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
Related Stories
The OC Weekly reports on the case United States of America v. Mark A. Rettenmaier in which a California doctor is charged with knowingly possessing child pornography. The defendant came under investigation after he brought his computer to Best Buy's Geek Squad for service. A technician there discovered an image of an unclothed girl (which the defence asserts is not child pornography) in unallocated space of the computer's hard drive.
According to the defence attorney,
[...] records show "FBI and Best Buy made sure that during the period from 2007 to the present, there was always at least one supervisor who was an active informant."
The OC Weekly story says that:
[...] the company's repair technicians routinely searched customers' devices for files that could earn them $500 windfalls as FBI informants.
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
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
Multiple publishers are reporting that Micky Dolenz, the last surviving member of the made-for-tv band, The Monkees, is suing the FBI under the Freedom of Information Act. He aims to get as much of the FBI's file on The Monkees as possible with the goal of uncovering what they may have on higher priority surveillance targets of the era, such as John Lennon or the MC5. According to a limited file release from 2011, The Monkees are only mentioned in two FBI documents, one of which remains fully redacted.
The Monkees may not be seem like the kind of band that would attract the FBI's attention, especially during a time when groups like Country Joe and the Fish and the MC5 were leading the movement against the Vietnam War. But the Monkees were one of the most popular bands in America in 1966 and 1967, and they sprinkled anti-war sentiments into songs like "Ditty Diego-War Chant" and even "Last Train to Clarksville," a song about a man headed off to war that fears he'll never see his love again.
"The Monkees reflected, especially in their later years with projects like [their 1968 art house movie] Head, a counterculture from what institutional authority was at the time," Zaid tells Rolling Stone. "And [J. Edgar] Hoover's FBI, in the Sixties in particular, was infamous for monitoring the counterculture, whether they committed unlawful actions or not."
-- https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/the-monkees-micky-dolenz-fbi-1234584299/
In the intervening decades, making and distributing music has become highly centralized and corporate.
Covered at:
BBC: Micky Dolenz: Last living Monkees member sues FBI for secret files on band
Bloomberg: Last of the Monkees Wants Their FBI Records Turned Over
The Los Angeles Times: The FBI had a file on the Monkees, and now Micky Dolenz is suing to find out why
TMZ: Micky Dolenz Demanding FBI File on The Monkees!!! (Yes, There Actually Is One)
Rolling Stone: The Monkees' Micky Dolenz Would Like a Word With the FBI
NBC: Surviving Monkees member Micky Dolenz sues the FBI, asks for files on him and his bandmates
Previously:
(2019) The FBI "Can Neither Confirm Nor Deny" That It Monitors Your Social Media Posts
(2019) U.S. Government Using Secretive FISA Rules to Spy on Journalists
(2017) EFF Sues FBI to Obtain Records About Geek Squad/Best Buy Surveillance
(2016) Snowden Tried to Tell NSA About Surveillance Concerns, Documents Reveal
(2014) Already a Winner in EFF's "Most Outrageous Response to a FOIA Request" Contest?
(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.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday June 02 2017, @12:53PM (3 children)
Sending your computer to Best Buy for repairs shouldn't require you to surrender your Fourth Amendment rights
I agree with the above statement, but I do have to ask: if you have highly illegal stuff on your computer, why would you be dumb enough to hand it over to someone else to rifle through, who could then report you? It's like hiring a maid service to clean your house and hoping they don't report the kidnapped girl in your basement.
Of course, it could get much worse than reporting cp, and we could have computer repair services reporting people for "stolen" movies or other copyright violations on their PCs, but we're not there yet, but I really have to wonder what these people were thinking in calling Geek Squad.
(Score: 2) by gidds on Friday June 02 2017, @03:08PM
Yes, it's a dumb thing to do — but it may not seem so at the time.
For one thing, people may not realise they have anything illegal. Different jurisdictions have different ideas at different times about what counts as illegal images, text, or whatever — for example, I believe that even obvious hand-drawn cartoons can infringe some laws if one of the characters looks under-age. Similarly, it's not always clear what would count as a copyright violation — for example, a private rip from a legally-owned DVD. (Many things are technically illegal but wouldn't be considered immoral by many of us here, so this isn't necessarily about making moral judgements against people.)
And for another, people may not see much choice. If a machine stops working, they may have no means of finding what's on it or deleting files themselves. The only way of recovering all their stuff would be with some sort of repair service — and any such service could potentially have this risk.
[sig redacted]
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Friday June 02 2017, @06:28PM (1 child)
Dunno. Ask Gary Glitter :-
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-31015347 [bbc.co.uk]
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday June 03 2017, @12:01AM
Or Pete Townshend.