If you’ve ever brought your computer to Geek Squad and wondered if they looked through your shit, turns out you weren’t just being paranoid.
A report released by the Washington Post revealed today that in fact Best Buy’s Geek Squad had a close relationship with the FBI, in “a joint venture to ferret out child porn.”
It is unclear what else they looked for in computers for the FBI.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for catching anyone involved in child porn, but it makes you wonder what else the fine folks over at Geek Squad have been doing with your computer while they are in their possession.
Normally the government needs a search warrant to look through your shit, but with the help of Geek Squad they don’t need shit. They let the guys at Geek Squad do the dirty work and if they find anything the government wants, they turn it over to the FBI and then get paid for their time.
One rep from Best Buy said that when you bring your computer in, you consent to having your computer searched, even if you don’t realize you have done it.
I was in Best Buy today and nowhere does it say that you consent to your computer being searched when you bring it in. In fact, I specifically looked for such signage. Couldn’t find it anywhere.
While there is no question that Geek Squad technicians have notified authorities after finding child porn, the new court documents assert that there is a deeper relationship than has previously been revealed between the company and federal authorities.
Look at what they say here … “… and there’s not a shred of evidence that anyone at the FBI directed anyone at Geek Squad City to detect and locate child pornography for the purpose of reporting it to the FBI.”
The funny thing is, I was having a conversation with a shady makeup artist the other day, asking about why she was trying to recruit girls on set to do something illegal. Instead of just simply saying “I didn’t do it,” she instead said something just like the government did in this case. It was something like, “you can’t prove I did anything wrong. There is no evidence to prove I did anything.”
See, a non guilty person would have just said, what do you mean? That never happened. But a guilty person would do like what Nina’s Makeup did and jump right to, YOU HAVE NO PROOF!
Best Buy denies any wrong doing, despite the mountain of evidence against their employees, including supervisors who were paid off.
A number of Geek Squad employees received $500 or $1,000 payments from the FBI, documents and testimony showed. Riddet cited an FBI letter to the U.S. attorney in Kentucky which stated that, “Under the control and direction of the FBI, the CW [confidential witness] agreed to notify the FBI when CW detects the presence of child pornography during the regular course of CW’s employment and is willing to testify in a court of law.”
“Riddet also cited an internal FBI report announcing a meeting at Geek Squad City, which noted, “The Louisville Division [of the FBI] has maintained close liaison with the Geek Squad management in an effort to glean case initiations and to support the division’s computer intrusion and cyber crime programs.” The same agent wrote in a separate memo that agents were “seeking training of the Geek Squad facility technicians designed to help them identify what type of files and/or images would necessitate a call to the FBI.”
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