Skip Navigation
75 comments

  • FBI offered to Geek Squad a bounty on incriminating evidence found on long-term storage of computers they serviced and a lot of GS techs made those reports.

    That is to say GS had no concern for privacy or fourth amendment protections during the era of rising surveillance awareness.

    So I don't care if they never wake up.

    • Yes, a handful of BestBuy employees accepted payments from the FBI to report on CP found on a customers device. So let's all feel good about underpaid workers losing their jobs in this economy.

      • It's up to you, but over here it looks like an abuse of power and a violation of trust. If they can't be trusted not to look at the data they're trying to restore (except directly in the service of restoring it) they they can't be trusted with a business PC containing accounting data or legal correspondence either.

        And a violation of trust in the service of law enforcement is still a violation of trust in the public. Considering how this would poison the service for business clients, I am surprised it doesn't run contrary to Best Buy terms of employment (outside of mandated reporting, which is why mandated reporting laws exist for some cases).

        On the other hand AT&T will gladly spooge your phone call records to the police if they ask for it. (No warrant necessary.) And Amazon's Ring doorbell videos are sold to law enforcement whenever they want it (without permission of the doorbell owners.) But that's finally resulted in trouble, and Amazon is rethinking this service.

        It is interesting that in this economy which is intentionally managed to create a shortage of jobs and to lower wages, that employees are expected to betray the public trust and even engage in illegal activity at the behest of their employers just to stay employed, and that some of us might find this as an acceptable state of affairs. And yes, when business goes sour for the company, those employees will be discarded with no additional acknowledgment for their loyalty.

    • I knew a guy who made one of those reports. It was CP.

      You seem kind of upset about people being caught for this. Am I misreading you?

      • The problem isn't that the computers had CP, it's that the techs looked through the data.

        Yes, if they happen to see CP while doing their normal work, they should report it. But their normal work shouldn't involve looking through pictures at all in the first place.

      • Are you thinking of this instance? It's an instance that could happen to any of us. The CSAM in question was found (and only found) in garbage data in unused storage. And it means our GS tech had actively scan (go out of his way), rather than just fix the machine.

        It also means it's inconclusive, since that kind of stuff can end up in your webcache through malware vectored through advertising. CSAM is weaponized in malware. Heck, there are CSAM images in the Bitcoin blockchain file (or were, if they found a way to scour them). Not that innocent websurfers have not been falsely convicted due to invisible crap in their cleared webcache, but we should know better by now.

        It does raise a question about what you believe regarding the limits of our civil rights. Do you believe evidence illegally obtained by law enforcement should be wholly admissible if the crime is heinous enough? SCOTUS does, and ruled that even drug possession discovered during an illegal search should be admissible. But that pretty much means you and I cannot rely on constitutional protections from unreasonable search and seizure.

        Here in the States, preserving our protections and our privacy sometimes means defending the worst people. See, it's supposed to be a penalty against the state for poorly executing the law when someone can't be convicted due to inadmissible evidence. If a guilty citizen is improperly treated by law enforcement (according to the legal theory that supposed Blackstone's ratio) then they should be acquitted, and the public has only the incompetence of state actors to blame.

        Law enforcement is supposed to respect your protections, and if we let them conduct illegal searches (such as buying data from brokers, or using IMSI spoofers without a warrant, or asking Google for everyone within a mile and an hour of a criminal incident) then they're going conduct those same illegal searches when you're working with your mutual aid organization or are protesting against injustice. If serial killers and child molesters aren't protected from overpolicing, then you aren't either, and if you happen to be nonwhite, LGBT+ or part of another marginalized group (Juggalos!) then you're in far more danger of illegal searches, false convictions and prison time, assuming you're just not the victim of an officer-involved homicide.

        If you live in the US, it's very difficult not to commit crimes, particularly federal felonies. There but for your privacy (and / or the grace of prosecutorial discretion) goes your freedom and reputation.

        That said, the FBI has been super sloppy in its pursuit to hunt down CSAM traders, even letting their high-end malware leak into the public to be dissected and used by black-hats, and interests of rival nations.

      • Hey man, you're kinda narrowing down the entire problem of the right to privacy being consistently shat upon by your government into "well I knew one person where it was justified so this means those who argue against it fuck kids"

        I understand what you mean and if you want to carve an exception into the law for CP I'd be all for it - maybe everyone is a mandated reporter of child porn, and all suspicions MUST be reported to the FBI and the evidence handed over. But I don't wanna get swatted just because my wife and I are into BDSM and we photographed a particularly rough session. Or because I took some pics of some clear plastic bags filled with flour that I put in my trunk to prank a friend. Or a million other things a geek squad guy might misinterpret and call the police for.

75 comments