Bounty hunters and government employees. Concerning those ghosts in your computer and the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, Best Buy Corporation employs, in this new Iron Curtain, with Independent Contractors, trained, directed, and paid like Booz Allen Hamilton, the Geek Squad. Concerning those ghosts in your computer, let Booz Allen Hamilton get their hands dirty!
Keep your own employees hands clean! Keep honoring Independence Day, with the old procedural manual. Your own employees need to be above board. As to the procedural manual which states, “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
The Geeks. In the Land of Independence, there are those independent contractors. So, by whom had Edward Snowden been hired? When the evil was not Edward Snowden but the method of operation in the Land of the Free, ignoring the procedural manual.
About ‘probable cause?’ The Justice Department has been sued by a non-profit privacy group seeking information, for the public, about the FBI’s alleged recruitment of the Geek Squad to search consumer computers for child porn during repairs, without probable cause. They were the police entering your home, for no good reason.
In every Best Buy store, there is the ‘Unmatched Service,’ by the armed forces of cyberspace. A subsidiary of American multinational consumer electronics corporation Best Buy, the Geek Squad is working inside the box, providing trusted, expert service for millions of customers, in the Haunted Land. Your electronics installed, protected, repaired…. in government service, for whomever is now heading the Executive Branch. Whether with and without probable cause, inside the Box Store!
It is just like health insurance, as an invisible self-supported premium now required by law like a tax never affecting what your health care provider is being paid – whether too much or too little.But you were so personally choosing and paying the cost. And your medical records had to become electronic, available to everyone.
“Informants who are trained, directed, and paid by the FBI to conduct searches for the agency are acting as government agents,” said David Greene, as the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Justice Department, about crossing the line. Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is demanding access to records about any FBI training and payment to Geek Squad workers to search customer computers without a court warrant – without probable cause. The FBI refused to provide records to EFF based on the agency’s policy of not confirming or denying ongoing investigations.
At issue isn’t the efforts to stop the exploitation of children or the criminality of child pornography. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is concerned that the FBI may be violating the constitutional requirement that law enforcement agencies obtain judge-approved search warrants, based on evidence there is probable cause of a crime, to search computers.” – Startribune.com
Bringing foreign operations to these shores, paying government informants unconcerned over issues of probable cause, in public policy and private detection, just as what was behind the NSA surveillance, with revelations by an employee of the defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, the independent contractor.
Moneyball. Inside baseball. The off-the-book employees. Law enforcement has turned away from trying to solve crime to now trying to prevent crimes. The “not on my watch!” fear that elected leaders carried has led to laws placed on the books, like first in the United Kingdom, for the purpose of “preventing” serious crime, with intervention. So, entrapment, to detect serious crime. Like the thinking that led to the Watergate break-in. And if the Feds can engage in these methods – in the age of metrics and preemptive attack – why can’t local law enforcement? In one private corporation, the Geek Squad carried their own name, on their own company car.
According to a criminal complaint filed Wednesday in Blue Earth County District Court, the adult son of Hennepin County Sheriff has been charged with four felonies for allegedly trying to solicit a young adult woman and her 13-year-old friend for sex as well as for possessing pornographic images later found on his cell phone involved children. It was the Blue Earth County prosecutor who destroyed the career of a football coach at the University of Minnesota-Mankato over these kinds of charges, determined to be unfounded.
“Court documents in federal court in Santa Ana, California, allege the FBI has launched a program of training and paying Geek Squad employees to look for child porn on customer computers sent in for repairs, without probable cause, and to report any porn discovered to “the authorities.” — Startribune.com
A San Francisco-based non-profit privacy group has sued the Justice Department which had refused their request for documents about how the FBI recruits, trains, and pays the geeks as Geek Squad workers to find illegal child porn on customer computers sent to Best Buy for repairs.
“The public has a right to know how the FBI uses computer repair technicians to carry out searches the agents themselves cannot do without a warrant,” EFF senior counsel David Sobel said in a statement. “People authorize Best Buy employees to fix their computers, not conduct unconstitutional searches on the FBI’s behalf. The FBI cannot bypass the Constitution’s warrant requirement by having its informants search people’s computers at its direction and command.” — Startribune.com
Was it a wonder that Best Buy was reducing its international footprint, exiting from Canada and Mexico? Why, as companies across industries are focusing on international expansion, would any foreign government trust Best Buy? Internationally, Best Buy closed all of its nine Best Buy–branded stores in China, in March 2011. In April 2013, with 2,400 stores in Best Buy Europe, Best Buy sold its 50% stake to its joint venture partner Carphone Warehouse for $775 million. This was a good business decision when you start to lose trust overseas.
