Customer Says Best Buy Workers Are Snoops

[The Straight Story]

Customer Says Best Buy Workers Are Snoops

MT. CLEMENS, Mich. (CN) - Best Buy employees posted suggestive photos on a pornographic website they took from a customer's cellphone, the woman claims in court.

Jane Doe sued Best Buy Stores in Macomb County Court.

She says she took her cellphone to Best Buy for service on March 22, picked it up five days later.

"On the morning of April 5, 2013, plaintiff woke up to find 67 new Facebook friend requests, and they continued to climb to 300+ new friend requests by the end of the day," she says in the complaint.

"Plaintiff received a phone call from a friend saying that she was a on a website called www.yougotposted.com," the complaint states.

"Plaintiff went to the website, where she found the six suggestive photographs of herself, including a nude photo of her breast, which had been on her phone."

http://www.courthousenews.com/2013/06/26/58833.htm

[Narkos]

1. But we have a problem with phone metadata

[Pelican]

2. It's ok to have a problem with both...

They are not mutually exclusive...

[Narkos]

4. The problem is, no one has a problem with the private sector owning this info

but it's a huge deal when the government does .

[Pholus]

5. Well, the benefits vs. costs are NOT in the governments' favor.

At least Google helps me find information while they try to get into my head. And I can control my interactions with them using proxies.

Now the government on the other hand, uses the same information to decide whether or not I'm a terrorist deserving of a Federal PMITA prison(*) and won't even let me use them as cloud storage.

And by the way their track record on terrorist identification is sooooooo inspiring:

Anti-war protestor? Terrorist: https://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/06/24-9

Occupy protestor? Terrorist: http://www.democraticunderground.com/12527647

Greenpeace? Terrorist: http://www.truth-out.org/archive/item/91903:doj-probe-reveals-fbi-conducted-surveillance-on-greenpeace-antiwar-activists

PETA? Terrorist: http://www.truth-out.org/archive/item/91903:doj-probe-reveals-fbi-conducted-surveillance-on-greenpeace-antiwar-activists

Worried about Water quality? Terrorist: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/06/21/official-says-water-complaints-act-of-terrorism/2445071/

A freaking QUAKER FOR CRYING OUT LOUD? Terrorist: http://www.truth-out.org/archive/item/91903:doj-probe-reveals-fbi-conducted-surveillance-on-greenpeace-antiwar-activists

(*) Sorry, I love the movie "Office Space" too much...

[pipoman]

6. Best Buy doesn't have the power to incarcerate

and they don't have more people incarcerated than any other 1st world country..and I do believe she voluntarily gave the phone to best buy, while the NSA is taking without asking..no, the parallel is weak..

[Narkos]

8. You don't believe the government should have the ability

To investigate crimes?

[Pholus]

10. Ahhh, but is it crimes or terrorism we are talking about here?

Crimes require certain rules be obeyed. You know, that legal process that supposedly makes us the shining beacon of liberty?

Terrorism has been granted an exception to this in the name of national security. And it is getting abused.

[Narkos]

11. What rules have been broken?

[Pholus]

16. Be nice if that were open to that much scrutiny.

But it isn't.

So obviously, the only hard evidence says "We're doing right by you, trust us."

Even as the Patriot Act end run around the fourth amendment is used 100 times more frequently for drug prosecutions than actual terrorism.

[Narkos]

17. Where did you get that number?

[Pholus]

18. Right here. I like the graphic most of all!

http://nymag.com/news/9-11/10th-anniversary/patriot-act/

[Narkos]

20. 1660 delayed search warrant notices?

That's the panopticon? Wow, you really are paranoid

[Pholus]

22. Laugh it up fuzzball! (*)

This is merely the demonstration of exactly how much trust has been earned by the government when they are granted an extraordinary power to fight "Terra."

Now whatever "panopticon" exists is obviously ohhhh-so-secret and mere mortals cannot be told of what lies within. Ostensibly it's because we can't tip off the Quakers (errr, Terrorists I guess) but I'm cynical enough to realize it's because we're looking at yet another massive fraud and waste scandal, one rife with the potential for abuse in the absence of sufficient oversight.

Remember the NSA saying: "When the Government wants it bad, it gets it bad."

(*) Actual statement owned by George Lucas (or is it Disney now?)

[Narkos]

24. You are cynical about everything

The government does, kind if like our teabag friends. The government has the power to destroy the planet on a whim, but you are worried about them knowing your porn search history?

[Pholus]

26. Yup, that's me. Cynical to the core.

And a teabagger. And surfing porn by the load.

In fact, it's hard to type with one hand busy all the time.

What a pathetic comeback laced with personal attacks. Take it you ran out of relevant things to say?

[Pholus]

30. Stay classy! I'd expect no less from you. nt

[Narkos]

33. It's not about class, it's about the truth

[Pholus]

34. Absolutely it is about the truth. Class was already settled.

The moment you lashed out with blind name calling, hoping vainly that one would somehow stick and I'd say something equally puerile you showed you had run out of both relevancy AND truth.

