A media organization with a legal staff, I might add.
Apple has something to do with this case.
When the phone in question is a prototype of a model that is destined to sell millions, it gets noticed. But, it's important to look at this as a criminal investigation. There're is the suspiction that a criminal act occurred. A judge agreed, and issued a search warrant. Just based upon Gizmodo's coverage alone, there is enough to suspect that a crime happened. Because this is Apple property, it gets greater scrutiny, but it's not like Apple signed the warrant.
You can expect a whole other level of hurt for Gizmodo from Apple in a civil suit.
And I thought Google blocking cnet for a year was bad... Just imagine what the Apple blackout will be like for Gizmodo.
Nowadays that's standard operating procedure for any criminal investigation. There was an article on HN a while back about the police in SF confiscating the laptops of DJs at illegal raves and tying them up in paperwork to get their gear back just to punish them for helping out the raves (the DJs' laptops are their main source of income in a lot of cases).
Police love computers because people do a lot of their interaction with the world through them now. So by confiscating someone's computer they can get a lot of information.
What about photographs, emails and records relating to the person it was bought from?
Ie, this lady wasn't considered a journalist.
Chen is an employee of a media organization. That the organization has a blog doesn't make it different to, say, AA Gill writing for The Times, which also has a blog. The main difference is The Times is a more recognized media outlet than Gawker media.
Interesting question: what if it were Engadget? AOL is a recognized media name (sad this was used by the judge in his definition). Or Reddit (owned by Conde Nast) started paying people to write about gadgets?