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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.
What makes you people this has any effect on anything?
It's truly covefe
... and the CIA
And the BBC, BB King
And Doris Day
Matt Busby
Dig it, dig it, dig it...
[That was "Can You Dig It" by Georgie Wood. And now we'd like to do "Hark The Angels Come".]
.
.
*When I find myself in times of trouble
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom
Let it be*
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.
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.
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
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?
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.
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?
..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....
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.
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 ]
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.
BBB
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.
NOW they care about it, when it's not their little leftist cadre in control of the executive branch anymore.
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..
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
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
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.