Report: Best Buy’s “Geek Squad” Was a Front for FBI Domestic Surveillance Increase

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by Micah J. Fleck

I have never liked or trust Geek Squad. Their customer service ratings were often full of reviews by customers who felt violated by overly snoopy (and sometimes, even thieving) technicians. Now, there is an explanation for why these intrusive tactics occurred: Geek Squad was at times utilized as a front for FBI spying through citizens’ computers. Trained by the government organization to “accidentally” discover information about us while working on our computers, the techs in Geek Squad’s employ were reportedly acting agents of federal domestic surveillance.

According to OC Weekly:

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.”

That’s nice. Good to know that the marketplace is totally free of government meddling, and all.

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