Best Buy is being sued for obtaining information from a computer and reporting it to the FBI. The case comes after a California surgeon was convicted of having child pornography on his laptop. The court documents that have been made public show that Geek Squad has been working with the FBI to crack down on people with illegal child pornography.

There is no doubt that the employees are inclined to report any illegal information, but the fact that they were receiving payments from the FBI is a little concerning. Under these circumstances, the court might throw out the case of the surgeon that was convicted; which could cause future problems for any cases pertaining to child pornography that have already gone through the court system.

The argument of surgeon’s lawyer is that since the Geek Squad employees are receiving payments, they are now government employees. The employees therefore would need a warrant to seize any information or object in possession of a U.S. citizen due to the fourth amendment. Best Buy denies the fact that there were any violations in the release form that was signed when handing the laptop to Geek Squad to fix.

The FBI was contacted by a company supervisor upon finding the suspected evidence and the FBI gained a warrant to search the surgeon’s home. During the search the FBI found thousands of images of child pornography on his property and proceeded to convict him of possession of child pornography. I don’t know about the reader, but this is personally disturbing on a completely new level.

A federal prosecutor has stated, “there’s not a shred of evidence that anyone at the FBI directed anyone at Geek Squad City to detect and locate child pornography for the purpose of reporting it to the FBI.” Furthermore, Geek Squad finds child pornography about 100 times a year in the computers that are given to them for maintenance. Geek Squad also has not once reached out for advice or teaching how to search specifically for child pornography.

An anonymous Geek Squad employee has stated, “I have read the article and I can tell you that it is not true, there have been instances where we have reported it to law enforcement, but we do not actively search for said information.” Even though there are legal documents stating that payments from the FBI have been proven true, the employee says it is false. Perhaps employee is telling the truth, and the FBI assistants is not present at that particular Best Buy. Regardless, it is good for consumers to stay aware of any risks of sold information.