Six leading media organizations - including the non profit public interest group First Amendment Coalition, and the Associated Press (AP), Bloomberg News, the Los Angeles Times, CNet News, Wired. com, and the California Newspaper Publishers Association – Wednesday said in court filing that the search warrant affidavit in the iPhone prototype raid should be unsealed.

In their effort to look into the legal aspects of the April 23 police raid of the house of the Gizmodo blogger Jason Chen – who was behind the leaked prototype scoop -, the media outlets formally requested the judge in Redwood City, California, to unseal secret documents pertaining to the search warrant.

While the search warrant itself was made public, the affidavit elucidating the legal reasons behind it still remains sealed by the court. In most cases, such secret documents are discloses within 10 days of a raid.

Noting that the legality of the raid remains “one of many unanswered questions” in the case related to the ‘lost’ iPhone prototype case, an AP report said: “Apple is notoriously secretive about unreleased products, and Gizmodo editor Jason Chen's dissection of what may be the next-generation iPhone appears to have rubbed the company the wrong way.”

Elaborating about their request for the unsealing of the affidavit, the media organizations said that they need to ascertain whether there the reason for the raid was “more compelling” than the legal protections given to journalists.