California police seize Gizmodo editor's computers in felony investigation

Last Friday, the California Rapid Enforcement Allied Computer Team entered Jason Chen's home and seized many of the Gizmodo editor's electronic gadgets and gizmos as part of the Californian authority's felony investigation of the tech blog.

If you missed the hubbub last week, Gizmodo openly admitted to paying $5,000 to obtain a prototype of the fourth generation iPhone, which Apple Engineer Gray Powell left in a German Beer Garden.

After the iPhone 4G hype blew over, many pundits argued the legality of Gizmodo's journalistic practices. Under Californian law, "finders keepers" doesn't cut it, and wilfully keeping another's property when the finder likely knows who the owner is can lead to severe repercussions.

On April 23rd, the Judge of the Superior Court in San Mateo, California, signed a warrant for Chen's home to be searched and his property to be seized.

They weren't expecting to find the iPhone 4G itself - that was sent back to Apple after the Cupertino smartphone giant reached out to Gizmodo. What they did take was anything that was "used as the means of committing a felony" and anything that "tends to show that a felony has been committed".

The REACT team took items such as Chen's computers, servers, phones, cameras, USB flash drives, and MP3 players. They performed the raid while Chen was not present.

The gadget blog, and its corporate owner Gawker Media, is currently fighting the Californian authorities over the property seizure, saying the search warrant was invalid under the state's penal code. Evidence Code Section 1070 says the police can't raid a journalist's home if they want to protect a source.

The investigation and legal proceedings are still underway, but we'll let you know if anything interesting comes of it.

Want to know more about the phone itself? How about Pocket Gamer's extensive guide to everything we know about the iPhone 4G.