And if you listened close enough to the statement released by the Geek Squad, about how the genie got out of the box if not the bottle or the box store, you would hear a disclaimer for all the damages which ensued, from the ghosts in your computer.
So at what point does a bounty hunter get paid by the FBI?
POST SCRIPT, MARCH 22, 2018: Ringtones. If you are listening closely. Concerning those ringtones, to the song “Secret Agent Man.”
Best Buy is no longer ordering Huawei phones and other products from the Chinese manufacturer as U.S. lawmakers and intelligence leaders have raised security concerns about the firm. About Huawei, not Best Buy. The outside world has all the concerns about Best Buy, in the high tech world we live in. Those phones from Huawei will not longer be sold in the next few weeks, though spokespeople for neither partner — Best Buy or Huawei — would discuss their breakup.
Those security cameras are here for your own protection. Revealed through a records request by the Electronic Frontier Foundation – a digital civil rights group – records show the FBI paid Geek Squad workers to flag illegal material found on the computers of Best Buy customers from a California Best Buy in Chula Vista, from a South Brunswick, N.J., store, from Best Buys in Fort Smith, Arkansas, from near Bloomington, Illinois. Yes, they contained the same thing — images of child pornography — all coming to the attention of the FBI through informants working for Best Buy’s Geek Squad, by their computer repair gurus. According to FBI documents. One Geek Squad worker received a $500 payment from the FBI, per the documents. In Kentucky — where the computers were sent for repair — one served as the venue for the meeting of an FBI cyber crimes group.
Now about that Fourth Amendment of the Constitution protecting citizens from unreasonable searches and seizures, a statement from Best Buy described decisions to receive payments by their Geek Squard employeeS to be “in very poor judgement and inconsistent with our training and policies.” Hmmmm. But happening all over the country, with their employees. And one place in Kentucky — where the computers were sent for repair — served as the venue for a meeting of an FBI cyber crimes group. But who could be sympathetic anyway to the rights of child porn criminals, said a statement from Electronic Frontier Foundation, over whether the FBI’s years-long relationship with Geek Squad employeeS, under the management of Best Buy, sidestepped the computer owners’ Fourth Amendment rights?
According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the FBI also declined to state whether it had informants in employees of other computer repair businesses besides Best Buy. Said Attorney James Riddet to the Washington Post, “If they’re going to set up that network between Best Buy supervisors and FBI agents, you run the risk that Best Buy is a branch of the FBI.”
https://www.cnet.com/news/huawei-dealt-blow-loses-best-buy-as-smartphone-retailer/
Baseball91's Weblog 
RE: Public service and privacy.
One day after his adult son faced felony charges, using a cellphone tied to his dad’s campaign for governor, Sheriff Rich Stanek asked for privacy.
http://www.citypages.com/news/who-watches-the-people-watching-us/441448023
Stanek’s spokesman Mike Zipko said, “Rich does request privacy for his family. He is not taking any time off. He actively is working to continue to manage the department to help keep the people of Hennepin County safe.”
Yeah, this same Rich Stanek who had been busy dispatching the Hennepin Country deputies to Standing Rock in the Dakotas, way beyond the borders, involving his employees in disputes over Native Land over the Dakota Pipeline. Because he did not have enough to do in matters of internal affairs in Minneapolis and Hennepin County? And he wanted to run the state of Minnesota some day?
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2016/10/25/hennepin-county-sheriff-equipment-staff-dakota-access-pipeline-protest
Ryan Stanek had been arrested by the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension for soliciting sex from a young adult woman as well as a minor. Law enforcement authorities said the 24-year-old believed he was going to meet a young adult woman and her 13-year-old friend for sex.
Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) agents arrested Stanek on May 19th, shortly after 10 p.m. at the River Hills Mall in Mankato [whatever time those malls closed in Blue Earth County]. Ryan Stanek was then taken to the Blue Earth County Justice Center, where the prosecutor alleges he told “authorities,” when he did not have legal counsel, that he intended to meet a young adult woman and her 13-year-old friend for sex which he knew would have been “illegal.”
