Is there proof Geek Squad didn't plant it on there as revenge on a hard-ass customer?

wouldn't this article just dissuade child pornographers to not go to geek squad for computer repairs?

I don't see the problem in this. This freak-show got exactly what was coming to him, you have no right to privacy by giving up your computer.

I thought that the previous statement was that they were looking only at suspicious file names and not at the files themselves? Wouldn't that be an 'ethics' or 'sexual harrassment' violation by looking at porn at work?

This is a tough one.

On the one hand: death to all child pornographers (literally, just kill them all)

But, to find that ONE kiddie porn file on this guys PC they must have checked every single video file on his PC, once again proving that Geeksquad does look for porn on your PC.

Unless of course the file was on his desktop and was labled "kiddie porn video file".

If they are checking for porno, who is to say they are not checking your credit report PDF's or other private information. Perhaps they are saving your browser password files, or checking the cache for your banking information.

To afran303: BS of course. You have every right to privacy when you give up your PC FOR REPAIR. It isn't like he sold it, or threw it away. If I bring a PC to Geeksquad (NFW), I'd expect them to do the job required to fix the machine, repairing that machine does not require them to go through my files, view my video collection or try and search for porn. They can check system files for problems, but that is where it ends.

@afran303: While I agree the guy should be prosecuted, I don't think GS has any busines snooping around. If something comes up on the screen that's one thing, but deliberate snooping is another -- and GS even admits they undelete deleted files to find porn. That's way over the line.

The police can't go rooting through your house just to find evidence if they don't have cause to get a warrant. GS shouldn't either.

Hey! I guess geek squad is good for something! Oh, and I think boiling them in vinegar would be more potent.^^

@Buran: But that's the whole point, GS is not the police. The constitution doesn't protect against unreasonable searches by Best Buy.

does anyone know if you sign a waiver that permits them to view all of your files? i'm just wondering if there's the risk of some type of illegal search and seizure here. I know GS isn't the police, but if the evidence was obtained "illegally" I'm wondering how much bearing it has in court. GS could be doing a disservice to law enforcement. Someone in the legal know can perhaps clarify.

Not that I'm not glad another sicko is in jail or anything... I'm just curious as to the legality of it all.

LOL there we go with the constitution worship. Whatever happened to 'common sense'? Yes, if you're careless enough to place questionable content in a public place you're risking exposure no matter what. On the other hand it's comforting to know that soon it will be too terrifying to leave your front door. Not yet, but soon.

I haven't shopped at that exact Best Buy for a year after they screwed my brother over (Best Buy screwing someone over? Impossible!!!!!111). Now that they got this sick fuck locked up, I may have second thoughts about not shopping there.

Then again, the Circuit City down the street is SO much better.

If you send your computer to Geek Squad with kiddie porn on it... you deserve what you get... end of story.

If someone found a dead hooker in the back of someone's car at the auto shop you wouldnt hear people going "well why was the tech in the trunk??"

Get over it people. We all know what happens when you send any of your property away for any kind of service. That's why they make valet keys and external hard drives. These people deserve to fall victim to their ignorance.

And I just mapquested where that guy lived. Its like a 5 minute drive from my house. Ugh. You never really think about it until they practically live next door to you. sick bastard

@Prosumerist: Yes, but undeleting files? That's way beyond the bounds of "oops, I accidentally saw your porn" and into "I intentionally went looking for pornography on your computer" territory.

@LittleJoe: I LOVE hooker metaphors. Excellent!

@LittleJoe: Like I said, right above, that's reasonable, but only to a point. When the GS team is undeleting files, a line has been crossed. It's like said tech tearing apart a seat cushion to find the weed you had hidden in there... while performing tire maintenance.

