Did Apple Impersonate Police To Recover the Lost iPhone 5? 233
zacharye writes "This whole lost iPhone 5 prototype story just got whole lot more interesting. According to SF Weekly, six investigators claiming to be members of the San Francisco police department descended upon one Bernal Heights, San Francisco man's home in search of a lost iPhone 5 prototype that CNET originally reported had been left in a bar. The scary part? The SFPD does not seem to be aware of such an investigation. Instead, it appears as though they may have actually been members of Apple's security team allegedly impersonating police officers."
So far this claim seems to be developing solely through media communications; in order for the SFPD to start an investigation, the man whose house was searched would need to speak with the police directly. Update: 09/03 12:14 GMT by S : A later report indicates police were present, but they stood outside while Apple employees searched the house. No police report was filed because Apple wanted it kept a secret.
No, Apple is WAY more powerful than the SFPD (Score:3, Insightful)
Ha, the San Francisco Police Department WISHES they were as powerful as Apple security. Half the security guys at Apple have licenses to kill, and a pretty good portion of them are ninjas.
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Well, I guess that self-defense class will finally pay off.
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never! EVE is who bit the first chunk of the apple!
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Having seen the movie Yellow Submarine, I fully believe in Apple Boppers.
"Open the door! Steve Jobs' Apple Police! Or we'll make fruit salad out of you. Also, we have Axe Cop with us!"
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Re:No, Apple is WAY more powerful than the SFPD (Score:4, Insightful)
This is Apple we're talking about. No one will do shit about it.
And I'm being serious in that part.
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It's a BFD if any of us "little people" do it. Apple? Not so much.
Oh, I dunno; remember when Leona Helmsley said "We don't pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes"? She lived to regret that comment. Openly challenging the authorities to prosecute you for crimes isn't a always good way to stay out of jail.
OTOH, Warren Buffet has been openly criticizing the US government's tax policies by saying that he pays a much smaller percentage than his employees do. So far, nobody in the US government seems to be trying to challenge him or charge him with tax evasion, becau
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Seems more likely that they will simply discredit the guy who is making the claim that one of Apple's representatives were impersonating a police officer.
Plus, you gotta think about it from the simple perspective that they have iPhones, so it's not like their exact physical location isn't logged at all times to show *exactly* where their employees were at the time of this alleged act.
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Well, they'd have to prove the impersonation, and without corroboration, it'll be one guy's (The homeowner) claimed recollection against more than one guy's claimed recollections (the officer impersonatorS). And then for the company to be fined, they'd have to further prove that the company directed them to do this. A company isn't automatically responsible for any action some rogue employee takes.
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He'd have a good case against them for wrongful termination. Could make some good money from it if it has been less than 3 years.
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On a serious note, impersonating any police officer is a BFD! As in, the employee will be facing jail time and the company fined.
Which is exactly why you shouldn't believe this story until there's some actual proof that it really happened.
Don't ever forget that Apple-Hate sells ad views.
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If that's what happened. What we have so far is an unsubstantiated report from a guy, that hasn't pressed charges, who supposedly had a stolen/lost iPhone prototype of which no trace can be found anywhere and for which no police report was filed. The whole thing sounds fishy.
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There is no magic market indicator (Score:2)
You don't look where real bubble is. Apple P/E is misleading at best. Their market cap relies on inflated profits - mostly from iPhone and iTab 'luxury' products with monopoly-like profit margins on both. Take these margins away (hello, Android) and it will pop. With $350B invested into their stock it is clearly visible why not only Apple but half of Wall Street fights teeth and nails with commodization in this area in general and Google/Android in particular.
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Their market cap relies on inflated profits - mostly from iPhone and iTab 'luxury' products with monopoly-like profit margins on both. Take these margins away (hello, Android) and it will pop.
Well, inability to distinguish one's own wishful thinking from reality doesn't lead to very good analysis either--BTW, I'm speaking as someone who does not own an iPad and probably will not anytime soon--Apple has nailed a combination of brand image & actual functionality & pricing that has hit a sweet spot, and there is no serious competition even on the horizon except for the upcoming Android Kindle.
