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EFF Sues FBI For Records About Paid Best Buy Geek Squad Informants (eff.org)
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is suing the FBI for records "about the extent to which it directs and trains Best Buy employees to conduct warrantless searches of people's devices." The lawsuit stems around an incident in 2011 where a gynecology doctor took his computer for repairs at Best Buy's Geek Squad. The repair technician was a paid FBI informant that found child pornography on the doctor's computer, ultimately resulting in the doctor being charged with possessing child pornography. From the EFF's report: A federal prosecution of a doctor in California revealed that the FBI has been working for several years to cultivate informants in Best Buy's national repair facility in Brooks, Kentucky, including reportedly paying eight Geek Squad employees as informants. According to court records in the prosecution of the doctor, Mark Rettenmaier, the scheme would work as follows: Customers with computer problems would take their devices to the Geek Squad for repair. Once Geek Squad employees had the devices, they would surreptitiously search the unallocated storage space on the devices for evidence of suspected child porn images and then report any hits to the FBI for criminal prosecution. Court records show that some Geek Squad employees received $500 or $1,000 payments from the FBI. At no point did the FBI get warrants based on probable cause before Geek Squad informants conducted these searches. Nor are these cases the result of Best Buy employees happening across potential illegal content on a device and alerting authorities. Rather, the FBI was apparently directing Geek Squad workers to conduct fishing expeditions on people's devices to find evidence of criminal activity. Prosecutors would later argue, as they did in Rettenmaier's case, that because private Geek Squad personnel conducted the searches, there was no Fourth Amendment violation. The judge in Rettenmaier's case appeared to agree with prosecutors, ruling earlier this month that because the doctor consented both orally and in writing to the Geek Squad's search of his device, their search did not amount to a Fourth Amendment violation. The court, however, threw out other evidence against Rettenmaier after ruling that FBI agents misstated key facts in the application for a warrant to search his home and smartphone. We disagree with the court's ruling that Rettenmaier consented to a de-facto government search of his devices when he sought Best Buy's help to repair his computer. But the court's ruling demonstrates that law enforcement agents are potentially exploiting legal ambiguity about when private searches become government action that appears intentionally designed to try to avoid the Fourth Amendment.
It's truly covefe
Think! Yes, what makes you people think this has any effect on anything?!
Since this was an active program by the FBI to recruit and pay on piecework basis for material found that was illegal, the Best Buy workers were no longer working for Best Buy with regards to this action and were effectively working for the FBI in a sort of deputized role. As such the terms of conditions by Best Buy should not apply, and since they are effectively contract workers for the FBI -- they should have required warrants. Thus the evidence should be thrown out.
I think it's relevant to the customers that visit Best Buy, use their services, or have received hardware as a gift. If employees are doing warrant-less searches and being paid by the government to do it, this is foul play. Any information gathered under these false pretenses is inadmissable in court, according to law. If government won't respect its own laws, then it dilutes the value and even the threat that laws present to someone who might decide to start breaking law, and the state of order is weakened.
Without further details, we can't know whether the doctor is guilty or not. The hard drive could have been purchased refurbished, from a friend, found in the guts of an old computer at Goodwill... who knows? The important part is, if we're going to gather information, it should be through the proper channels. Bribing near-minimum-wage workers with a month's wages to violate the same laws that protect us all is closer to organized crime than any legitimate government. They know better, and the EFF is one of the few organizations that calls bullshit when they see it.
It's relevant to Slashdot because if it's happening with Best Buy, it could be happening with other companies and services, too. I should hope the average /.er would avoid BB, but there could be plenty of /.ers who've used the services and it could benefit the lives of people /.ers know, by urging their friends and family to reject Geek Squad service.
It's already had an effect: it got you to comment about it, didn't it? It's also creating some bad PR for Best Buy, and will call its name (and thus quality, trust, customer loyalty) into question as a technology retailer and service company. These injustices are important to expose and punish, to disincentivize criminal conduct, even when committed by a government that claims to protect its people.
what standing does the EFF have to sue the FBI? (Third parties can't sue wrong-doers; only the allegedly-wronged party can sue.)