As much as I agree that Child pron is bad, are you this comment is promoting the much hated RIAA's style of "Every one is guilty and must be searched and punished" approach. It is one thing to find it by accident (namely if it is "out in the open") but looking for said materials brings up a security concern for me, first it is child pron then "though-crimes" next? What they are doing is a very big gray area, in one area it is good yet in the other they are possibly breaking privacy laws. Heck in the US cops can not even do it unless the owner gives consent or they get a search warrant. A few years ago there was this court case in my state, some cops using infra-red goggles for one reason or another. Find a person making drugs in there house, the case had to be tossed out due to the police failed to get a search warrant and probable cause was an invalided reason given the circumstances. Even thought this deals with privet computers in US v. Ziegler (Ziegler had Child pron on his office computer boss found out sent made a copy of the hard drive and sent it to the FBI), the courts ruled that "Ziegler had a reasonable expectation of privacy at his office and on his computer.That Court also found that his employer could consent to a government search of the computer, and that did not violate Ziegler's Fourth Amendment rights" Yet being that the computer was owned by Vishal Sehjpal and no one else it would seem that possibly he was given an illegal searches and seizures being that he should have an even greater expectation of privacy. Yeah what he did was wrong, yet the rights of the people must be protected. All in all since it did not detail how the repairman found the file, I may be wrong, yet looking for stuff such as this with out probational cause as was suggested would be grossly violating the rights of the people (in America at lease where this is based at/ most readers it seem come from)

It's not unconstitutional, and it's very likely to not be illegal.

It IS creepy and unethical, though, unless the files are sitting out in plain sight, and the tech sees them accidentally, in the course of doing legitimate work.

Does anyone else remember Operation TIPS?

Okay, I know where I stand on this one. Before I am crucified, I am equally disgusted as everyone else is with child porn even existing and think people who even watch child porn should be jailed (for having clear mental deficiancies that could escelated to endanger the life of real children), and the producers should be executed (btw, I am canadian and am normally a big anti-death penalty person).

However, Geek squad have NO legal right to search anyones harddrive. Infact, I am surprised that this person got arrested for an illegal search of his computer, also evidence gathered through a third party is inadmissable in US courts as far as I can recall)

Items on a persons harddrive should fall under privacy rights, even if you pass off the item to be repaired at a third party. You do not give geek squad the right to scan or look at the content of a harddrive, only the repair/restoration of the data, which does not need to be viewed to do.

If you take your car in to get an oil change, and the mechanic is caught looking through the locked coin box and finds a dime of weed (no child porn is not the equivilant, i know), they had no right, and the police would most likely not be allowed to use it against them without a warranty (which to obtain would need to include evidence that would lead to a warrant being issued) being issued for the search of the car...

Either way, I don't think its a fair search and its a "slippery slope" so to speak... where does our privacy start/stop?

@randomized:

Is there proof Geek Squad didn't plant it on there as revenge on a hard-ass customer?

Uh, well, yes. He plead guilty.

@scoobydoo: couldn't have said it better myself

Why is everyone saying that they were searching for these kinds of files? There is nothing saying that they were perusing through his My Documents folder when they had no right.

"A technician found a video file that appeared to contain child pornography"

Ok this doesn't say a lot, but the first thing that I assume is that there was something right there on the desktop that was questionable.

"[...] and called police who contacted Sehjpal and searched his computer and CDs."

The police searched after that. And to the people saying the police have no legal right to prosecute him through third party blah blah blah, the article says he pleaded guilty. No fight there.

I've been on the tech side of this.
Customer brings computer in because it's acting funny.
As a matter of policy we image the drive before proceeding with any file system work to protect from data loss. This fact is noted on every WO a customer signs when they come it. They can opt out and agree not to hold us responsible for any data loss, or let us do it, for a fee we will hold the backup for 30 days and reimage it for them if they want for free during that time period.
So we image the drive, determine that the problem is a virus and start a virus scan. During the scan we find kiddy porn.
The boss says we go Straight to the police.

