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FBI agents paid employees in Best Buy's Geek Squad unit to act as informants, documents published Tuesday reveal.
Agents paid managers in the retailer's device repair unit to pass along information about illegal content discovered on customers' devices, according to documents posted online by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The digital rights group sued the FBI for the documents last year after the bureau denied a Freedom of Information Act request.
The EFF filed the lawsuit to learn the extent to which the agency trains and directs Best Buy Geek Squad employees to conduct warrantless searches of customers' devices during maintenance. The EFF said it was concerned that use of repair technicians to root out evidence of criminal behavior circumvents people's constitutional rights.
[...] Another document shows the FBI approved a $500 payment to a "confidential human source" whose name was redacted. The EFF said the payment appears to be one of many connected to the prosecution of Mark Rettenmaier, a Southern California doctor accused of possessing child pornography after he sent in his computer to Best Buy for repairs.
The EFF said the documents detail investigation procedures in which Geek Squad employees would contact the FBI after finding what they believed to be child pornography on a customer's device.
The EFF said an FBI agent would examine the device to determine whether there was illegal content present, and if so, seize the device and send it to the FBI field office closest to where the customer lived. Agents would then investigate further, and in some cases try to obtain a warrant to search the device.
Best Buy said last year that three of the four employees who may have received payment from the FBI are no longer employed by the company. The fourth was reprimanded and reassigned.
Previously: Cooperation Alleged Between Best Buy and the FBI
FBI Used Best Buy's Geek Squad To Increase Secret Public Surveillance
EFF Sues FBI to Obtain Records About Geek Squad/Best Buy Surveillance
Related: How Best Buy's Computer-Wiping Error Turned Me into an Amateur Blackhat
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 08 2018, @07:15AM (2 children)
It's not a win for the "good guys" if the government violates the Constitution, regardless of the reasons why they did it. It's not okay to violate the highest law of the land just to supposedly nab some bad guys. I think this was unconstitutional because if the government recruits people like this, then they basically become government agents and are subject to constitutional limitations as well.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 08 2018, @08:06AM (1 child)
You, oh noble AC, must be one of those that arcz is worried do not understand law. The government recruits "contractors", kinda like mercenaries like the formerly known as Blackwater brother of the Sec. of Educamation, Eric the Prince, and thus the contractors are under no constitutional limitations! Hooray! Think of it as kind of like Uber cops. No license, no training, no liability insurance, but hey! Cheaper and plausible deniability! The CIA calls them "assets", and they can commit treason!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 08 2018, @07:24PM
Well, that's only currently tolerated because our courts are absolutely packed with insane authoritarians. Good luck getting rid of these practices when all branches of government are in favor of it, despite its blatant unconstitutionality.