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
Some of the articles seem to indicate employees are stumbling across illegal images as part of their repair process. But they are retrieving images from slack space, which afaik is not something a best buy type repair tech would do as part of a repair. So the techs are at a minimum using forensic tools to recover data. Also where are they billing the time for these non repair activities?...forensic scans are time consuming.
I'm also very curious to know if the techs were then manually reviewing the recovered images, again time consuming, or if the FBI further assisted by providing the tech access to LE tools such as the databases of hashes of known CP to make their searching faster.
As a victim of CP myself I have no love for creeps who access or share it, but for the FBI to argue that best buy employees weren't being led to perform searches on their behalf sounds rediculous.
It's relevant because it means that the police can avoid the 4th amendment simply by having a 3rd party examine things instead of the police doing it directly. It's another word game that's being used to gut the 4th
And that is any different than today... how? The third-party doctrine would seem to apply, not unlike how Google or Microsoft can peruse your email or uploaded files looking for things they don't like (or think illegal and report it).
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
unless the post leaves it out.
where the prior owner just deleted some files..... and sold it to you... and months later you taking said computer for repairs
Or getting giant communications platforms like google, facebook, or ISPs to suppress people's 1st amendment on their behalf.
where the prior owner just deleted some files..... and sold it to you... and months later you taking said computer for repairs
Then the police would want full details of the purchase and they'd investigate the person who sold the computer to you. It's no good just to say to the police, "What if I had purchased this computer on Craigslist? I'm not saying I did, but I could have."
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
"...the doctor consented both orally and in writing to the Geek Squad's search of his device, their search did not amount to a Fourth Amendment violation...."
But it was (part time) FBI agents masquerading as Geek Squad employees who found this, without a required warrant, the doctors agreement was with _Geek Squad_, not the FBI. Had the doctor known he was dealing with FBI his consent may have been different. Who knows, the "evidence" may even have been planted, to boost the income of part time FBI agents. What if you bought a used computer or storage device, which has illegal material on it, which some part time federal agent found, are you guilty of some crime? The idea of possessing an image of a crime would be crime, then pictures of the holocaust would top the list? When the possession of the illegal pictures went to the FBI, are they now criminals?
Clearly, the Fourth Amendment was violated. It does not matter how trendy the crime is, the law cannot be altered by emotions.
So it's true, Doctors really suck at computers, don't they?
well not only warrantless but if the informant is paid by cases found, then.. well, you'll see where it goes.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
I'm not for the FBI releasing names of Geek Squad Goons, but I want as much information on the program as can be released be done so. Not because I want to out the FBI, but because I want to out the Geek Squad for being the twerps and nongeeks they truly are.
sudo badblocks -b 512 -p 8 -s -w /dev/sda
FBI: "We're not doing an end-run around the Constitution. We're paying civilians to do an end-run around the Constitution FOR us! There's a difference!"
Courts need to come down on this hard or else it'll become standard practice.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
Without further details, we can't know whether the doctor is guilty or not. The hard drive could have been purchased refurbished, from a friend, found in the guts of an old computer at Goodwill... who knows? The important part is, if we're going to gather information, it should be through the proper channels. Bribing near-minimum-wage workers with a month's wages to violate the same laws that protect us all is closer to organized crime than any legitimate government. They know better, and the EFF is one of the few organizations that calls bullshit when they see it.
You forgot to mention another possibility -- when you pay someone a big bounty to find something, you're giving them incentive to put it there themselves.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Before the Anatomy Act 1832, executed criminals were the only legal source of bodies for hospitals to use for surgeon training. Due to high demand from chronic shortage of legal cadavers, "resurrection men" resorted to illegal means to obtain bodies, such as digging up corpses from graveyards or even murder. In 1828, William Burke and William Hare murdered 16 people and sold the bodies. Thomas Williams and John Bishop, part of a group of body snatchers known as the London Burkers, committed murder for the purpose of selling the victim's body in 1831.
well not only warrantless but if the informant is paid by cases found, then.. well, you'll see where it goes.
There's already a lot of other precedent that if the person is acting on behalf of the government, then they are a de-facto government agent.