I have every legal right to search anyones hard drive that is brought to me for any kind of work that requires me to do anything with the filesystem.
The Customer has given me consent to do this by bringing it to me.
I cannot Do a virus scan without searching the drive. If i choose to watch it while it is happening instead of working on something else I WILL see the names of a number of files.
If anything jumps out as kiddy porn I will call the cops.
The tools I use find hidden files. This is because virus writers hide files to keep the OS or virus scan software from viewing them.
So everyone up in arms about GS, and i'm no fan of them, searching the drives remember the fact that the customer gives them access. And i'm sure that just like me they have something in the paper the customer signs that says they will accessing the filesystem.

So if you don't want your files viewed, take them off your computer before you take it to a tech.

@killface: The people who are raising concern are saying more like "Where does privacy stater and end" and pointing out how they should not even needed to see the storage on the computer. Also some are starting the seemly hypocritical view stated in the post of "which is how Geek Squad techs must justify snooping through customer's files, that they're stopping child pornographers. Every customer could be a child pornographer, so it's necessary to look through every computer." which sounds a LOT like the RIAA's BS of "Any one can be a music pirate so we must accuse every one of doing this, and look at there computers." Last time I checked in the US it was "innacent until proven guilty" not "guilty until proven innacent" the issues people are making deal more with this then the fact that he had child porn or that child porn is bad, but it is the deeper issue at hand.

Those GS employees must have massive mp3 collections.

They keep the non-child porn as instructional material. "This is not child porn. Neither is this. No, no, she's eighteen, I've seen her site. No, seriously, she's just a midget."

Actually, my uncle is a lawyer who winds up defending a lot of these kinds of cases. A lot of the time, it'll just be something in the computer's IE cache or the like from when they were browsing potentially legit porn sites. This is usually enough shadow of a doubt to... uh... err... get them off.

Sorry.

I totally agree, child porn is one of the worst crimes and exploitations. He should have just came to Winona and used the universities public access terminals. We had a guy here looking at child porn a couple times a week, but thanks to the sheer incompetence of the campus security botching every possible step of the investigation the DA wouldn't take the case to court. I mean we all know that campus security is a joke but had I known that would happen I would just have taken it straight to the police.

Maybe someone should take a PC into Geek Squad filled with Consumerist stories about how geek Squad sucks and see what they do to it.

I worked for Geek Squad while I was finishing school so I would like to weigh in on this issue.

There are perfectly valid reasons for any technician to be viewing customer files. If a customer requested a data backup or was having viruses removed would be two examples of a how a technician could stumble on these files.

It is quite possible to know by the name of the file what the video contains.

I don't have any first-hand knowledge of this incident so I won't pretend to know the circumstances under which the file was found, it would be nice if other people would show the same respect. The fact remains that the technician that reported this did the right thing. By reporting this to the police he would have had to make a statement and agree to testify if the case went to court. Show some respect and quit assuming that everyone who works for Geek Squad is a pervert or on a quest for porn. They have literally thousands of technicnans and some are good and some are crap.

The management position on child porn was that we were not police and should not be looking for it BUT if it is found you report it to the police. What the hell is wrong with that policy?

Are the Geeks hero's here? WTF are they doing viewing video? Merry Maids (the house cleaning service) shouldn't be opening drawers -- Geek Squad shouldn't be opening files. If you're saying those with kiddie porn shouldn't hire Geek Squad and those with heroin in drawers shouldn't hire Merry Maids -- good point. But leave MY shit alone you twits

There have been a couple of recent stories in which Geek Squad and other low level computer techs admitted to intentionally searching through customers' hard drives looking for porn.

I doubt many people have an issue with this if the guy happened to run across the video in the course of doing his job, like a photo developer might. That's kind of a non-starter.

There's something of a hypothetical element, but I think just about everyone is aware of that.

I don't know when these people find time to snoop through computers. When I was a BB tech (before Geek Squad came in), we didn't have TIME to go snooping through computers.

any 2 year criminal law student can get these charges thrown out, or an assistant DA will get laughed out of a courtroom. There is enough reasonable doubt as an affirmative defense to claim that the alleged pornography wasn't on the system and wasn't even on the defendant's property. It's called an evidence chain of custody and it wasn't secured during a lawful search, henceforth even if he admitted to it being his it's what is known as fruits of a poison tree. Illegal search, no proof of custody=reasonable doubt=dismissed or no bill of indictment. It doesn't mean anything unless they can PROVE it was his...

