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Recently unsealed records reveal a much more extensive secret relationship than previously known between the FBI and Best Buy's Geek Squad, including evidence the agency trained company technicians on law-enforcement operational tactics, shared lists of targeted citizens and, to covertly increase surveillance of the public, encouraged searches of computers even when unrelated to a customer's request for repairs.
To sidestep the U.S. Constitution's prohibition against warrantless invasions of private property, federal prosecutors and FBI officials have argued that Geek Squad employees accidentally find and report, for example, potential child pornography on customers' computers without any prodding by the government. Assistant United States Attorney M. Anthony Brown last year labeled allegations of a hidden partnership as "wild speculation." But more than a dozen summaries of FBI memoranda filed inside Orange County's Ronald Reagan Federal Courthouse this month in USA v. Mark Rettenmaier contradict the official line.
One agency communication about Geek Squad supervisor Justin Meade noted, "Agent assignments have been reviewed and are appropriate for operation of this source," that the paid informant "continues to provide valuable information on [child pornography] matters" and has "value due to his unique or potential access to FBI priority targets or intelligence responsive to FBI national and/or local collection."
Other records show how Meade's job gave him "excellent and frequent" access for "several years" to computers belonging to unwitting Best Buy customers, though agents considered him "underutilized" and wanted him "tasked" to search devices "on a more consistent basis."
Step 1: Put child porn on target's computer
Step 2: Report target to FBI
Step 3: Collect $500 bounty
Profit!!!
Previously on SoylentNews: Cooperation Alleged Between Best Buy and the FBI
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 12 2017, @02:40AM (1 child)
By donning a shield they seem to believe that they become the embodiment of Judge Dredd: "I am the law". It becomes self-reinforcing when those who claim to not be bad don't rein in the ones who obviously are.
(Score: 2) by art guerrilla on Wednesday March 15 2017, @10:34PM
OR, maybe we should consider a nation that spends over half its discretionary spending (NOT taking into account the black budget) on the military to be -duh- a Militaristic Nation by just about any metric...
maybe we should consider a nation which has militarized police who ONLY need steeenking badges and a gun, and NO use for pesky 'laws', and 'rights', and stupid, wussy shit like that which gets in the way of nailing The Bad Guys (amirite, or what ? ? ?), as a police state...
maybe we should consider that a nation constantly spying upon, monitoring, and -yes- terrorizing its populace is a paranoid, psychopathic nation...
we have gone too long accepting that we live for the state, when it is the opposite: the state lives ONLY for us and to SERVE us, not to imprison us...
because -make no mistake- we are all prisoners here in fortress amerika...
but, oh, the bread and circuses...
the bread, so sugary and GMO'ed; the circuses, so shiny and vapid ! ! !
oh, the places we will go ! ! !