Speaking of those subpoenas, can we be honest? While we do loves us some o' that there Courtroom Drama™, frankly, we'll be more than a little relieved when these dual trade secret legal tussles get resolved one way or the other, because they've divided the Mac userbase like no issue since we were polarized by the whole "Flower Power and Blue Dalmatian: Was Steve Divinely Inspired or Just Seriously Stoned?" thing. Let's leave aside the suit against Think Secret for a moment and focus on the subpoenas: there's a big, fat line in the sand, and on one side you've got folks saying Apple's trampling the First Amendment by trying to compel a handful of Mac rumor sites to reveal their sources, while on the other there are those who say that any site who'd knowingly publish trade secrets for no reason other than to boost hit counts doesn't deserve the protection afforded to responsible journalists in the first place. Judging from the, er, strong language in feedback we've gotten on the subject, the whole thing's going to erupt in a nationwide knife-fight before much longer.

Well, for better or for worse, it looks like Apple has won its fight to identify the person or persons who leaked the Asteroid specs to AppleInsider, the PowerPage, and Think Secret. Faithful viewer Mac (no, seriously) tipped us off to a BBC News article which reports that Judge James Kleinberg has just ruled that Apple can, indeed, compel the ISPs of those sites to turn over their email records so that it can figure out just whom exactly it's suing in the first place. We imagine there's a Worker Bee or two doing a wholly different (and involuntary) kind of leaking right now, while preparing to flee the country in hopes of escaping the horrifying Wrath of Jobs. Unfortunately for them, we're reasonably certain that Steve's powers transcend time, space, and dimension, and once he's got their real names, the poor lil' leakers are pretty much doomed.

So what about that whole First Amendment thing? Well, California's "shield" laws do allow journalists to publish trade secrets provided that doing so can be shown to be in the public interest-- in other words, a journalist can publish trade secrets revealing that, say, a car manufacturer knowingly sells unsafe vehicles, or that a chemical plant is secretly dumping toxic waste in school playgrounds. But as Judge Kleinberg puts it, "an interested public is not the same as the public interest," and details of the as-yet-unannounced Asteroid product, while juicy, just don't live up to that standard. He also notes that debate over whether or not Apple rumors sites qualify as journalists is moot, since "laws governing the right to keep trade secrets confidential covered journalists, too." (Yes, we know that some people are arguing that prerelease product specs and pricing don't constitute a trade secret, but a little research would seem to indicate otherwise.)

The Electronic Frontier Foundation will, of course, appeal the ruling, which (despite prolonging the knife-fight) we consider to be a good thing; sure, we happen to agree with the judge's ruling as applied to the state laws on the books, but the issue of free speech is so fundamental that these laws themselves should obviously come under scrutiny once in a while. Specifically, the EFF insists that the California laws are at odds with federal statutes that "stop net firms handing over copies of email messages if the owner of that account does not give their consent," and while that's all being hashed out, the Asteroid-leaking Worker Bees have a little more time to figure out how to relocate to an alternative Steveless reality in hopes of escaping their doom. It's futile, of course, but hey-- it beats workin'.