Farhad cries: "Or do you think it's too much to equate a company protecting its innovation with a government protecting illegal activity?

Yes, it's too much. The two are fundamentally different and the courts agree.

Innovation has a proper place in industry and is essential to maintaining competitiveness. Trade secrets are legal.

Illegal activity is, er, illegal. Companies do not have a right to keep illegal activities secret.

Yes, Farhad, there are limits to what journalists can do.

I've never owned an Apple product, and now I never will. Their whole rahrah "of the people" bit always smelled like bullshit to me, and this pretty much puts the last nail in the coffin. I don't care how "cool" or cutesy their products may be (in fact, that's a serious drawback, for my money), if they're going to act like this, I'll take my money elsewhere, thank you. At least Microsoft doesn't pretend to be all pals-y with its customers.

Anonymous, you haven't made the case that maintaining trade secrets as they are currently defined is necessary for a competitive industry. Believe it or not, stating something as fact without even so much as a persuasive argument does not make it so.

While I don't think this is a direct analogue to government coverups and pressure, Farhad makes a crucial connection about the death of press protection in the face of other interests.

I would posit, in fact, that what is really necessary is an unwaveringly protected press, which is a necessary condition for a controlled and checked democracy.

I'm certainly not willing to accept, as you appear to be, that the status quo is The Only Way Things Could Work. I think this issue is far too important to accept blindly and without any meaningful thought or discussion.

I can't claim to be an expert in constitutional law, or any kind of laws, for that matter. But I don't think one can equate the constitutional rights of a free press with laws that protect corporate entities. Having a free press means that the gov't cannot shut down or prevent news and other media from printing what they want to. I don't think, however, that these protections extend to people who actually steal proprietary product information from a company. Keeping this information secret is extremely important to a company like Apple, and I don't see how you can infer that Apple is a totalitarian regime because they choose to protect the intellectual properties that they have invested millions of dollars on. Just my opinion, but I think you are way out of line on this.

We have entered a realm that the founding fathers could not have imagined. Corporations now completely control our government. Unfortunately, our Constitution was only designed to attempt to protect us from an overreaching government, not its corporate masters. Sure, Apple won under the rules of the game, but the game is rigged in its favor. With the loss of our public spaces to privatization, our education system to underfunding, our airwaves to half a dozen large corporations and, soon, the net neutrality of the internet, the typical American doesn’t even have the tools to protest even if s/he can determine what to protest. Welcome to the third world, American style.

Despite the ruling of one judge, I don't see any trade secrets here

If I say that Drug Company X is working on an anti-cancer drug, not only is it a safe bet, but even if true, and not a guess, it in no way helps competitors. If I leaked the chemical formula for the drug that would be different.

In the same way, if I say that Apple is building X, sfw.

No one else builds Macs

PC makers already make tons of configurations that Apple doesn't, but of course none run a MacOS

I hope the blogosphere gets more sources and prints more 'rumors'

Apple can't stop them all

A

/spittle

Then you can stop investing in all R+D and just steal whatever you need. I rather like the hippie-ring of that. Dude don't think, just TiVo something (bubblebubblebubble)

There is no compelling public interest in revealing trade secrets. For instance, enquiring minds may want to know Coca Cola's formula, but as long as it doesn't include cocaine, we don't have a right to know.

P.S. Shouldn't someone have commented that Farhad is nothing but a shill for Apple by now? He's obviously posting this anti-Apple item just to throw us off the scent. ;-)

Congrats on putting that fan site down.

You know I have been seeing lots of Apple computers on television shows and in the movies. I think you had better sic your lawyers on those production companies. Wouldn't want the public to get any wrong ideas.

I love my G5 tower - it crashes at least twice a day and i have 3 GB of RAM.

It works for poor nations in the short run but drug companies eventually restrict access to their latest and greatest products which forces the patent breakers to rely on reverse engineered bootleg products of questionable quality. But hey you stuck it to the man!!!

An important distinction that no one seems to have mentioned is that the owner of the site didn't steal anything. At most he received stolen goods. Some might say that's the same thing but is it really? I agree that Apple can and should vigorously prosecute the person who actually stole the info from them, but since when is it the reporter's job to help them keep their own house in order? This case does implicate the rights of a free press.

"I would posit, in fact, that what is really necessary is an unwaveringly protected press, which is a necessary condition for a controlled and checked democracy."

Unfortunately, you are assuming that the press is somehow democratic or supports democracy. There are enough instances of press coverups to put a lie to that notion.

I want the press to be accountable for the things it publishes, including nonsense like Farhad's idea, not exclusive to him, that the press should be allowed to publish anything it wants, poke its head anywhere it wants, aim its cameras into my bedroom, and get its foot caught under the tire of my car.