ALERT: FBI Used Geek Squad for Surveillance of Citizens

Exactly what tricks doesn’t the government use to spy on citizens.

Whether eavesdropping on phones or getting warrants through FISA courts, the government appears limitless in checking up on taxpaying citizens. 

WikiLeaks has been a treasure trove of information on the malfeasance of our government, and now we learn there is even more.

As OC Weekly reports,

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.

That’s right. The Geek Squad could have checked your computer for porn. At least that’s the ruse.

The article continues.

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.”

I have warned people who say, “I’m just not political,” that you are indeed political.

Whether you like it or not, the government today forces you to be political. There is hardly anything you do in life that isn’t dramatically impacted by politics.

This story highlights my point exactly. You can’t even trust The Geek Squad to simply get your computer working. And what surveillance did they establish, when they put in that new home theater system?

Government is everywhere.