Ha ha ha (Score:3)
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Apple is a cult. Android is a religion. Here's the difference:
Apple Sheeple: "I want to be like other Apple users!"
Android Sheeple: "Apple fans are the enemy!"
None of it ever happened. Marketing Hype. (Score:5, Interesting)
There's a reason the SFPD doesn't know about it. It never happened. The entire incident, from the loss to the "search" is a story designed to generate hype for the iPhone 5.
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More likely, Mr Sergio Calderon realized this is the perfect time for a sequel to the iPhone 4 found-in-a-bar story and simply made the whole thing up, and Apple had nothing to do with the story at all.
There isn't a shred of proof the visit or the search ever happened.
I'm pretty sure Apple would come up with something more clever than this juvenile stunt which serves go give them a black eye rather than build demand for the iPhone 5.
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Awww that's a pity. It kinda hits all my cyberpunk buttons, I was just about ready to jack in and do a netrun for the latest blueprints. Sure the rest of the group may have been sitting around twiddling their thumbs for half an hour, but I call that a feature.
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There isn't a shred of proof the visit or the search ever happened.
How did Calderon get the persona phone number of the Apple Security guy?
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Linkedin?
Facebook?
Friends?
Web?
Apple's own web site?
No business card. He just had a number.
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My thinking exactly. The "men in black"-type story trips all my BS-detectors. I'd like to see some evidence instead of "This guy said ..."
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Went to the Trouble?
What trouble?
He live in that same area. Probably knew the number already, or had easy access to it via a copy of Apple's internal phone book or a friend.
He didn't say he knew the guys name, the reporter found that out by calling the phone number.
He didn't say he ever met that guy or that he was one of the people allegedly at his house.
All he said was they gave him a number to call.
If he is going to make up a story to throw turds on Apple, why wouldn't he go to a little trouble?
Especiall
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Makes me shudder to contemplate what Exxon might get up to someday to create demand for their products. Actually, Apple once had an executive with expertise in selling a product the world doesn't actually need, rather than a product that fuels its own demand, and that didn't work out so well.
It's a nice marketing ruse that plays on cor
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Really, outside of some slashdot geeks, who else even knows?
A handful of people care, they weren't going to buy iPhones anyway.
Who's angry in the real world?
Re:None of it ever happened. Marketing Hype. (Score:5, Insightful)
Would Apple really need such a stunt to get publicity for the next version of iProduct? People will line up around the whole block the moment Apple announces an iPhone 5.
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People will line up around the whole block the moment Apple announces an iPhone 5.
Only if The Jobs is still around to use his alien mind powers on them.
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It's one way of announcing the product without announcing it. It lets people know it is nearly ready without having a formal announcement where all the specifications are laid down and dissected by the media.
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It's one way of announcing the product without announcing it. It lets people know it is nearly ready without having a formal announcement where all the specifications are laid down and dissected by the media.
Uh, yeah, because creating a potential backlash would be way better than giving people a firm list of what it's got, how much it it'll be, and when it's out.
Oh, and here's an interesting coincidence: Headlines about Apple that end with a question mark earn lots of ad views on sites like Slashdot and Gizmodo.
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Yes, it is an overused cliche that is wrong as often as it is right.
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That was my thought, Apple might want to consult with Netflix and Comcast if they're under that delusion. Somebody selling service for Comcast seriously came to my Dad's door and pitched them them the service as not being as bad as previously.
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Never heard the quote "any publicity is good publicity" before?
Yeah, tell that to Bonnie and Clyde.
Apple markets them as (Score:5, Funny)
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Yet some thought it would be Google knocking at our door with black suits and badges.
