Police in California have raided computers, servers, memory sticks, and cameras from the home of a gadget blog editor who revealed details of a secret iPhone prototype.
Image from Gizmodo.com of a phone believed to be the fourth generation iPhone that was apparently found on the floor in the toilet of a bar in California
Image from Gizmodo.com of the handset believed to be a fourth generation iPhone
Jason Chen of the Gizmodo blog described how he returned from dinner with his wife to find officers had been in his home for several hours and were cataloguing a range of items seized under a search warrant.
The warrant, published on the blog, showed a local judge had specifically authorised detectives to take "printed documents, images and/or notations pertaining to the sale and/or purchase of the stolen iPhone prototype".
Gizmodo last week revealed in an exclusive feature how it had bought the prototype for $5,000 from an unidentified person who found it in a German beer bar in California, where it had been left by 27-year-old Apple software engineer Gray Powell.
The gadget blog ran several articles which verified the product and looked at the features of the next-generation iPhone, which has a front-facing camera and a flat-backed case, among other alterations.
It said it then returned the iPhone prototype to Apple after the notoriously secretive company asked for it back.
Following the raid of Mr Chen's house, a legal representative of Gawker Media, which owns the Gizmodo website, wrote to police demanding that the blogger's property be returned immediately.
In the letter, published in full on the Gizmodo blog, chief operating officer Gaby Darbyshire pointed out that state law does not permit a search warrant to be issued to confiscate the property of a journalist.
"Jason is a journalist who works full time for our company [...] He works from home, which is his de facto newsroom, and all equipment used by him there is used for the purposes of his employment with us," she wrote.
She went on: "...It is abundantly clear that under the law a search warrant to remove these items was invalid."
Gizmodo's exclusive coverage of the iPhone prototype generated a surge of an estimated three million viewers in 24 hours.
Meanwhile the unfortunate Apple engineer Gray Powell, who has not spoken publically following the incident, was invited by the airline Lufthansa to indulge his love for German beer with a free trip to Munich.
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