A really common scenario is when the police bust somebody, and in exchange for a much lighter sentence, he has to become a CI and catch some of his cohorts in the act and have them busted. But in many cases, these CI's don't actually know anybody who they can catch, so they talk somebody else into breaking the law in spite of all of that person's objections. That person will easily get the charges dropped due to entrapment, because the CI was a de-facto government agent, even though he wasn't a police officer.
Paying these guys to do the FBI's bidding easily makes them a government agent.
It would have been the easiest thing in the world to pick up $1,000 by planting child porn on someone's computer by members of the geek squad.
If more than a half dozen geek squad members were working for the FBI, I'd be shocked that at least one didn't turn out to be planting evidence.
Which should turn up with forensic accounting. (Hmmm. 39 geek squad find 0 to 2 child porn instances but this girl found 7 instances).
.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
what abort chain of custody / forensics issues? The defense has the right to know and they have the right to do there own forensics work with there own lab.
Under reasonable doubt I can say
Who knows if that porn came form other infected systems on the Geek Squad network (I head that they outscored some of the clean up of systems to remote places)
What if an Geek Squad worker has an infected usb disk that just copy's stuff system to system? some workers have copied stuff from people systems for there own use.
what if was just in the browser cache??
http://www.popsci.com/technolo...
http://gizmodo.com/5099383/pop...
Plumbers, electricians, roofers, tilers, TA's, guide dogs, smiths etc.
These days even doctors can be snitches.
Who or whom do you trust into your home?
What's worse is this will probably (if not already) go into incentivizing the 'discovery of material' on computers meaning that planting evidence will become profitable and widespread.
Somewhat offtopic, but considering the relative weak security of mainstream computer setups and the interconnectedness of computing devices, I believe possession will eventually have to be decriminalized, but only after a bunch of innocent people have rotted in jails. But it will probably be at least a century given the current political climate and involve society being able to read the brain. Until then, possession will be considered one and the same as intent and a good many more victims will be had.
That's a horrifying, if relevant and probable point.
People have a lot of incentive to lie or otherwise cheat their "task", especially if it means they can get out of a dead-end job, start saving a little, or buy that sick rig they've been eyeing. $1000 ain't shit to the government, but to nerds trying to make their way up at Geek Squad, that's a big deal. Best Buy's not gonna provide any real incentives to do a good job (at least, not at that level), so these employees probably thought, "Fuck, I'm helping the government AND they value my work! I should keep this up!"
As usual, pitting the poor against the rights of others. It makes me wonder where the employees are in all of this, and what their stories are. It's not like the government just saunters into your HQ one day and demands you do something highly illegal. It was probably an inside job coming from middle management (perhaps legal pressure for another crime, and their compliance is used as currency to avoid jail time), or pre-discussed with leadership behind a gag order.
Whatever the case, it wholly deserves the scrutiny and attention it's receiving.
..wait a minute.
He had them deleted?
so how was he in possession. it's not like you can just send someone files and they go to jail is it? (actually, in usa it seems it is - kinda surprised this isn't used more for a kind of swatting..).
it was _recovered_ from the computer so it was already deleted to some fashion or another as well.
receiving illegal photos and deleting them at least shouldn't be illegal. though, that leaves a loophole of storing data in the inbox and claiming you just didnt get around to deleting it.
never mind people who claim that erotic material featuring small breasted women is cp.
Actually lawyers do just that and the funny thing called the 5th amendment means it works....
It's different because the FBI hasn't asked and paid MS employees to do it. MS is doing it of their own volition.
No. The third-party doctrine only covers information voluntarily given to a third party. The key word in the doctrine is "revelation". Giving a computer to a third party to repair does not constitute revealing all of the data on that computer to that third party, and thus it is not covered by the third-party doctrine. And even with an agreement that gives them the right to inspect files on the system to the extent necessary to effect repairs, that still does not grant them the right to inspect arbitrary, non-software files, which means at no point can it reasonably be considered to be a revelation of the existence of those files, much less of the contents of those files.
It seems prima facie obvious that giving hardware to a third party for repair purposes absolutely does not remove the expectation of privacy for data contained on that hardware. No Best Buy customer goes in for a computer repair thinking, "I'm giving all of my files to Best Buy for their employees' entertainment." You're giving them a computer to repair, with the expectation that your data will remain securely on that computer and will not leave that computer. In much the same way that storing a hard drive in a safety deposit box does not grant the bank the right to open the box without a warranty and give the files to law enforcement, neither can a computer repair grant Best Buy that right.