@MrFlashport: There's likely a confession here -- the Indian surname makes me wonder if he didn't think it was a big crime

They also check every photograph that you bring to get developed anywhere. Its the law in most states, heck it might even be a federal law. In fact, some states are already starting to require computer techs to do this, or at least providing them 'witness' like protections.

@ Hossofcourse,
WTF does him having an indian surname have to do with him thinking its okay to have child pornography? Indian culture is, if anything, less accepting of pornography in the first place. Probably a stupid idea for you to slander an entire people like that.

@MrFlasport: There's a vague law somewhere that states that if you're guilty (or in this case admit guilt), you dont have any grounds to argue in defense for the presiding case. But this does leave room to counter-sue based on ethics or breach of contract.

There's the question of how the tech uncovered the file.
1. Did he go out of his way to locate the file (ie. restoring "deleted" files)?
2. Did he find the file in plain sight under conditions that any reasonable person would do so?

As much as I hate child-porn pervs, if #1 is true, the GS tech SHOULD be sued and GS in general for fostering such unethical behavior.

If #2 is correct, GO DIRECTLY TO JAIL you perv.

Then we have another question which deals with the core matter: what was the reason for the computer to be brought to Geek Squad for repair?
1. Did the client/perv ask GS techs to recover lost/missing files?
2. Did the client/perv ask GS techs to fix unrelated components (ie. hardware).

It's so easy to condemn and crucify people at face value. Our lives are a bit more intricate than what the sensational media "chooses" to report.

Common Now, most companies will look for porn on your computer if you take it in... Seriously, how hard is it to get rid of it before you take it in.

Only reason you should have to worry is if u can't boot into windows..

CompUSA does this all the time, jsut for the fun of it. But they don't keep the pictures.. You really have to be a pervert to keep them.

So all of the people that are openly defending GS, what virus attach themselves to video and jpg files? Not many. I think we all have to ask ourselves, do the ends justify the means?

I would like to see GS get sued for copyright infringement for illegally reproducing all of the porn and mp3s that we know they steal off of people's machines.

@afran303: No -- but nor does the law allow anyone to go snooping through your private property. I certainly don't expect the mechanic to go through the contents of my glove compartment or the hatch area of my car, and I shouldn't have to lock them to keep snoops out. A repair tech has no business doing anything other than doing the work he/she was hired to do.

I repair computers and I don't snoop.

And anyone remember the incident where a Home Depot subcontractor snooped around someone's house? Remember the outrage? Where's the outrage now?

Again, it's one thing if the banned stuff shows up on its own or is readily apparent, and that's cause to call the police. Invading privacy to look for something that MIGHT be there is not okay.

"Indian culture is, if anything, less accepting of pornography in the first place. Probably a stupid idea for you to slander an entire people like that."

There was a fair share of Indians on Dateline's To Catch a Predator. No culture is immune to pervs.

As a current GS Employee; Ive come across this before. And it was NOT due to me snooping through a customers computer. What ended up happening was we were running a command line virus scan; nothing out of the ordinary and it came up with an "Error Cannot Access File: XXXXXX" where it said explicit remarks regarding child pornography. Just because the Geek Squad finds something doesnt mean they were snooping for crap like that.

First of all, I do agree that child porn is disgusting and should never be condoned in any sort of manner.

However, I don't think we know what agreement he signed exactly when surrendering his computer to GS. Likely there was some type of agreement that authorized GS to go through the HD. Looking at deleted files, however, seems to be unnecessary search.

But I also have to agree that 'common sense' should be the best idea. Unfortunately most people do not have any common sense.

@afran303: afran, do you honestly think the constitution only applies to law enforcement? Next you'll be saying that Bush's wiretapping and opening of random mail with no consent to search is legal! Then again maybe it's good that you don't understand your rights; Darwin award up ahead.

