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The Electronic Frontier Foundation has filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Federal Bureau of Investigation to obtain records related to the FBI's secret relationship with Best Buy's Geek Squad:
Sending your computer to Best Buy for repairs shouldn't require you to surrender your Fourth Amendment rights. But that's apparently what's been happening when customers send their computers to a Geek Squad repair facility in Kentucky.
We think the FBI's use of Best Buy Geek Squad employees to search people's computers without a warrant threatens to circumvent people's constitutional rights. That's why we filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit today against the FBI seeking records about the extent to which it directs and trains Best Buy employees to conduct warrantless searches of people's devices. Read our complaint here [PDF].
EFF has long been concerned about law enforcement using private actors, such as Best Buy employees, to conduct warrantless searches that the Fourth Amendment plainly bars police from doing themselves. The key question is at what point does a private person's search turn into a government search that implicates the Fourth Amendment.
Previously: Cooperation Alleged Between Best Buy and the FBI
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 02 2017, @11:02AM (5 children)
I know the US constitution limits the powers of the government, but next to the constitution there are a lot of regular laws.
I'm not from the US., here in Europe however we have "the right to privacy", in various forms, but it usually boils down to that your privacy is protected from everyone, government, companies and other persons included. Doing searches on someones computer, even if they entered it for repairs, would be illegal.
The US probably has a bunch of those laws as well, or otherwise the public could just start spying on congressmen and the government etc...
(Score: 2, Insightful) by technoid_ on Friday June 02 2017, @12:28PM (4 children)
I am finding that the law is only useful if there is a court that will uphold it. Too many Americans (including judges and LEOs) find the "think about the children" argument more important than then laws.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday June 02 2017, @12:46PM (3 children)
For someone who actually committed the crime, they're in a bind. An argument that criminal evidence was illegally searched for generally involves a strong implication of guilt. Sure, if they can get critical evidence thrown out (the US still does that) on the basis that it was found via an illegal search, then it can work for them. But more likely, they don't have enough proof of their own to make that happen. In that case, it's not going to look good from a juror's point of view that the accused is making the case not that they didn't do a crime, but rather that the authorities must have committed some sort of illegal search somehow.
So superficially, it appears in court that the accused just had a string of bad luck or incompetence. And nothing can be shown otherwise, until stories like this come out. I don't think it's a "think of the children" problem, but rather the ease with which authorities can hide institutionalized wrong-doing along with the low penalties for getting caught.
(Score: 2) by http on Friday June 02 2017, @04:45PM (1 child)
What are you guilty of? What would a cop like you to be guilty of?
If the cops are not going to go by the book on something as straightforward as evidence, it suggests they've got an agenda other than apprehending the guilty. Personal vendetta comes to mind as most obvious, but personal agenda is just as bad and I'm sure the armchair lawyers among us could come up with a longer list. One of the reasons there is a book to go by is to keep officers honest and impartial.
If a cop is planting evidence, they're going to screw up sooner or later, by "finding" it illegally or getting the paperwork wrong.
It throws every other action in an investigation, including starting it, under suspicion. Your "strong implication" is a mirage.
I browse at -1 when I have mod points. It's unsettling.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday June 02 2017, @05:36PM
Conversely, when they've been running this game for a while, what's the odds that your trial is going to be when they screw up?
Only if you can show it. Else it can harm you instead.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday June 02 2017, @09:26PM
In theory, you plead to the judge that the evidence was gathered illegally, and the judge either withholds it from the jury and tells them to ignore it.
In practice, jurors are not being selected on their proven ability to forget inconvenient information and allegations.