Police assist Apple in search of man's home

reply to post by Flyer

The man was innocent, how would you like a corporation to come and search your house by posing as the police?

It was 100% wrong.

I couldn't agree more.

Had they done it right, the man wouldn't have even known he was searched, and the police would have never been involved. See my previous posts in this thread for the reasoning behind that.

Im struggling to get to grips with corp men (security or not) finding, buying uniforms and then acting as policemen.

If i was asked to do somthing like that, id be pretty quick to say "what the heck, no chance whats wrong with you".

These days putting some neon lighting UNDER your car (stupid car mod for motorheads) gets you arrested for inpersonating a policeman.

Why would corperate employees think any different?

Im not saying its false, im just saying its very difficult to belive, sounds suspeciously like anti corp, OTT story twisting.

Funny... I would have expected the word "fascism" to figure more prominently in this discussion... since this is a text-book example of government serving corporate interests at the behest of the corporation and under the guise of government 'authority.'

Frankly, I can't imagine too many people being happy that the taxed fruits of their labor serve to fund corporate security matters... but then who are we kidding... BP, Halliburton, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs.... by now we should just be taking it for granted.

I really have to defend Apple here. If my car was stolen, and I tracked it to somebodies garage via GPS tracking, I would be searching that garage police or not. Getting back stolen or "found" things is important to people who own said things.

I can not however defend Apple if they impersonated police officers. That is illegal and morally wrong.

reply to post by Maxmars

Funny... I would have expected the word "fascism" to figure more prominently in this discussion... since this is a text-book example of government serving corporate interests at the behest of the corporation and under the guise of government 'authority.'

I think that's a rather grandiose interpretation of what happened.

What it sounds like, to me, was a few Apple employees had some contacts within the police department - old friends from a former career. When they came up with the case of a missing phone, they simply called up some buddies who agreed to help them out (possibly a police chief or someone a little higher up the chain than a patrol officer). The officers handled the meet&greet as an escort for the Apple employees, and the person being investigated simply assumed those Apple employees were with the police department.

It's a slight-of-hand.

While it may give the appearance of fascism, the mechanics involved were not what I would consider to be fascism - which implies more of an institutional policy.

Frankly, I can't imagine too many people being happy that the taxed fruits of their labor serve to fund corporate security matters... but then who are we kidding... BP, Halliburton, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs.... by now we should just be taking it for granted.

One could make the argument that Apple likely makes large donations to support the local police authorities (I'm playing devil's advocate, here). That, or they could make large donations to a number of "downed officer support" charities that give them quite a bit of unofficial sway within the local departments.

In which case, it is hardly surprising that police would rally to the assistance of such a large, -single- source of revenue (dispersed collections may bring in more total, but are not as easily recognizable as a single entity).

This last part is mostly me playing devil's advocate - not what I really see as happening, here.

Cops working on an investigation have to have a warrant to search your house for this type of thing.. for drugs or violence they don't need a warrant in many places.

I don't see how this can be legal. The man should sue Apple and the cops.

So twice now a prototype has gone missing at the supposed hands of an employee. This speaks volumes about how lax Apple security is. I take this to mean you should never trust this company, in fact, I suggest we all boycott the rotten fruit.

Look what they do.. they sell Apple hardware to run their OS that is the same PC hardware you all have and they charge 3 times as much for that hardware. They deserve to be boycotted. They have been stealing from people for years.

Makes my glad I run my legally purchased copy of Mac OSX Snow Leopard ( 30 bucks retail as opposed to 200 for windows 7) on my home made PC as a Hackentosh project.

reply to post by ararisq


So when Corporations search, they don't need a warrant. Is that how it works?!?

We're talking Corporate State now, where Corporate Property Rights take precedence over individual Civil Rights. The police did not search! The Corporation did.

Can't believe everyone is not steaming mad.



Good catch. S&F

It would probably help if Apple employees with prototype phones werent getting drunk all the time.

They were reportedly looking for a prototype of the next iPhone that an Apple employee left in a bar in San Francisco's Mission neighborhood...

The situation is reminiscent of when an Apple engineer's prototype iPhone 4 was taken from a bar in Redwood City, also in the Bay Area...

Originally posted by alfa1
It would probably help if Apple employees with prototype phones werent getting drunk all the time.

Its probably a PR stunt to raise awareness of a new release. Funny how pictures of neither phone leaked out when they could probably make a 4 or even 5 figure fee for selling the pics.

I trust Apple as much as I trust Scientologists. Theyre way too much alike.

you know how apple can fic this problem quit giving employees prototypes of new equipment. and man shoild have told vops and apple vto go blank themselves. a gps coordinate in and of it self would probably not got A judge tto sign a warrant.. how is apple even letting prototypes leave their facility the employees involved should be terminated snd all severinance pay and profit sharing heldt held

When your money controls the lawmakers, you are above the law. I don't see anything shocking about this.

This is what the pro business shills want. Corporations over people.

You are missing the point here. Apple employees did not impersonate officers, and they did not barge in and illegally search his house. The man gave permission for his house to be searched, no warrant was needed. He did not mind the search until they allegedly accused him or his family of being illegal aliens. So again it is not about the search at all. He was upset with some politically incorrect actions and decided to make an issue about the search to get revenge.

There is no mention at all of the apple people impersonating officers, it does not say they had on fake uniforms, it does not even say they claimed to be police. They just had some police men with them, and the man in question may or may not have assumed they were police at the time. As I said, it sounds to me like he had no issues with the search until one of them questioned his citizenship.

Calderon said he was led to believe the six people who arrived at his home were all policemen. He claimed he was never told that two of the people were Apple employees. Though he told the group that he didn't know anything about the phone, they asked to searched his house. He agreed.

news.cnet.com...

If you dont know your rights or choose to waive them, it's no ones fault other than your own. There will be no suing or such since there were files on his computer showing he had the phone in his possession and tried to sync it up.



Apple=Winning

Denying Ignorance= Dying

What's with the Apple employees losing iPhone prototypes just before they are released. They should be more careful with their toys.

Originally posted by Flyer

Originally posted by rigel4

I have read the article from cnn, in all honesty, whats wrong with it.
Nothing too wrong with trying to get back stolen docs or prototypes after all
it is stealing.

edit on 3-9-2011 by rigel4 because: (no reason given)

The man was innocent, how would you like a corporation to come and search your house by posing as the police?

It was 100% wrong.

If they traced the phone to his house, with GPS, that is enough suspicion to search a house. Did the article sayu anything about a warrant being issued? I saw no mention...

So, for all you know they could have reported it stolen, then gotten a warrant after GPS traced it to this persons house....

Would not be happy to be having people from apple searching my home and going through my things. I wouldn't even want the police doing it but I would help them.

Screw the iphone it's all about android anyway.

If the story was true..

Why would Apple allow the phone to be taken off site?
Why would the employee go drinking at a bar with it unless they wanted to show it off?
Considering it would be this persons JOB you would 'think' they would have a little bit more care to this.

Hence the above - I call bs on this story as free advertising.

reply to post by gimme_some_truth


A warrant doesnt allowed civilians to search a house and hard drive

Certainly not those posing as the police.

How did he lose his home? i'm joking.

reply to post by Flyer


No, but a civilian telling them it is ok to search his house without a warrant does make it legal. If he did not want them in his house all he had to say was “No, come back with a warrant or piss off.”

And again people keep saying they were posing as police. I see no mention of them posing as police anywhere in these articles. Can anybody show me anywhere that it is reported they were posing as police?