Schneier on Security: FBI Agents Pose as Repairmen to Bypass Warrant Process

12/15/2014

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FBI Agents Pose as

Repairmen to Bypass
Warrant Process
This is a creepy story. The FBI wanted
access to a hotel guest's room without a
warrant. So agents broke his Internet
connection, and then posed as Internet
technicians to gain access to his hotel
room without a warrant.
From the motion to suppress:
The next time you call for assistance
because the internet service in your
home is not working, the "technician"
who comes to your door may
actually be an undercover
government agent. He will have
secretly disconnected the service,
knowing that you will naturally call for
help and -- when he shows up at
your door, impersonating a
technician -- let him in. He will walk
through each room of your house,
claiming to diagnose the problem.
Actually, he will be videotaping
everything (and everyone) inside. He
will have no reason to suspect you
have broken the law, much less
probable cause to obtain a search
warrant. But that makes no
difference, because by letting him in,
you will have "consented" to an
intrusive search of your home.
Basically, the agents snooped around the
hotel room, and gathered evidence that
they submitted to a magistrate to get a
warrant. Of course, they never told the
judge that they had engineered the whole
outage and planted the fake technicians.
More coverage of the case here.
This feels like an important case to me.
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We constantly allow repair technicians into

our homes to fix this or that technological
thingy. If we can't be sure they are not
government agents in disguise, then we've
lost quite a lot of our freedom and liberty.
Tags: courts, FBI, hotels, searches, social
engineering, undercover
Posted on November 26, 2014 at 6:50 AM 37
Comments

Comments
Garreth November 26, 2014 7:20 AM

The way things are going they will soon

start setting houses on fire just to have
your "consent" to enter your home posing
as firemen.
Mitsurugi November 26, 2014 7:21 AM

And a tweet from a security expert :

https://twitter.com/rootkovska/status/53729
4028468133888
Saying : >
Dim Wit November 26, 2014 7:33 AM

Burglars have been doing that for ages to

"case a joint", either by actually being hired
as a repairman - then having a night job of
thievery or by interposing themselves into
the process covertly. External connections
for cable, phone and power are easy to
"break" and then gain entry for assessment
or quick fingers. The FBI is slow on on the
uptake, or just careless in getting caught
this time.
keiner November 26, 2014 7:34 AM

What exactly is the difference to Russia,

North Korea etc? Ahhh, I forgot, USA are
the good guys...
Alex November 26, 2014 8:13 AM

Funny that people are still amazed of basic

surveillance procedures, soon you'll be
probably amazed how easy a warrant can
be obtained and for what reasons (at least I
have been, in my country)
It's a matter of seconds for such a
"technician" to replace your data cable with
something like bellow, so your ultra
protected Linux system gets penetrated in
no time.
http://www.thehomesecuritysuperstore.co
m/home-spy-equipment-spy-camerascovert-spy-cameras-power-cable-cordcolor-spy-camera-c1184-p=3266
http://www.catsdomain.com/spycables/
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CallMeLateForSupper November 26,

2014 8:39 AM

Yeah, this feels really bad. Even if a

person/target/victim shows some spine,
what challenge would he/she/it make?
*Are you Secret Service?" No (I am FBI,
tee-hee)
"Are you FBI?" Absolutely not. {I am a cop)
"Are you a cop?" Naw. (I am Secret
Service)
"Do you work for [ISP]?" Yes.
(err...because we at DHS work for all U.S.
persons)
On second thought, with so many possible
"hats" to ask after, missing just one - if it
happened to be *the* one - would silently
drop you on the path of self-delusion. It's
probably best, therefore, to be general, e.g.
"Are you law enforcement?" Hmmm... That
does not include CIA and NSA and
probably several others, so it is very easy
to be fataly general. Are there any "them"
who consider themselves neither law
enforcement nor intelligence? Or, to put it
the other way 'round, do those two labels,
together, cover every brand of "them" that
there is? I don't know. ANd my head is
starting to hurt.
"...posed as internet technicians..." Plural?
What, do they all hold hands and pray over
it? How many feds does it take to diagnose
a faulty internet connection?
(Although that final question is semiserious, I am open to punch-line
suggestions.)
The Last Stand of Frej November 26,
2014 8:48 AM

