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I just want to post a few excerpts from court documents that always seem to be missing from these articles. Warning, descriptions of sexual imagery of children.

by TACIXAT 10y ago

I just want to post a few excerpts from court documents that always seem to be missing from these articles. Warning, descriptions of sexual imagery of children. >The picture in question was “of a fully nude, white prepubescent female on her hands and knees on a bed, with a brown choker-type collar around her neck.” (Dkt. 152 at 7.) Presumably in the form of thumbnails, Agent Riley also saw “partial images of genitalia of young girls” and states that “[i]t appeared there was a lot of [child pornography] as the tech didn’t have to scroll, the window popped up with image after image of [child pornography] and child erotica/grooming images.” [1] >A later search of the iPhone revealed alleged child pornography that is charged in Count 2 of the Indictment. [2] On the classification of Best Buy workers as CHS >During 2007 and 2008, I am aware of four employees of Best Buy Geek Squad in Brooks, Kentucky, who contacted us regarding child pornography on customers' devices. To best track the relationship with these individuals and document contacts the FBI had with them, we classified these individuals as confidential human sources ("CHS's"), though they were simply employees at the Best Buy Geek Squad who happened to be in a position to report child pornography that technicians had come across on devices during the course of repair. [3] 1. Case 8:14-cr-00188-CJC / Document 173 / Filed 12/19/16 2. Case 8:14-cr-00188-CJC / Document 76 / Filed 10/30/15 3. Case 8:14-cr-00188-CJC / Document 176-1 / Filed 01/05/17

throwaway729 10y ago
The key question for me is whether the CHS's were trusted and spontaneous. Trusted in the sense of there existing a chain of evidence that doesn't depend on the CHS's. Spontaneous is the sense that BB staff weren't running scans carte blanc for the FBI on every HDD that passed through their facilities. Trusting CHS's is debatable. The lack of spontaneity is damned scary, though.
- TACIXAT 10y ago
  It sounds like the techs were not on a fishing expedition, but came across the images in performance of their normal duties. >The hard drive arrived at Best Buy’s Brooks, Kentucky facility on November 25, 2011, and an initial search was performed by a Best Buy employee at 9:00 p.m. on November 28, 2011, revealing that the “drive appears to have been restored, underlying data visible.” (Bates 853.) Best Buy called Rettenmaier less than thirty minutes later; he authorized “Level 2” repair and identified “[p]ictures, excel files, quicken files, text and word documents” as the most important files to recover. (Id.) >On or about December 20, 2011, Best Buy technician John “Trey” Westphal observed what he deemed to be inappropriate content on the hard drive. (Dkt. 152 at 4.) His discovery occurred after the data recovery repair for images—“to determine that the repair was successful [Westphal] must access the files to verify that the files were recovered intact.” (Bates 823.) The later search of Rettenmaier's home turned up child pornography on 5 separate device. Those facts lead me to stand where I do on this issue.
  - fnordfnordfnord 10y ago
    >The later search of Rettenmaier's home turned up child pornography on 5 separate device. Those facts lead me to stand where I do on this issue. As abhorrent as CP is, the more important question here is whether the FBI's investigative tactics comply with our civil rights. It sounds exactly like the FBI set the Geek Squad on a fishing expedition. None of the stuff you added refutes that. Just because they found child pornography evidence independent of that discovered by the Geek Squad does not mean that we should be satisfied with their investigative tactics. You need to weigh this against the possibility that the FBI's "lists of targeted citizens" is obviously problematic. There are almost certainly people on that list who are in fact innocent of a crime. What if this list had been made public by a Best Buy employee? Simply having one's name on the list with [person recently prosecuted] for [abhorrent crime] could ruin a person's reputation.

by TACIXAT 10y ago

throwaway729 10y ago

The key question for me is whether the CHS's were trusted and spontaneous. Trusted in the sense of there existing a chain of evidence that doesn't depend on the CHS's. Spontaneous is the sense that BB staff weren't running scans carte blanc for the FBI on every HDD that passed through their facilities. Trusting CHS's is debatable. The lack of spontaneity is damned scary, though.

TACIXAT 10y ago
It sounds like the techs were not on a fishing expedition, but came across the images in performance of their normal duties. >The hard drive arrived at Best Buy’s Brooks, Kentucky facility on November 25, 2011, and an initial search was performed by a Best Buy employee at 9:00 p.m. on November 28, 2011, revealing that the “drive appears to have been restored, underlying data visible.” (Bates 853.) Best Buy called Rettenmaier less than thirty minutes later; he authorized “Level 2” repair and identified “[p]ictures, excel files, quicken files, text and word documents” as the most important files to recover. (Id.) >On or about December 20, 2011, Best Buy technician John “Trey” Westphal observed what he deemed to be inappropriate content on the hard drive. (Dkt. 152 at 4.) His discovery occurred after the data recovery repair for images—“to determine that the repair was successful [Westphal] must access the files to verify that the files were recovered intact.” (Bates 823.) The later search of Rettenmaier's home turned up child pornography on 5 separate device. Those facts lead me to stand where I do on this issue.
- fnordfnordfnord 10y ago
  >The later search of Rettenmaier's home turned up child pornography on 5 separate device. Those facts lead me to stand where I do on this issue. As abhorrent as CP is, the more important question here is whether the FBI's investigative tactics comply with our civil rights. It sounds exactly like the FBI set the Geek Squad on a fishing expedition. None of the stuff you added refutes that. Just because they found child pornography evidence independent of that discovered by the Geek Squad does not mean that we should be satisfied with their investigative tactics. You need to weigh this against the possibility that the FBI's "lists of targeted citizens" is obviously problematic. There are almost certainly people on that list who are in fact innocent of a crime. What if this list had been made public by a Best Buy employee? Simply having one's name on the list with [person recently prosecuted] for [abhorrent crime] could ruin a person's reputation.