Apple's illegal house search

[Lewis]

Apple’s Unusual Hunt for a Missing iPhone

September 2, 2011, 7:14 pm

9:58 p.m. | Updated Revised throughout to reflect new information about the search for the phone.
If Apple thinks you have something that belongs to it, can its security personnel come to your house, gain entrance with the help of the police and search for physical and electronic evidence among your possessions?
While many details are still sketchy, that is apparently what happened in San Francisco in July when, for the second time, an Apple employee lost a test version of a future iPhone model in a bar. According to CNet, which broke the story, and SF Weekly, which provided a fuller picture of the incident, Apple went to great lengths to try to get its errant property back.

Apple used a GPS feature of the phone to trace it to a house near the bar. Sergio Calderon, a 22-year-old resident of the house, was quoted by SF Weekly as saying that he had visited the bar where the iPhone 5 disappeared, the tequila lounge Cava22, but that he did not have the phone. Mr. Calderon said he was visited by six people, four men and two women, none in uniform. He presumed they were all police officers, an assumption they made no effort to correct.
One of the people gave a phone number to Mr. Calderon, which SF Weekly traced to an Apple security official. A San Francisco police spokesman told the newspaper that the real police officers stayed outside while the pair from Apple searched Mr. Calderon’s house and car and examined his computer, an arrangement that raises more questions than it answers about both Apple and the police.

If the incident unfolded as reported, what did the police think they were participating in? Why did the police initially say there was no official report of the search? Were the police officers on duty? Why did it take four of them to accompany the Apple investigators? And, not least, where is the phone?
The police spokesman, Troy Dangerfield, did not return numerous calls. A statement was promised but by early evening had not shown up. Apple, as usual, declined to comment. Mr. Calderon could not be reached.
In last year’s missing iPhone incident, the men who found the phone sold it to the tech blog Gizmodo for $5,000, and the blog then spilled the details about the phone’s new features. Misdemeanor criminal charges were filed against the two men. Maybe the iPhone 6 will come with a feature that allows Apple to detonate it remotely so this never happens again.
Ny Times

 

[Lewis]

Now I ask you, was that legal ?

 

[jasoncran]

no, it wasnt. viligante at the most.

 

[reba]

Working for Apple had they signed an agreement that allowed for searches?

 

[tim-from-pa]

I have no problem if someone steals something electronic and then it can be traced by a signal, i.e. the equivalent of a kidnapped person screaming for help.

But then, in this particular case, Apple had no right to search anyone's house. The proper channels is to obtain a search warrant based on the evidence, and then the police have to search, not private citizens.

If this really happened as the story goes, Apple could be in for a big lawsuit.

The philosophy I use to entertain the right to privacy is simply this: It's nobody's business what you have, unless you crossed the line (went over to them) and interfered with or stolen someone else's property. Then in that case the law has every right to search. It's not right to search a guy just because he does not fit some kind of mold and the evidence is weak, particularly if he is otherwise minding his own business. (I will make exceptions for certain gray areas that I do not think they should search, such as the music downloading controversy--- this is because oftentimes such stuff is crammed down our throats using our airwaves or wires and putting their foot into the door and instigating it)

Or, to put it another way, the instigator is in the wrong and by doing so gave up their right to privacy.

 

[Lewis]

The police stood outside and let the Apple folks go in and do the search ?ed!