FBI agents in Minneapolis have obtained a search warrant to examine the computer hard drive of a Twin Cities man after being alerted by technicians at Best Buy's Geek Squad, who allegedly found child pornography when it was turned in for repairs.
The case underscores the FBI's ongoing pursuit of those who victimize children online, but it also arrives amid allegations that the bureau once paid Geek Squad technicians to look for evidence and a national debate on constitutional questions over whether the technicians are serving as government agents.
According to an affidavit signed by an FBI agent in Minneapolis, investigators were notified in February that a Geek Squad technician found images of suspected child porn while working on a Twin Cities man's external hard drive to fix "performance issues." That month, FBI agents in Kentucky obtained a warrant for a "preview search" of the device and found about a dozen images of child pornography and erotica before sending it to the bureau's Minneapolis office.
The Star Tribune is not naming the suspect because he has not been charged with a crime. It's unclear what agents found during the FBI's full exam of the device or if the search will lead to a prosecution. The FBI declined to comment on the case.
It is not unusual for computer repair technicians to alert authorities when they discover evidence of child pornography while doing routine work. And customers who drop off devices with the Geek Squad must sign a consent form acknowledging that "any product containing child pornography will be turned over to the authorities."
But a case pending in California since 2014 raised a deeper set of questions. It revealed that eight employees at a Geek Squad facility in Kentucky were paid by the FBI over six years and that the government cultivated technicians as informants, or paid "confidential human sources."
Last month a judge in that case rejected much of the evidence against Mark Rettenmaier, an oncologist. U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney determined that Rettenmaier gave "clear, unambiguous, repeated" consent to technicians to search his hard drive, but the judge found multiple problems with the FBI's application to search his home and cellphone, which turned up thousands of images of child pornography.
Carney found that an agent made several false or misleading statements, including a failure to disclose that the original image found by the Geek Squad was located on the drive's "unallocated space." That typically contains deleted data that is difficult to prove was "knowingly possessed" by the device's owner. Carney said the FBI and a paid source from Geek Squad also conducted three separate searches without a warrant, plus a fourth illegal search using a forensic software program.
In the Minneapolis case, the agent who applied for the search warrant wrote that the FBI might already have "all necessary authority" to analyze the suspect hard drive, but said he was seeking the additional warrant "out of an abundance of caution" to ensure a search would comply with the Fourth Amendment "and other applicable laws."
"Best Buy's Geek Squad does not actively search for child pornography," the Minneapolis agent also wrote in his affidavit. "However, if in their endeavor to repair a computer unit, they come across what they believe to be child pornography, they will contact the FBI office in Louisville, Kentucky."
But evidence in the California case contradicts that statement, according to Aaron Mackey, an attorney for the nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which sued the Justice Department last month for access to records about any FBI training and payments to Geek Squad employees to search customers' devices without warrants.
Rettenmaier's attorney, who has described the FBI-Geek Squad relationship as "a joint venture to ferret out child porn," filed exhibits showing that eight Geek Squad employees were paid by the FBI over six years and that the government used technicians as informants, or "confidential human sources."
"We do know that some Best Buy Geek Squad members do actively search for child pornography," Mackey said. "Potentially, this is correct that they were performing a cursory check and came across an image and reported it to the FBI, and the FBI got a warrant and searched it. But we're always repeatedly questioning this process now because of what we found in California."
'We don't work for the FBI'
Jeffrey Shelman, a Best Buy spokesman, said the company is legally "and morally" obligated to notify law enforcement if it discovers suspected child pornography and does so roughly 100 times per year. "That is what you would hope people would want us to do to support those most vulnerable among us," Shelman said.
But, Shelman added, "We don't work for the FBI, period." He acknowledged that some Geek Squad supervisors did receive payments from the FBI in years past, but did so in violation of company policy and are no longer working for Best Buy or Geek Squad and were not employed when the latest case surfaced.
If the evidence underpinning the Minneapolis search was found in the "unallocated space" of the man's hard drive — the Minneapolis affidavit doesn't specify — that also could portend a legal challenge should the case be prosecuted. Courts have found that evidence found in unallocated space is not enough to prove that a defendant knowingly possessed the images.
Beyond that, attorneys say any new cases with Geek Squad connections are likely to draw fresh scrutiny.
"From the defendant's standpoint, was the purpose of [the Geek Squad] searching the hard drive to fix the computer or more?" said Marsh Halberg, a Bloomington attorney who has represented defendants in federal child pornography cases. "I would want to know whether there was any payment or request by the FBI to do this — was there any kind of request to go fishing?"
Stephen Montemayor • 612-673-1755
Twitter: @smontemayor