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But they CAN FLY!! (Score:2)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-10 [wikipedia.org]
of course anything can fly given enough thrust
What really happened... (Score:3, Interesting)
- this Apple employee "lost" an iPhone5 at a bar
- this undercover Apple employee "found it" and listed it on craigslist
- this undercover Apple employee bought it for $200
- this Apple employee in a uniform picked it up
- the whole internet ran wee-wee-wee silliness about it
It's all part of the hype machine's advertising campaign. You guys have all been fooled.
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An oversexed trapeze artist?
Forecasting our future (Score:2)
Sadly, this is just a small hint of what's to come. I don't expect anything other than full-on corporate armies, each waging espionage and intellectual (and other) warfare against one another, to be the future of the US. Get used to it. Soon Apples Security team WILL be the police dept. :(
(and every other company with the money/man-power).
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Corporate police forces are not new - some railway companies in the United States have had their own private police forces next to forever. And Apple probably figures they're more important than Burlington Northern - Santa Fe.
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The difference is that those security forces only work on railroad property or next to it under specific conditions. It's also a side effect of most of their infrastructure being in the middle of nowhere.
That being said, if the reports prove to be accurate, somebody is going to prison, impersonating an officer is a serious crime.
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Anyone interested in finding a good(bad?) example of corporate police forces should google "pinkerton coal miners". Interesting stuff there if you like history.
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This isn't new. MS corporate security has carried full auto since the 90s.
There's no *official* investigation... (Score:5, Interesting)
The number they gave him was of an Apple employee whose title is "senior investigator" and who previously worked for the San Jose PD.
Maybe they were real cops. Maybe he called in an unofficial favor...
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Exactly. An experienced law enforcement officer would know how to do this a lot better than what was described. At the very least, they'd know that having a bunch of cops doing a "favor" off-duty for what will undoubtedly be at least a minor news story is a really stupid idea.
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Only that doing it on-duty would be more stupid. (It's fairly difficult to have a reasonably large group of cops go and do something on-duty without anyone else knowing about it.)
Re:There's no *official* investigation... (Score:4, Funny)
This is any better or actually any different?
It is actually worse. When an off-duty cop gets hired to work for a private employer they should not have any privileges that normal private security would have - i.e. none. Anything else is abuse of power. Sadly, that's not the way it works in the US where off-duty cops get all the privileges and protections that on-duty cops get. I had a friend who was assaulted by a bouncer at a bar - she hit him back and got charged with assaulting an officer because he was an off-duty, out of uniform cop moonlighting as a bouncer.
*HOW* did they find the guy? (Score:2)
The guy admits he was at Cava. Just how did Apple find his house?
Sure, the fake cop thing is troubling.
But still, how did Apple discover the location of some random guy who had drinks at Cava?
Apple == BAD? Maybe.
But one wonders if in fact this random guy who had drinks at Cava was in fact at one time had the stolen/ lost phone?
Otherwise, how would Apple Thugs found his address?
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Otherwise, how would Apple Thugs found his address?
Really? Seriously??? GPS? Find my iPhone? Have you been living under a rock?
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But still, how did Apple discover the location of some random guy who had drinks at Cava?
Supposedly, they traced the phone to the guy's house. They spoke to the owner of the house who told the investigators that he had been at Cava but he didn't take a phone. He allowed them to search the house and they found no phone.
Considering the accuracy of the iPhone AGPS, perhaps they should have knocked on his neighbor's door...
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My point is exactly that this guy probably had the phone.
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umm. Do you think that just maybe that any prototype iPhone might just have GPS and 24/7 tracking of location turned on? Just maybe?....
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They didn't find the phone there. Maybe they pulled a favor at Cava and got a creditcard receipt, then located that CC number in their own internal creditcard database from iTunes. Even if they only had last-four digits, there can't be that many matches in the area.
iPhone "Policeman" Photo (Score:2)
Here's what they look like: http://i.imgur.com/CmLXu.jpg [imgur.com]
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Really? They wear very short skirts?
I assume you mean something like this [theworldoflogansrun.com].
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http://i.imgur.com/y38ox.jpg [imgur.com]
"Are you the Police?"