@SOhp101: My point is simple, this is criminal. The GS are not law enforcement, and not subject to the same constitutional requirements as law enforcement. No doubt based on the information provided by a named GS employee the police got proper warrants, as the constitution requires, hence the guilty plea. The idea that Mr. Flashport says that "an assistant DA will get laughed out of a courtroom" is preposterous! I'm a prosecutor and have a very similar case pending, which has stood up on every lame-ass pretrial motion. Whether or not there is a possible civil suit for invasion of privacy is a separate matter.

@killface: Uh... you didn't see the rest of the articles on this site where GS admits to searching deliberately for porn without your permission? I guess not, but I'm surprised because there were so many such articles.

I don't know of a computer repair company/service that wouldn't/hasn't turned in people with child porn. If you have illegal stuff on your machine, your just stupid to bring it to someone else for repair and think they won't turn you in if they find it. Or you could just not do illegal stuff in the first place, but then if you were that smart, you wouldn't of brought it into someone for repair.

@Buran: uh yes I have read of such, but this article hasn't said anything to give us any idea of how the file was found. They could have been looking for porn, the file could have been named "kiddie porn" and right there on the desktop, they could have noticed a strange filename while doing a virus scan like Eric said above, or a million other possibilities.

Yes we have definitely cleared up that GS has some problems, but in this particular case we have zero way to know for sure how the file was located.

So, does no one else have a problem w/ Consumerist posting his home address on the front page? While it was in the newspaper article, that doesn't mean it couldn't be "[address redacted]" or even replaced w/ "...."

One of you already said you mapquested (who the hell uses mapquest any more?) his address. I'm not defending kiddie porn, but I don't like setting people up for vigilante justice. I see no benefit to this and I see many drawbacks.

As a former Geek Squad agent (I wrote the 10-page confessional), I don't think this man should be instantly strung up.

First off, if he is indeed a collector of child pornography, as much as it is wrong for him to have child pornography, it is wrong for the agent to be looking through his files and stumbling upon it.

Secondly, I do not trust Geek Squad enough to completely rule out the idea that it could have been put there by a disgruntled employee, or mixed up with another customer's backup.

Think about this... if there are indeed people with child pornography getting work done at Geek Squad (and I can vouch that there are from my own experiences working there), Geek Squad keeps backups for about 3 months on their server.

Which means that if they do back up child pornography infested computers, Geek Squad itself is harboring child pornography.

And, I can vouch to the fact that mistakes do happen, and backups are sometimes mixed up... what happens if your backup is mixed up with the person who had child pornography?

Again, I'm not defending people that have child pornography. I'm just saying that in no way should Geek Squad be given the respect or power of a police officer, detective, or judge.

In my honest opinion, this person's computer should be investigated by a competent computer technician, and the agent that found the video should be charged with invasion of privacy.

@Antediluvian:

Oh, I've got to plan to go to this guy's house and do some vigilante crap, his cellmate Bubba will take care of him. This Best Buy is 10 minutes from my house and wanted to see if this sick bastard lived anywhere near me or a school. 5 minutes from me, but at least he's not across the street from an area school.

And actually, I used Google Maps. I've just yet to hear Google Maps used in a verb sense, so I used Mapquested, just like you can use Kleenex to refer to any tissue ;)

@Anonymous-Writer:
"In my honest opinion, this person's computer should be investigated by a competent computer technician, and the agent that found the video should be charged with invasion of privacy."

As others have said, I don't think you can consider this an invasion of privacy just yet. It depends on how the files were found. If the GS agent dug deep into the filesystem to find it or recovered deleted items or something like that, then yes, perhaps privacy was invaded. But if there was a folder on the desktop (which a GS agent is going to see no matter what) titled "kiddie porn" then the only person who had their rights violated in this whole thing were the kids themselves. The fact that this guy a) downloads child porn and b) took his computer to Geek Squad of all places tells me that he likely is not too computer savvy and would not know how to hide his stuff too well.

We just don't know enough to judge the geek squad agent yet