Wednesday in CE: Geek Squad Revealed to Have Decade Long Relationship with FBI

By Patrick McCarthy

After filing a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit last year, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has confirmed that the FBI has paid Geek Squad employees to flag illegal material when people pay Best Buy to repair their computers. The relationship potentially circumvents computer owners’ Fourth Amendment rights.

This comes after the prosecution of a California doctor revealed the FBI's ties to a Best Buy Geek Squad computer repair facility. The smoking gun was Best Buy denied working with the FBI, but the EFF indicated that their relationship is even closer than just paid informants.

The documents released to EFF show that Best Buy officials have enjoyed a particularly close relationship with the agency for at least 10 years. For example, an FBI memo from September 2008 details how Best Buy hosted a meeting of the agency’s “Cyber Working Group” at the company’s Kentucky repair facility, says the EFF.

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