Asking "Why were two completely different crime department cases in two completely different jurisdictions handled in two completely different ways?" is just glomming onto current news in an attempt to raise the profile of some other complaint.
The complaint (her TRO should have been enforced) is valid, but has nothing to do with the handling of trade secrets investigation elsewhere in the country.
The problem in both cases is the absence of any standards governing the exercise of the prosecutor's and investigator's discretion. The appearance of impropriety in both cases magnifies the problem.
If REACT wants to make it a high priority to issue subpoenas to recover information from third parties that might relate to someone else's wrongful possession of a phone for a brief amount of time, then so be it. Last I read they were focused on major counterfeit software operations.
At the moment, though, it appears REACT suddenly developed a zeal for prosecuting a trivial offense merely because the offense is high profile and involved an influential victim. That's a problem, and it's the same problem in the Gonzales case: the improper exercise of discretion. The public is entitled to know how and why REACT is utilizing its limited resources.
Selectively enforcing high-profile offenses is a valid strategy if you want the increased awareness to be used as a dissuader for similar offenses, so, I understand when the prosecution wants to be "overzealous" when it comes to a valuable prototype.
Having said that, what happened to that woman is inexcusable. I understand police doesn't want to be used to intimidate a parent on behalf of other parent, but this inaction is absolutely shocking.
"Selectively enforcing high-profile offenses is a valid strategy if you want the increased awareness to be used as a dissuader for similar offenses, so, I understand when the prosecution wants to be "overzealous" when it comes to a valuable prototype."
I can respect that. But that also raises a number of questions. Does REACT believe that this incident will create a wave of prototype thefts by journalists? Do they believe that public reaction and civil lawsuits arising from such incidents will be insufficient to deter future individuals contemplating such a crime?
The bigger problem is that we're all doing a post hoc analysis that REACT likely didn't do at all. Maybe it saw a hot story in the news and so dashed off the broadest subpoena it possibly could. Maybe Apple made a few calls. The situation is concerning enough to warrant, at a minimum, an explanation from REACT as to what they thought they were doing. Depending on that explanation, an investigation or sanctions could be warranted.
Frankly, that might happen sooner than we think. I wouldn't be surprised if the EFF or ACLU filed suit on behalf of Chen for the unlawful seizure of his property. Of all places, California is the last state in which you want to start seizing a journalist's computers on a mere hunch that a crime was committed by someone else.
The complaint is that if the law is the law then every case should be handled the exact same. Regardless of who it is. A phone is a phone 3 daughters is 3 daughters. It should not matter whose phone or whose daughters.
They are simply showing how bad/corrupt/failed the current law system is.
The cases may be different crimes, and in different areas, but it's just illustrative of how out of balance the justice system is. When the victim is high-profile, the enforcement is swift and overbearing. When the victim is unknown or powerless, the enforcement is often nonexistent.
Seizing personal computers, cameras, cell phones, servers, and paperwork, for a case where the property has already been returned, might be legal but is also a completely inappropriate response. There's already a very clear case here, and lives are not in danger. It doesn't matter if he's a journalist or not, this is just not the level of action that should have been taken. We should be able to expect fairly consistent responses to legal situations, based on the severity of the crime and the impact, rather than based on the identity of the victim or the media attention focused on the case.
Quite, but Gizmodo/Gawker are in the business of getting attention. It's not as if they normally toil in obscurity and suddenly found themselves singled out for publicity.
The complaint (her TRO should have been enforced) is valid, but has nothing to do with the handling of trade secrets investigation elsewhere in the country.