The next day, Hennepin County Sheriff Stanek ended speculation that he would run for governor.
“This is a personal matter,” said spokesman Zipko, “and a serious one.”
Inside a Sheriff’s Office. How do you know that another cop did not download the images when the phone was in their possession? Some people did not personally like the sheriff, so they went after his son? Even after the sheriff’s re-election announcement, concerning the office of governor, in Minnesota.
Blue Earth? Where is the Earth ever blue? In rural Blue Earth County, images involving girls engaged in sex acts with animals? What could you ever believe in Blue Earth County, where the fictional character Virgil Flowers, employed by the BCA, lives? In August 2012, football coach Hoffner was removed from his position as head football coach and placed on administrative leave after local “authorities” charged him with images involving child porn, after a staff member at Minnesota State discovered videos of his own naked children on a cell phone which had been issued to Hoffner by the university. Those charges were dismissed almost four painful months later. In December 2012, the judge who dismissed the charges ruled that the videos of the children amounted to nothing more than them acting silly after a bath.
There had been no actual statutory rape. There had been no actual thirteen-year old girl, but one day later, BCA agents allegedly found images on his cell phone “consistent with child pornography,” according to the Blue Earth “authority.” Ryan Stanek has been a troubled young man, wrestling with issues of addiction. Had political enemies of his father just set him up? Had the BCA been used, to set up Ryan Stanek? Was this entrapment? In this honey trap stratagem in which irresistible bait is used to lure a victim? How different was this from paying government informants unconcerned over issues of probable cause, creating probable cause?
In Blue Earth County, some law enforcement authority knew… that Ryan Stanek had been sentenced in 2015 to a year of probation after pleading guilty to drunken driving. Some parole officer knew. In office politics, others knew that Ryan had once been cited for inattentive driving, for speeding, for loud music. Some county attorney knew that Ryan was crying for attention which might have explained the eventual charges of drug possession as well as driving on a suspended license. So were these charges as empty as the emptiness which could come from the efforts of a famous father, trying to “keep the people of Hennepin County safe.” As he sacrificed a bit of his private life, for public safety? Like maybe the Authorities in Blue Earth County could so much identify with?
Meanwhile, for those unaware, the primary purpose of of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 [RIPA] passed in the United Kingdom even before September 11, 2001 but updated in 2003, 2010 and 2015. is: “In the interests of national security, for the purpose of preventing or detecting serious crime and for the purpose of safeguarding the economic well-being of the United Kingdom.”
“The Act specifically covers activities intercepting communication, the use of communications data, directed surveillance (covert surveillance conducted for the purposes of a specific investigation or operation), covert human intelligence sources like with James Bond who establishes or maintains a covert personal or other relationship, and even intrusive surveillance which suggests covert surveillance taking place on residential premises or in any private vehicle. Under RIPA, special permission is supposed to be required by councils using surveillance techniques that requires the use of secret listening devices, covert surveillance cameras and even private detectives.” — http://truepublica.org.uk/
Behold the mass surveillance! Lord Paddock of the House of Lords “acknowledges that government, its agencies and councils cannot be trusted with such powers by stating that “there is a significant risk that authorities will use powers in a way that parliament never intended”. Of anyone in the House of Lords, or even Parliament itself, he would know.” — http://truepublica.org.uk/
“In defense of abusing these terror laws The Guardian report quoted Councillor Colin Smith: “Council officers deal with complaints day in and day out about socially inadequate individuals fly-tipping and preying on the weaker, more vulnerable members of our society, normally the elderly and this technology is key to bringing their worst excesses to heel.”
Smith mentioned that the council “kept to the letter of the law to prevent any so-called spying taking place on law-abiding individuals. This is again another admission that either RIPA was poorly designed or is being fully abused by government and its agencies.. — http://truepublica.org.uk/
#GeekSquad
Comment by baseball91 — June 1, 2017 @ 2:16 PM |
After local “authorities” charged him with images involving child porn, after a staff member at Minnesota State discovered videos of his own naked children on a cell phone which had been issued to Coach Hoffner by the university…..
