In an effort to curb the continual leak of trade secrets, Apple is going against some of its own employees who it believes may have been involved in distributing sensitive information to websites without permission.

Apple is in court in San Jose, Calif. trying to get permission to ascertain the identities of people it believes leaked news of its music product, Asteroid, to journalists and bloggers in 2004. Named in the suit are 25 former employees of the company. Apple would like to gain access to computer records to back their claim.

According to Geek.com, Apple has to convince judges why its argument is valid: Judge Franklin Elia questioned why Apple went directly to e-mail records instead of trying other methods: "All you want here is the name of a snitch, so you're saying you have the right to invade the privacy of the e-mail system and to trump the First Amendment ... just to find out who in your organization is giving out inappropriate information?"