Additionally, as others have mentioned, there are fundamental chain of custody problems involved when non-law-enforcement personnel inspect a computer, to such an extent that any "evidence" obtained should be considered highly suspect to the point of being circumstantial, and arguably shouldn't even be sufficient to qualify as probable cause for a warranted search of the owner's home/office/email/*. But that issue is only relevant if the person opens up the computer and finds kiddie porn on the desktop, such that seeing it was an inevitable and normal part of the repair process. If the person had to even double-click on a folder called XXX to find the kiddie porn, we're back to fruit of the poisonous tree, and the evidence should be considered inadmissable—doubly so if law enforcement enticed those employees to break the law as part of gathering that evidence.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Did customers consent to that data being sold, and specifically sold to the government? Did Geek Squad reveal their conflict of interest; searching for data irrelevant to the repair, because it could be sold? This is fraud, now being excused by US courts to support a 'war' on child pornography. It's only a matter of time until they support a war on drugs/piracy.
ISP's can legally sell your data in the U.S., so agencies can just purchase your browsing history instead of getting a warrant.
Every single file that gets uploaded to the Microsoft, Amazon, Yahoo, Facebook, and many others, cloud services gets hashed and the list of hashes sent off to the Government NCMEC etc.
You're STUPID if you think you can trust anyone else with your data, let alone all your encrypted disk blocks while the very same goon squads with rubber hoses tool around nearby on road pirate duty in expensive Mustangs.
And you should have taken care of your Government problem long ago...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Msr01w7iYw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJCC-_m9p7I
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MX9hwITqik
Indeed, there could be an incentive to plant false proof just for the seek of getting the money.
Then there are other problems:
- The files might not have been his. (2nd hand drive ? Not very likely on a doctor's salary, but still...)
- It's a *Medical doctor* bringing his machine for repairs.
There might be information falling under protection of medical data.
(e.g.: the doctor could have been in middle of work, when his computer crashed, and not have been able to sanitize it, before bringing it for repairs).
By scanning beyond what it needed to fix the computer, they might discover patient private data, which they shouldn't.
- It's a *gynecologist*. He might have post-puberty, not yet adult, teen patients.
The geek squad might accidentally find things that they consider "child pornography" (pictures of pussy belonging to a girl clearly under 21),
whereas the Doctor might be documenting the evolution under treatment of a very weird rash of one of his younger patients (it's private patient data that nobody outside the said patient and his doctor should ever access) (or there are even less happy reasons for a gynecologist to store picture documentation).
- etc.
Also: regarding FBI's behaviour.
the FBI is completely idiotic in actually using this in court.
At worst, they should parallel construct : consider this only as a tip attracting attention to some potential problem instead of directly acting on it, and do some of their own police work until they gather enough *legally obtained* information that confirms above suspictions. They build the entire case, even request for warrants, out of the legally obtained information. They only use the paid informant's tips as a suggestion in which direction to look to.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
It's relevant because it means that the police can avoid the 4th amendment simply by having a 3rd party examine things instead of the police doing it directly. It's another word game that's being used to gut the 4th
I don't see it as 3rd party at all. If you are under the direct employ of a law enforcement agency (contracting, consulting, or otherwise), you should be bound by all of the legalities the parent organization is bound by.
There's only one way to describe their actions here; circumventing the law. And NO law-enforcement or government official would appreciate the tables being turned on them, so the activity should NOT be acceptable in any way, shape, or form.
We're also not talking about circumventing the law against jaywalking here. This is the Fourth Amendment.
ISP's can legally sell your data in the U.S., so agencies can just purchase your browsing history instead of getting a warrant.
This may be true, but the burden of proof is still outstanding as to which person in a multi-member household is responsible for questionable internet activity. Even more so if you also run a public WiFi hotspot (which could be justification for or against operating one).
Also the 'squad' looked on unallocated space so there is doubt the doctor put the pictures there himself.
"Trump!!", the new Godwin.
