Should Software Companies be able to Raid Your

[EmptyTimCup]

Point of View: Should Software Companies be able to Raid Your House?

Businesses have long lived with the possibility that their offices could be entered and searched for evidence that they’re using pirated software - not just by government law enforcement agents, but by a trade group called the Business Software Alliance, which represents the major software and hardware companies such as Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, Intuit, Symantec, Corel, McAfee, Dell, Intel and several more.

The BSA’s heavy-handed tactics have come under fire many times over the years, with accusations that the organization bullies small companies that lose the paperwork proving their legitimate ownership of software licenses and much criticism of the BSA’s offering of "rewards" to disgruntled employees who report their employers’ non-compliance. There are even attorneys that specialize in defending companies against BSA audits.

That’s bad enough, but it appears you don’t even have to be in business to get raided by a tech company, and you don’t have to be suspected of pirating software, either. It’s hard to believe this really happened in the U.S.A. "Apple Investigators" have done it again - searching the home of a man in San Francisco to look for a lost iPhone prototype. Oh, and they were apparently assisted by the local police (although there have been conflicting statements on that).

Police assisted Apple in search of man's home - CNN.com

Say what? Was this guy suspected of breaking into Apple headquarters and stealing the iPhone? Nope - an Apple employee left in a neighborhood bar. At the most, the guy found abandoned property and picked it up. Has Apple never heard of "finders keepers, losers weepers?" Of course, we don’t know if he ever had it at all, since the Apple employees who searched the house didn’t find anything. They also refused to file a formal report.

It’s not clear whether this fellow gave his consent, but the same thing happened last month to someone else, who did consent - thinking all the searchers were police officers. He said if he’d known they were from Apple, he wouldn’t have agreed to the search. I don’t know about you, but I think this is downright scary. We already know the big software companies are capable of entering our computers and seeing what we have on our hard drives. But now they’re allowed to physically come into our homes and look around, too? Am I making a big deal out of nothing, or is this over the line? Let me know what you think in the Comments section at the bottom of this newsletter.

‘Til next week,
Deb Shinder, Editor
winnews@gfi.com

since when does a business get the right to search someones house, if this is a criminal matter over theft, a police officer or detective can get a search warrant

as much as I hate the ACLU - I would be giving them a phone call is this was my house, to discuss the matter of a lawsuit


iPhone - Phone HOME

Police assisted Apple in search of man's home


A city police official declined to comment to CNN and referred reporters to the news release. Earlier this week, officials said they had no record of an investigation.

In the statement sent to CNN and other news media late Friday, police did not describe what "lost item" Apple was looking for. However, the file name of that news release is "iphone5.doc," as Reuters pointed out.

Lt. Troy Dangerfield gave an interview to SF Weekly Friday afternoon confirming the police's involvement with Apple in the investigation.

SF Weekly also interviewed a man who told the publication that he consented to having his home searched for a phone by six officers last month. No one in the group identified himself as being an Apple employee, the man told SF Weekly. He reportedly said that he assumed they were all police officials and would not have permitted entry if he knew the searchers were from Apple.

Apple's team searched the home, car and computer files, while police waited outside, the reports say. The investigators reportedly told the man that they had traced the phone's GPS signal to his house. When asked, he said he had been at the same bar where the phone was reportedly lost but that he didn't have it, the report says.

One of the investigators, who identified himself as Tony, gave the man living in the house a phone number and told him to call with any information about the lost phone, the report says. When the SF Weekly reporter called, a man named Anthony Colon, who said he was an Apple employee, answered, the report says.

I would not have let anyone in the house, let alone with a warrant detailing where and what they were looking for ..........

so a half doz cops show up and the dudes lets 2 of the roam around ID10T

 

[Merlin99]

since when does a business get the right to search someones house, if this is a criminal matter over theft, a police officer or detective can get a search warrant

as much as I hate the ACLU - I would be giving them a phone call is this was my house, to discuss the matter of a lawsuit


iPhone - Phone HOME






I would not have let anyone in the house, let alone with a warrant detailing where and what they were looking for ..........

so a half doz cops show up and the dudes lets 2 of the roam around ID10T

I wouldn't consider this a raid, they asked if they could come in and look for something and he said yes.

 

[Bavarian]

Great advertising stunt by Apple!

 

[EmptyTimCup]

I wouldn't consider this a raid, they asked if they could come in and look for something and he said yes.

:sigh:


I suppose if I stated it was raining, you would say

'the sun is shining in China'


if you do not like the 'raid' post a comment to the original blogger ....... I am just passing it along as I found it ..........





no the police did not kick the door in at, 0230 .... although that might have been next given Apple's Actions

 

[Merlin99]

:sigh:


I suppose if I stated it was raining, you would say

'the sun is shining in China'
What I would say would depend on if there was water falling from the sky, if there was none I'd probably say you were just as mistaken as you are here.

if you do not like the 'raid' post a comment to the original blogger ....... I am just passing it along as I found it ..........





no the police did not kick the door in at, 0230 .... although that might have been next given Apple's Actions

If I ask to come in your house and look around and you say yes, would you consider that a raid?

 

[LordStanley]

If I ask to come in your house and look around and you say yes, would you consider that a raid?

Its only a RAID if the cops break down your door, shoot your dogs, hand cuff your wife and young children at gun point, than discovery the GPS signal was inaccurate and they had the wrong house.