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FBI Used Best Buy's Geek Squad To Increase Secret Public
Surveillance
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 8, 2017 AT 9:25 A.M.
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Luke McGarry
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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."
To enhance the Geek Squad role as a "tripwire" for the
agency, another FBI record voiced the opinion that agents should "schedule
regular meetings" with Meade "to ensure he is reporting."
A Feb. 27, 2008, agency document memorialized plans
"seeking the 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."
Jeff
Haydock, a Best Buy vice president, told OCWeekly in
January there has been no arrangement with the FBI. "If we discover child
pornography in the normal course of serving a computer, phone or tablet, we
have an obligation to contact law enforcement," he said, calling such
policy "the right thing to do."
But evidence demonstrates company employees routinely snooped
for the agency, contemplated "writing a software program"
specifically to aid the FBI in rifling through its customers' computers without
probable cause for any crime that had been committed, and were "under the
direction and control of the FBI."
Multiple agency memoranda underscore the coziness with Best Buy,
including one that stated, "The Louisville Division has maintained [a]
close liaison with the Greek Squad management in an effort to glean case
initiations and to support the division's Computer Intrusion and Cyber Crime
programs."
These latest revelations are the result of the work of James D.
Riddet, the San Clemente-based defense attorney representing Rettenmaier. The
doctor, who specializes in obstetrics and gynecology, is fighting allegations
he knowingly possessed child pornography after the Geek Squad claimed it found
an illicit image on a Hewlett Packard computer he left with the company for
repair in 2011. U.S. Department of Justice officials filed criminal charges the
following year. But the case has been in legal limbo while U.S. District Court
Judge Cormac J. Carney considers Riddet's contentions of outrageous government
conduct.
In 2016, the defense lawyer claimed the FBI made Best Buy an
unofficial wing of the agency by incentivizing Geek Squad employees to dig
through customers' computers, paying $500 each time they found evidence that
could launch criminal cases.
There are also technical weaknesses in the agency's pursuit of
Rettenmaier. Just weeks before his arrest, federal judges ruled in a notable
separate matter that child porn found on a computer's unallocated space
couldn't be used to win a possession conviction because there is almost no way
to learn who placed it there, who viewed it, or when or why it was deleted.
Cynthia Kayle, a lead agent working against Rettenmaier, knew Geek Squad
informants had found the image in unallocated space, which is only accessible
via highly specialized computer-intrusion tools the doctor didn't possess.
Agents won a magistrate judge's permission to advance the case by failing to
advise him of those facts and falsified an official time line to hide
warrantless searches, according to the defense lawyer. Brown disputes any
law-enforcement wrongdoing.
But the government's case took more blows in January. During a
pretrial hearing with obnoxious FBI agents visibly angered that I'd alerted the
public about their heavy-handed tactics, Riddet asked Carney to take his
first look at the image found on his client's device, pointing out the picture
does not depict sex or show genitals. The lawyer then questioned agent Tracey
L. Riley, who retreated from her original, case-launching stance that the
image—known as "9yoJenny"—was definitely child pornography to
"not exactly" child porn. Under questioning, experts for both the
defense and the government testified that it's not only possible for files from
the internet to land on a computer without the owner's knowledge, but that it
also frequently happens.
Riddet wants Carney to suppress the evidence and dismiss the
case. "The FBI's internal documentation of its relationship with its
informants and the correspondence between the FBI and its informants suggest a
joint venture to ferret out child porn," he told the judge on March 1.
"Accordingly, Geek Squad City (GSC) is a government entity and its employees'
searches are warrantless government searches in violation of the Fourth
Amendment. . . . There was a total of eight FBI informants in GSC's
data-recovery department at various times."
Carney faces what could be a monumental ruling with nationwide
implications. This Republican judge and former UCLA football player has been
known to ridicule law-enforcement tactics when he considers them unethical. If
he doesn't accept Riddet's stance and tolerates the government's already
documented abuses, a trial is tentatively scheduled to begin on June 6 in Santa
Ana.
R. Scott
Moxley’s award-winning investigative journalism has touched nerves for two
decades. An angry congressman threatened to break Moxley’s knee caps. A dirty
sheriff promised his critical reporting was irrelevant and then landed in
prison. Corporate crooks won’t take his calls. Murderous gangsters mad-dogged
him in court. The U.S. House of Representatives debated his work. Pusillanimous
cops have left hostile messages using fake names. Federal prosecutors credited
his stories for the arrest of a doctor who sold fake medicine to dying
patients. And a frantic state legislator literally caught sleeping with
lobbyists sprinted down state capital hallways to evade his questions in
Sacramento. Moxley has won Journalist of the Year honors at the Los Angeles
Press Club and been named Distinguished Journalist of the Year by the LA
Society of Professional Journalists.
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