Meanwhile, by the end of July 2017, some of those Geek domestic spies are facing a corporate layoff. Wonder what those other jobs will be, and where, and with whom? As out children became not just so smart but given this new degree of omniscience.
http://www.startribune.com/best-buy-eliminating-400-remote-positions-employees-will-be-offered-other-jobs/437234663/
Comment by baseball91 — June 17, 2017 @ 12:12 AM |
Meanwhile, in the way a Culture changes for people who never lived in Eastern Europe during the Cold War or under the Nazis in 1940, here is the new mindset, this new way of thinking, that comes to people who have so many followers on social media. In alliance with all the Corporate spying by companies that leave cookies on your computer to profit from data collecting, here is today’s news story, for kids who have grown up with Homeland Security and worries about borders and who is getting in . . . about DELIVERANCE, with the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, but with a desire for more.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-amazon-com-key/amazon-to-sell-smart-locks-so-it-can-slip-packages-into-your-home-idUSKBN1CU1G2
Comment by baseball91 — October 25, 2017 @ 10:39 AM |
Let freedom ring you!
National Public Radio is just picking up the story…. 9 months later. So who do you think is is worse, the paid snitch that you hired or the person with your computer looking at porn? Indeed, the Best Buy possible. Their paid snitch prostituting himself/herself as holier than thou, and taking your money at the same time as your credit card number, possibly for private use. And what of the development of shakedowns, playing federal police. Pay-offs for not turning you in, to the Feds. Who do you trust?
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/03/07/591698708/fbi-used-paid-informants-on-best-buys-geek-squad-to-flag-child-pornography
@MeToo #Geek_Squad
Comment by baseball91 — March 7, 2018 @ 8:12 PM |
Comment by baseball91 — March 7, 2018 @ 8:30 PM |
The ringtones. Concerning those ringtones, to the song “Secret Agent Man.”
Best Buy is no longer ordering Huawei phones and other products from the Chinese manufacturer as U.S. lawmakers and intelligence leaders have raised security concerns about the firm. About Huawei, not Best Buy. The outside world has all the concerns about Best Buy, in the high tech world we live in. Those phones from Huawei will not longer be sold in the next few weeks, though spokespeople for neither partner — Best Buy or Huawei — would discuss their breakup.
Those security cameras are here for your own protection. Revealed through a records request by the Electronic Frontier Foundation – a digital civil rights group – records show the FBI paid Geek Squad workers to flag illegal material found on the computers of Best Buy customers from a California Best Buy in Chula Vista, from a South Brunswick, N.J., store, from Best Buys in Fort Smith, Arkansas, from near Bloomington, Illinois. Yes, they contained the same thing — images of child pornography — all coming to the attention of the FBI through informants working for Best Buy’s Geek Squad, by their computer repair gurus. According to FBI documents. One Geek Squad worker received a $500 payment from the FBI, per the documents. In Kentucky — where the computers were sent for repair — one served as the venue for the meeting of an FBI cyber crimes group.
Now about that Fourth Amendment of the Constitution protecting citizens from unreasonable searches and seizures, a statement from Best Buy described decisions to receive payments by their Geek Squard employeeS to be “in very poor judgement and inconsistent with our training and policies.” Hmmmm. But happening all over the country, with their employees. And one place in Kentucky — where the computers were sent for repair — served as the venue for a meeting of an FBI cyber crimes group. But who could be sympathetic anyway to the rights of child porn criminals, said a statement from Electronic Frontier Foundation, over whether the FBI’s years-long relationship with Geek Squad employeeS, under the management of Best Buy, sidestepped the computer owners’ Fourth Amendment rights?
According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the FBI also declined to state whether it had informants in employees of other computer repair businesses besides Best Buy. Said Attorney James Riddet to the Washington Post, “If they’re going to set up that network between Best Buy supervisors and FBI agents, you run the risk that Best Buy is a branch of the FBI,”
https://www.cnet.com/news/huawei-dealt-blow-loses-best-buy-as-smartphone-retailer/
Comment by baseball91 — March 22, 2018 @ 1:47 PM |
Meanwhile, last month Best Buy unveiled their Total Tech Support program in a move to take its Geek Squad tech support services nationwide, as an addition to the company’s growth strategy.
Comment by baseball91 — June 7, 2018 @ 10:44 AM |