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Comment by jonknee | Hacker News Reader

Classified US military documents and videos are a whole lot more secret and illegal to publish than an iPhone prototype (and have a lot bigger consequences--there won't be any retaliation suicide bombings from HTC). I think it's illogical to call for Gizmodo to be prosecuted without also saying the same for Wikileaks.

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There's a whole world of difference between leaking pics and specs of a new gadget, and videos of your government killing people in (arguably?) dubious circumstances...

In Australia there's a specific Code of Ethics that journalists are supposed to work by. http://www.alliance.org.au/media_alliance_code_of_ethics/ - other countries may have similar things, but it basically sets out the role of good journalism.

You can easily argue the public interest was served by releasing the wikileaks video. The iPhone reveal is just tech industry gossip.

In Gruber's post he points to a law that clearly state that if the theft was done in the interest of justice, then it could be considering OK. I think wikileaks might be able to use this. They are doing it in the interest of the public in their mind which is completely different here. Gizmodo did it in the interest of making money and paid for a phone they knew had been stolen.

Also, wikileaks isn't hosted in the US and thus doesn't have to obey to American laws. They also did not steal those videos these are copies and in my IANAL opinion is completely different.

I did not see anywhere that it was stolen, any pointers?

Did you read TFA ? What happened perfectly fits in the legal definition of theft and handling of stolen property.

There's also the problem that the "found on a barstool" story came from the guy who sold it to Gizmodo. Gruber hints at another possibility, but let me just lay it out explicitly:

1. Powell takes the photo that he posted to Facebook, but uses the front-facing camera to do it. (Hey, field testing under real-world conditions!) 2. Seller notices this (iPhone with a front-facing camera? WTF??). 3. Seller puts two and two together ("cha-ching" noise, dollar signs roll up in their eyes, etc.). 4. Seller sticks around for a while, picks Powell's pocket at the first opportunity, and bails. 5. Seller lays low for a while to see if word gets out, thinks up a plausible story, then makes the rounds of the tech blogs. 6. Profit!

If this is what Apple believes happened, it's unlikely they'd take any action (assuming they take action at all) until after the phone is announced/released. Starting that ball rolling now would be too big a distraction from the actual launch. But after that it could get very ugly for Gizmodo very quickly.

But Wikileaks isn't in the business of just posting any classified document. They're whistleblowing.

Posting the private text pages of New Yorkers on 9/11 wasn't whistle blowing. They were clearly stolen too.

You don't get this 'public interest' concept, do you?

It did bring attention to the fact that these pages weren't as secure as people thought, and that others on Wall Street might be sniffing pages for financial gain.

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