>Rants about data being shipped to the government
>Posts links to YouTube
AYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!
since they got mulder and scully out of the xfiles, the fbi is running rogue dude
Giving a computer to a third party to repair does not constitute revealing all of the data on that computer to that third party, and thus it is not covered by the third-party doctrine.
What about if you give the third party permission to search through all the data on the computer?
I think it's a travesty that the government is allowed to violate the Fourth Amendment by using a 3rd party as a proxy. Unfortunately, there is legal precedent for this type of abuse. In Smith v Maryland the SCOTUS ruled that the individual has no expectation of privacy for data turned over to a 3rd party. Government asked the phone company to install a device to trace Smith's calls without seeking a warrant. The criminal court, appeals court & SCOTUS all ruled that this was legal & the evidence was therefore admissible. There was another terrible decision where the court ruled that government can get your bank records without a warrant, claiming that the records are the property of the bank & not your private papers.
This case seems to contain a new wrinkle because the FBI was paying people to go on fishing expeditions rather than targeting a specific person. I hope the courts will conclude this was an illegal search, but I think that's unlikely.
One of the great flaws in The U.S. Constitution is that government is allowed to be the arbiter of its own power.
Because the FBI paying people makes them not 3rd party. I think the legal term is "agent of the state". True 3rd party means that they are not working for the FBI. This was one of the arguments Apple used in the San Bernandino phone case; making them produce software for the FBI would make them partly responsible to any activity the FBI would use for that software.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
BBB
This is where the theory of law and the practice of law intersect at 60 mph with no crumple zones.
Everything you are saying is NOT being borne out in this guy's case.
Can anyone speak as to what legal requirements to report (if any) comes into play when an authorized third-party discovers child pornography during the course of a permitted check of computer equipment? Are there jurisdictions where the the Geek-squad employee could be charged for failing to report?
To sum up: If a Best Buy employee stumbles across something illegal, and alerts the authorities, it's not a 4th Amendment violation (which requires a warrant signed by a judge.)
If they are asking him to search, then he becomes an agent of government, and a warrant is required, and the search is invalid.
If they fucking pay him, jfc, he's totally a government agent.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
This is where the theory of law and the practice of law intersect at 60 mph with no crumple zones.
Everything you are saying is NOT being borne out in this guy's case.
Exactly. And if this trial result stands, everything dtgatwood said will be a quaint relic of history.
The GGP post could have said, "if this case proceeds along its current trajectory" or something else softening, but that is usually assumed.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
NOW they care about it, when it's not their little leftist cadre in control of the executive branch anymore.
The person in the household whu signed the ISP contract is criminally responsible and should be charged as the primary perpetrator, others in the house are criminal accessories to whatever crime was committed. Burn 'em all.
Because the FBI paying people makes them not 3rd party. I think the legal term is "agent of the state".
It does not necessarily make Best Buy employees agents of the State if the FBI happens to have enough dirt on the judge hearing the case or his family.
Just sayin'
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
There are minor differences, but this sounds similar to the old days with photo processing. If your photos included naked kids, they could (and in some states were required to) turn them into the police and you could expect a visit.
I got a cable modem so I run public wifi. It is not a choice, I lose service completely if I turn it off.
Goodwill does not sell donated computers, at least in AZ.
Every computer "donated" to them goes to a scrapper in Mexico.
Just talk to any young-ish shelf stocker guy and ask if they ever get any computers for sale.
The most I've seen is a motherboard in a box, or a stripped and empty ATX case.
I do understand your point though.
So if someone offered cash rewards for killing someone, that's okay right? It sounds like the same logic to me. Getting someone else to do your dirty work puts you in the clear? No it does not.
If I was into that shit - I wouldn't leave it on the disk and take it to a place that employs high school grads (or not) to fix my PC.
I manage client systems front ends - and one time I was like "why isn't this system patching" and upon investigation I found that the disk was totally full. So I was like - hmm I wonder why it's totally full. It had tons of XXX rated videos on it.
In the course of troubleshooting you are going to find that stuff.
It would be like if you were a mechanic and popped out a door panel in the course of repairing something and found a load of drugs or something.
A geek squad employee would put some on..
