San Mateo Police: The New Pinkertons Or A Simple Case Of Theft?

The case of the stolen phone seen ‘round the world has become a major hot button topic with both mainstream and online media, as pundits share opinions back and forth as to whether or not the blogger in question should be protected by California’s Journalist Shield Laws. Ironically, far less attention has been paid to just how much taxpayer money is being spent on the investigation, which, at its core, involves nothing more than a stolen cell phone.

Several years ago, I had a phone stolen from me. In order to claim my phone’s insurance and get a replacement, I had to file a report with police. I was told that the probability of the phone being recovered was, “none.” No police were sent to search for the culprit, no hours were spent on my case.

In another incident, I had my car vandalized by neighborhood teens. Mine wasn’t the only car vandalized, but I was furious: an iron file had been used to repeatedly scratch the hood of my car, and super glue had been poured all over the hood and windshield. The sideview mirror had also been smashed off with what I can only assume was a baseball bat. Even though I provided police with a beer bottle that had imprinted on it a fingerprint in said superglue, I was once again told that police were not going to spend resources to analyze the bottle because the chances that the person who left the print was in a criminal database were slim. I had to pay the $500 deductible for my car insurance and spent hours using gasoline to scrub the glue off my windshield so that I could drive it.

And now, 3000 miles across the country, countless hours and taxpayer resources are being spent to capture an unknown person who picked a phone up at a bar and didn’t return it to Apple Corporation, which begs the question: have similar measures been taking for private citizens in California who have had their cell phones stolen?

Having spent 15 years living in Southeast Pennsylvania, a parallel that comes to mind is the story of the Molly Maguires, and the Pinkerton detectives hired by Frank Gowen to infiltrate their group and squash efforts at unionization. The famous trials that took place in 1877, where seven men were: arrested by a private police force, tried and convicted in a private court – on which Gowen had himself appointed special prosecutor, and sentenced to death for a myriad of crimes, show the dangers of police acting on behalf of big business. To this day, the famous “Handprint on the Wall” in Jim Thorpe’s Carbon County Jail serves as a grim reminder for all who visit the jailhouse museum.

No, Apple is not squashing attempts at blogger unionization, but are they taking extreme measures to punish a blogger for essentially creating a whirlwind of free press for their upcoming product? And if so, what legal precedent are they setting for the blogosphere – and more importantly – is the secrecy of the iPhone 4G worth the potential ramifications? In the end, what negative impact did the leak have for the company? If anything, the negative PR created by the continued prosecution of Chen far outweighs the extremely enthusiastic reports coming from the leaked prototype.

So are the San Mateo police acting as Apple’s own Pinkertons? Yahoo! News reported that Apple executives sit on the board of the high-tech task force that conducted the raid on Chen’s home:

“Apple Inc. has provided “advice, recommendations, strategic input, and direction” to the high-tech task force that raided Gizmodo editor Jason Chen’s home last week in the course of a criminal investigation into how the gadget website obtained a prototype of Apple’s unreleased G4 iPhone, the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s office tells Yahoo! News.”

Apple executives are also confirming that they requested an investigation by the San Mateo police after news of the “stolen” phone broke to the public. Still, the extent of their involvement remains a matter of speculation.

What do you think? Is the San Mateo case an issue of journalistic shield laws and the violation of press rights, a case of Big Business pushing a government force for their own means, or a simple issue of theft? And, if you’re a Californian who’s had a phone stolen – how did the police handle your theft?