"No ma'am, we're musicians"
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Close, but Steve rarely wears a suit.
We're trying for the "black turtleneck officer" look. Sandmen are close...
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i liked the first picture better
that may be a felony (Score:2)
so who will take the fall for this?
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Fake? Maybe not (Score:2)
A number of police departments in my area permit moonlighting by their cops. In some cases, this just means security in front of the local dance club. But some of them make pretty good coin working security for local companies or detective agencies.
Those may have been real stinkin' badges.
Search Warrant? (Score:2)
It only matters whether they had a search warrant. If so, it was legal. Search warrants do not have to be served by the police force having jurisdiction over the property being searched. For search warrants, it's the jurisdiction of the judge signing it that matters, so a California state judge can't issue a warrant for a property in New Jersey, for example. And if the guy didn't ask to see the search warrant, he made a big mistake.
It doesn't matter whether they were SFPD. They could have been a nearby
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Er, one correction: it only matters if they had a search warrent and /forced the search/.
Police, investigators, anyone, are entirely within their rights to ask to search anything even if they have no right to demand a search.
Public or private. Someone can walk up to your door and say, "I think my kid is in your house, can I look around?"
They are under no obligation to prove any level of valid basis for that assertion -- if they ask you for permission and you say yes, they can search your house. Because you
Why do people act surprised? (Score:2)
Non-cops, ex-cops, bad guys -- impersonating an officer has gone on forever, especially among detectives and security guys. You almost have to give ex-cops a break, acting coplike is probably a tough habit to break.
Generally speaking, white, middle class people do exactly what they're told when a "cop" tells them what to do.
I did a ride-along with a friend who is a cop and it was almost hilarious. Upstanding white people did EXACTLY what I suggested, in a "Is-this-OK?" manner, despite the fact that the co
Where was the warrant? (Score:2)
If the homeowner let a bunch of asshats into their house to perform a search without a warrant signed by a judge
Badge or no badge
The owner is an idiot.
Update: Police DID assist (Score:2, Informative)
San Francisco Police Department spokesman Lt. Troy Dangerfield now tells SF Weekly that "three or four" SFPD officers accompanied two Apple security officials
So, now we can stop with the Apple FUD, right?
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Actually they usually go with hired private security for things like this.
"FBI style raids"? seriously, lose the drama.
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He's claiming that they said they were SFPD. If they said that, or even suggested it, then there's a strong claim for criminal trespass. Privilege to enter a house cannot be gained through deception.
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Most states and cities have laws against impersonating a police officer.
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The SFPD has already admitted that they did indeed go to this house. This is a lot to do about absolutely nothing.
Link [appleinsider.com]
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Well if they searched the house, as the summary suggests, then it goes a LONG way past mistaking private security for police.
In this day and age, who is smart enough to pick up a lost phone in a bar and then try to sell it superstitiously and is still to dumb to tell a real cop from a rent-a-cop?
Not saying I believe any part of this story. The entire thing may be made from whole cloth since precisely one guy (Sergio Calderon, 22) is making this claim with nothing to back it up except a phone number that co
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You mean other than talking to the actual SFPD that does indeed have a report of the incident? That and calling the number the man was given and finding out it goes to Apple security.
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Or is it more likely that rather than having a company commit very-easily-provable felonies, the person who claims he was "raided by Apple security pretending to be cops" is just plain lying, and that he dug up Apple security's phone somewhere to attempt to lend credibility to an otherwise unbelievable story?
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It is possible, but surely that would come out pretty quickly when the actual SFPD has a look. If he was just looking for some publicity, you might think he would call CNET, but NOT the actual police.
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... If he was just looking for some publicity, you might think he would call CNET, but NOT the actual police.
which, of course, is exactly what happened... Which is probably why the police are saying they're not going to do diddly squat until he gets in touch with them *himself*.
Simon
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[citation needed]
From TFA:
"This is something that's going to need to be investigated now," SFPD spokesman Lt. Troy Dangerfield said, when informed about the Bernal Heights man's statements to SF Weekly. "If this guy is saying that the people said they were SFPD, that's a big deal."
