computer Team in San Mateo, California, appeared at the home of Gizmodo editor Jason Chen while he was not there and broke open the front door.

Chen and his wife discovered the officers when they returned from dinner around 9:45 that evening. According to an account he posted online, Chen noticed his garage door was partly open, and when he tried to open it completely, officers came out and told him they had a warrant to search the premises. The warrant had been signed just hours earlier, at 7:00 p.m., by a San Mateo County Superior Court judge. It allowed the police to search Chen, his residence and any vehicle in his control.

The officers were in the process of cataloging the items they had already taken from the premises and told Chen they had been in his home a “few hours already.” According to California law, a search warrant may be served between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m. unless otherwise authorized.

The officers told Chen he could request reimbursement for the damage to his front door.

Jennifer Granick, civil liberties director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said Chen is protected from a warrant by both state and federal laws.

The federal Privacy Protection Act prohibits the government from seizing materials from journalists and others who possess material for the purpose of communicating to the public. The government cannot seize material from the journalist even if it’s investigating whether the person who possesses the material committed a crime. Full Story


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The Daily P.P. Awards
Predictive programming - when TV tells you how it's gonna be

Monday night's award goes to CSI: Miami (episode "Count Me Out") on CBS. The entire CSI franchise is anathema to civil liberties and science. But that is well-worn territory.

This rerun, originally aired in December, was about catching a meth dealer who murdered a Census taker. The episode only briefly touches on any anti-government sentiment inherent with such a topic but two subtle moments in the episode plant a seed that all Americans may be criminals.

Detective Calleigh Duquesne expresses the dangers for government employees like the Census taker because of "all of the anti-government people out there." Later in the episode a charcter, who was upset that police were on her property unlawfully and that taxes are too high, was arrested for falsely imprisoning her maid.

The nearly-subliminal message: those who disagree with government are dangerous. A recent poll showed that almost 80 percent of American do not trust the government. Are 4 out of 5 of us now suspects?

also:
*School district that spied on children in their bedrooms has a friend in federal judge

*China demands that companies spy on citizens

*Poll: More people using government web sites

*Android's rising popularity may make it next iPhone

*Media Wages War on Single Black Women