These people weren't being paid to find things "by accident" (or at least they weren't when this was first reported a year or two ago). They were being paid to look for what they suspected were crimes. This is more akin to an electrician being called in to rewire the kitchen, seeing a locked basement door, picking the lock, and rifling through the boxes in the basement to find illicit materials.
This was the FBI trying to skirt around the 4th amendment by having someone unrelated to the FBI do the seizure and search bit of investigating, so it could be done without a warrant. The problem is that the FBI both ordered and paid these people to do it, and I personally don't see a difference between that and having an FBI agent take your machine from you and perform the search themselves. There's also the ethical problems for Best Buy, plus the incentive (payment) to create a crime (copy illicit materials or visit sites that would make it look like the person was going to do something illegal) and report it.
This is more akin to an electrician being called in to rewire the kitchen, seeing a locked basement door, picking the lock, and rifling through the boxes in the basement to find illicit materials.
Which still produces admissible evidence. Government agents are bound by the constitution when it comes to searches, private individuals are not. There can be other clauses in a state's constitution that enshrine an expectation of privacy that may be usable to dismiss such evidence, but as far as federal law and the US constitution is concerned a private individual can break a window into your house, find illicit materials, report them to the police and some time later you are sitting in court defending yourself.
This was the FBI trying to skirt around the 4th amendment by having someone unrelated to the FBI do the seizure and search bit of investigating, so it could be done without a warrant.
Yup, and now that there's evidence such reports are being rewarded they screwed that up. If a government employee requests or incentivizes you to perform a search on their behalf you become an agent of the government for the purposes of that search, 4th amendment applies and if such activity is discovered the evidence is inadmissible. Incredibly stupid move of the FBI.
Comments
These people weren't being paid to find things "by accident" (or at least they weren't when this was first reported a year or two ago). They were being paid to look for what they suspected were crimes. This is more akin to an electrician being called in to rewire the kitchen, seeing a locked basement door, picking the lock, and rifling through the boxes in the basement to find illicit materials.
This was the FBI trying to skirt around the 4th amendment by having someone unrelated to the FBI do the seizure and search bit of investigating, so it could be done without a warrant. The problem is that the FBI both ordered and paid these people to do it, and I personally don't see a difference between that and having an FBI agent take your machine from you and perform the search themselves. There's also the ethical problems for Best Buy, plus the incentive (payment) to create a crime (copy illicit materials or visit sites that would make it look like the person was going to do something illegal) and report it.
Which still produces admissible evidence. Government agents are bound by the constitution when it comes to searches, private individuals are not. There can be other clauses in a state's constitution that enshrine an expectation of privacy that may be usable to dismiss such evidence, but as far as federal law and the US constitution is concerned a private individual can break a window into your house, find illicit materials, report them to the police and some time later you are sitting in court defending yourself.
Yup, and now that there's evidence such reports are being rewarded they screwed that up. If a government employee requests or incentivizes you to perform a search on their behalf you become an agent of the government for the purposes of that search, 4th amendment applies and if such activity is discovered the evidence is inadmissible. Incredibly stupid move of the FBI.