And a little further down:
Dangerfield said police plan to look into Calderón's allegations. "There's something amiss here. If we searched someone's house, there would be a police report," Dangerfield said.
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I wish he'd leave Buttons alone, if it weren't for him, Mindy would certainly be crushed by a steamroller or fall off the Eiffel Tower.
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What the fuck did I just watch?
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Completely messed up.
Re:That's thilly.... (Score:5, Insightful)
yes, many gays still act like males. (likewise for lesbians that actually act like females.) what a concept. :P
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straight as an arrow myself, but I consider it useful to distinguish between issues of sexual orientation and issues of gender roles.
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"They also told me CmdrTaco WAS Steve Jobs."
No, no. Hemos is Steve Jobs.
CmdrTaco has been Bill Gates all along and this was just a covert operation to muddy the water.
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It seems pretty unlikely, since Apple would know that the story would get out and they already know that an iPhone prototype loose in the wild is pretty decent publicity, so it's a very stupid idea. Still, if they actually did it, I think it's likely that it will not be cheap at all, and I think they'll deserve everything they get for pulling such a stunt.
It probably even won't be cheap if it's Apple pulling a hoax. It seems a lot more likely that it's a blogger or other attention-seeker out to generate pre
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If true, I absolutely agree.
However, it must be understood that many of Apple's competitors spend massive amounts of money to smear Apple (and each other).
As far as what we *know*:
- Some media outlets are claiming there was a stolen iPhone prototype. The details are frankly shaky enough as it is - the only "lead" is the bar owner claims that he was contacted by someone claiming to be Apple security.
- A couple of people are claiming that a group impersonating the police searched
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Just stand closer to your monitor. Or if your problem is having tiny Tyrannosaurus Rex arms, maybe get a couple of these Reacher with Magnetic Tip [amazon.com].
Things will get closer. Just don't freak out man!
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I know you used a subject of "If this is true", but I'm going to save my outrage until some facts rise to the surface here.
If this actually involved another iphone N prototype, the whole "lost iphone in a bar" shtick is played out. I'm surprised that tactic would be used again (and I'm making a cynical assumption that the original incident with N=4 was a ruse).
If the person contacted by the "police" was threatened or upset, let him file a complaint and come out in a more official way. Did people actually co
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Or perhaps it's Apple wanting us to think it's a smear campaign [slashdot.org]. After all, it's not entirely unthinkable that it is a smear campaign [slashdot.org] against Apple - but what if that's what Apple is counting on.. what if that's what Apple wants people to think.. in order for them to dislike Samsung, Gizmodo, Google, and the entire rest of the cellphone/tablet world, to the point of repeating the phrase over and over. Now that would be a sneaky smear campaign [slashdot.org]
On-topic.. it does seem rather odd that there's a lot of talk ab
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I agree - there's not a shred of evidence an iPhone was ever stolen.
Something stinks. The only question is who the ultimate source is.
I personally think it's slightly less crazy to believe the source is one of Apple's (many) enemies, than it is to believe the source is from Apple.
Has ANYONE called the cops? (Score:2)
I agree it sounds setup.
But, Apple *might* want to get it back without police intervention because it makes Apple look a bit clueless, letting their employees lose prototypes multiple times.
My inclination is to think one of these two possibilities:
1. CalderÃn made the whole thing up, Apple has no involvement. CalderÃn thinks he can squeeze money out of Apple or potential media outlets that pay for stories (Gawker clearly pays for stories).
2. Apple made it all up, and CalderÃn is on the payrol
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No doubt if the resident didn't agree those cops probably would do something to make his life difficult. An article I read suggested that they were threatening to call the INS. Obviously that implies the resident didn't have clean hands, but that doesn't justify abuse of process.
My problem with the modern court system is that we've turned the constitution into some kind of game. I know somebody who has given ethics lectures and he said that lectures to lawyers are the worst - you get a bazillion question