I bought a laptop HDD off of craigslist recently. I knew to DBAN it, but how many "average" citizens would think to do that?
The logic of this means everyone is guilty.
If someone finding CP on a laptop at best buy will get the laptop owner arrested, then clearly the best buy employee who viewed the CP is guilty of the same crime for the same reason.
Rights-stealing douchebags need to see their flawed logic all the way through or they don't ever learn they are rights-stealing douchebags.
what about when dell / hp / others use refurbish parts under warranty
What makes you people this has any effect on anything?
IME getting access to records has a direct effect on if you have access to the records. What part are you having trouble with?
In other news, the FBI is paying cable installers for tips on people keeping illegal items in their homes.
Side note: Cable installers are making $1,000 for each $20 bag of weed they hide in people's homes.
"Grab them by the pussy" -- President of the United States of America
Your suggesting that giving them permission to search all data on the computer gives them permission to search for data that is deleted off of the file system? Effectively OFF of the system?
My two favorite fictional FBI agents aside, the FBI has been a rogue organization since it began. Just like all the others.
As someone who has read literally dozens of cases of guys convicted using the testimony of Confidential Informants, I disagree. In the federal system, at least, there is lots of precedent that CIs are NOT agents of the government, in spite of acting at their behest, being paid by them, and being strongly incentivized to produce convictions. There is a similar issue at play in the use of the federal conspiracy statute.
Incorrect assessment of the agency relationship is one of the biggest problems with the War on Drugs, as currently administered. There is a little variability from district to district, and the States' systems are obviously a whole other kettle of fish, but please don't spread misinformation.
You might also profitably read about the third-party search doctrine. It is extremely relevant in child pornography cases.
I was locked up with a pedophile in Allenwood PA who was arrested and convicted based on child pornography found during an illegal search conducted by a third party. This is the third party search doctrine. When a non-government employee discovers something illegal, through illegal means, he can report it to the authorities and they can use that evidence. The Fourth Amendment protects you from illegal governmental search, not illegal search generally.
If a burglar breaks into your basement and finds a woman you have kidnapped and calls the police, you are cooked regardless of how she was found.
There is a real question of when the BB guys become agents of the government, but prior decisions along this line are not encouraging.
Paying bounties is very different than employing. Not sayin' it's right. Just sayin' the Feds have a history of this. Many, many confidential informants receive money for their work, but they're not agents of the state in court.
Probably the government's position will be that they were not in the direct employ of the gov. They were private actors and received bounties for their efforts. This is their stance on confidential informants in drug cases, conspiacy cases and in some entrapment cases.
Depends if you consider a paid informant an agent of the state or not. I think courts have ruled that they are. Informants that gain something after they obtain information are not considered agents.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Okay, IANAL, and all of that. However, when I was locked up the Feds provided us a subscription to a periodical called the Criminal Law Review. This gave summaries of cases and decisions with potential import for inmates who had appeals running. There were several types of cases that I always read; one of these was cases that involved the use of confidential informants, another was attempted entrapment defense.
In all of the cases of these two types that I ever read, I don't remember any Federal Appeals Court ruling that receiving money from the cops made an informant an agent of the state. This has strong implications for both wrongful convictions (dudes will finger somebody they have never even seen for a reward or a sentence cut) and for entrapment (once a government agent is involved in instigating a crime, the courts have a test called the "but for" test which is a whole other kettle of fish).
I do think there was a guy on a trumped up terrorism charge that got a favorable ruling a year or two ago, but I don't remember the details, so things might be changing. I haven't had access to research materials for a year, now.
Beyond that, your last sentence was "Informants that gain something after they obtain information are not considered agents." Isn't that exactly what happened in the case in question? The Geek guys found the child porn and notified the FBI, then they got rewards.
Beyond that, your last sentence was "Informants that gain something after they obtain information are not considered agents." Isn't that exactly what happened in the case in question?
The question pertains to prior relationship and payments. If a Geek Squad technician found something and turned it over to law enforcement without any reward, that would be different. Also if the technician had no prior dealings with the FBI falls changes the case. In this case, the FBI proactively sought technicians beforehand to snoop for them in what could be considered an end-around the 4th Amendment.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.