Enjoy that. I certainly do.

[pipoman]

25. Maybe the long standing rule of government transparency

and open records..neither apply here..

[HiPointDem]

39. the rules of open due process.

[pipoman]

14. Fishing isn't investigating crimes..

investigation of crime requires knowledge of a specific crime and working a trail to unravel the facts, this is similar to house to house searches or checkpoints searching every car..will they find crimes? Undoubtedly. But only after violating a lot of people's 4th amendment rights..nice try..

[Narkos]

15. Who says they are fishing?

[pipoman]

27. Who says they're not?

[Narkos]

28. They do

[pipoman]

31. Who else? They are the perpetrators..

[pipoman]

37. Do you ever have a thought that exceeds 2 words, or maybe a sentence?

Oh, and you just lost by resorting to infantile insults..

[TheMadMonk]

35. No. The government should not have the ability to go looking...

...for crime simply for the sake of finding crime.

Nor should it have the ability to retain information indefinitely just in case it might decide to criminalise recorded activities at a later date.

It is one thing to anticipate crime and put appropriate barriers in place.

It is a completely different thing to seek to identify criminals in advance of their acting and punish them pre-emptively.

And full STASI is something that should NEVER EVER FUCKING BE PERMITTED AGAIN!

[The Straight Story]

7. Ah, but they only own one piece of it all, government wants access to it all

Email with google, calls with verizon, searches with google, etc

[Narkos]

9. I'm sorry you aren't up to date

[The Straight Story]

13. Care to expound on that? Because I think I am far more up to date than you know

Are you speaking on a technical level or government level?

[Narkos]

19. You're confusing collection vs search

[The Straight Story]

21. So, explain to me this:

You are ok with the government collecting all of this information from these companies and believe they won't search it (well, without a warrant)?

If so...have you ever worked in a big company (say Chase/Verizon/S&P/Enron/etc) and known the tech guys there who control the data bases?

Because I have, and it is easy to search things (even just for fun) in a data base you control and manage and no one is the wiser.

I had over 5000 servers under my management and you can bet people working there could do all sorts of queries (especially when a system was having issues and you needed to test things out....). And that is not even touching the emails and network traffic heading out.

At one job I knew who was having an affair with who (smaller company), who was losing their job and when, etc (domain admins have a lot of access). If you think that data is not exposed and being examined then I don't know what to say.

You take all that info, along with all the info from other sources, and put it in one place and I can pretty well guarantee it is being read and seen - and guess what? You will never see the server logs to know otherwise because that is classified

Oh sure, maybe the head of the org is not searching it. But those 'lower level' folks are and you will never, ever, know about it unless someone gets that info and shows you.

[Narkos]

23. You're okay with google having carte Blanche

But w the government w strict rules, not so much?

[The Straight Story]

36. One you can opt in to

One you cannot.

One collects only some info you choose to go to, one collects it from all other places. And no matter which you opt out of they get it all.

[TheMadMonk]

38. Difference is customers are generally not a threat to a corp.

Whereas a government's greatest enemy/threat is ALWAYS going to be its nation's CITIZENS. Please note the distinction between government and nation, because it is always when a government confuses itself with the nation it serves that the

And no we are not okay with Google having carte blanche, however we at least have some legal recourse if Google misuses that data.

The only available recourse against a rogue state is revolution or war.

[Pholus]

3. A major feature of the voyeur generation!

Two generations ago it was all about creating the social safety net while fighting fascists who were going for world domination.

One generation ago it was all about civil rights, winning the cold war and going to the moon.

This generation is all about using technology to see everyone's naughty bits. The government says it's to keep us safe, the corporations say its to know their customers, the individuals are more honest and are just pervs.

But the end goal is the same. Naughty bits, as many as possible.

[grok]

12. this has been happening for years.

http://consumerist.com/2012/07/20/no-best-buy-employee-i-wont-come-to-your-house-to-get-my-stolen-racy-photos-back/

http://consumerist.com/2007/07/16/how-geek-squad-steals-your-porn/

wish they could control their employees better.

[Sherman A1]

40. While a clear violation of this individual's privacy

and I do believe that the employees who were involved should be held accountable as should Best Buy one wonders about the judgement of the customer in leaving those photos on the phone. Certainly it was her phone and she can do with it what she pleases, yet just because we can do something does not always mean that one should do so. The phone could have just as easily been lost or stolen along the way with someone viewing or posting her photos.

It's an interesting mix of in this world of instant communication and ever improving technology.

[pipoman]

42. I wondered if it was intentional

just didn't want them published..voyeurism and all that?

[Sherman A1]

43. It does make you wonder

As I said, her privacy was violated without any doubt, but I just don't understand the judgement involved on her part.

[SoCalDem]

41. My first question is

why does any woman have a picture of her breast on her phone?

Granted, the employee should not have done what he's accused of, but sheez...

Is there no delete button on modern phones?

[cbdo2007]

44. Blame the victim much???

[SoCalDem]

45. everyone who does something stupid

is no longer just a stupid person.. they have been elevated to victim du jour