Consent given on false pretense isn't

consent.
There needs to be a way to bring criminal
charges against government actors who
violate the Constitution. Until they are
personally responsible for what they do,
there will be no incentive to respect rights.
uh, Mike November 26, 2014 8:54 AM

IANAL, but I watch actors play lawyers on

high-def television.
I believe this will fail the court test, because
government agents are more limited than
private parties are for the collection of
evidence.
OTOH, collecting evidence for court is not
the only reason to search.
Somebody a decade older than I can tell us
what it was like in the 60s, when the FBI
had last gone this far to Paris.
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bitstrong November 26, 2014 9:08 AM

I hate to tell ya, but security in hotels is very

poor. The tactics these guys use are a
non-event. Walk through any hotel corridor
around check-out. House keepers are
cleaning rooms and they prop open the
door. When they're busy anyone can just
walk right in. How long does it take to plant
a bug in your room when you're at the
conference?
bitstrong November 26, 2014 9:13 AM

In fact, if I wanted to dupe a tail I would use

my hotel room in this exact way. So when
they present the evidence ... think about it.
Bob S. November 26, 2014 9:16 AM

Gross!
As in gross miscarriage of justice and
simply: wrong.
Worse: This clearly illegal and
unconstitutional conduct was approved by
FBI managers, so there can be no claim of
lone wolf, rogue, bad apples.
Worse yet: FBI claims to be the best and a
cut above the rest. Instead, they deem
themselves a cut above the law.
The penalty should be sure, swift and very
painful. Will it happen?
Doubtful.
Roland November 26, 2014 10:13 AM

Lying to law enforcement is a felony, but if

they lie to you, that's perfectly legal. See
how that works?
B. D. Johnson November 26, 2014
10:26 AM

Wasn't there something in Liars and

Outliers about letting in a repairman based
solely on trust?
A cut above November 26, 2014 10:41
AM

http://whowhatwhy.com/2014/05/17/todash
evs-killer-no-wonder-his-identify-wassecret/
Anura November 26, 2014 12:08 PM

From a legal standpoint, I'm not sure how

this is different from any other undercover
operation. An extremely long time ago
(mid-90s), I remember watching one of
those forensic reenactment shows where
someone was suspected as murder but
they didn't have the evidence to get a
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warrant, so the police posed as door-todoor dog groomers and took carpet
samples while they were inside the house
to match to fibers found on the body. The
carpet samples matched, and the evidence
was used to successfully convict. I really
dislike what they are doing here, especially
since they actually broke their internet in
the first place, but I think any evidence
gathered would probably hold up in court.
vas pup November 26, 2014 12:22 PM

Let's discuss all options - put aside

emotions.
1. Main concern should not be about what
they collect, but what they could plant
(weapon, gun, drugs, etc.)in your
room/house/car - you name it. Then get
warrant and finding planted 'evidence'. That
is sure case for them before court and you
have zero chance to win. Dirty work - direct
path to degradation of morals and field
operation skills of LEOs, but work
sometimes around the globe.
2. Hotel and businesses should have
security verification procedure of the repair
guys who are not their employees. They
should know their contractors in person
(like banks know people who collect cash
for them) and in case somebody new show
up - take a picture of that person by your
phone and send to their headquarter for
verification.
3. In FBI (and other LE guys) there is
following classification (as best of my
knowledge): Undercover Officer,
Confidential Informant, Source of
Information.
If I were LEA, I'd prefer to utilize option 2
and 3, but first you have to do your job to
have such people in critical areas
(hotels/casino in particular). Then, you do
not jeopardize your folks for such
operations (except high level
espionage/terrorism cases - and for
criminal Intel only - not prosecution).
4. For all such operations brains should be
applied on the side of LEA's bosses to
conduct cost-benefit analysis upfront.
Matthias November 26, 2014 12:40 PM

The FBI will fail in court because that's not

"consent". If a woman's husband leaves a
hotel room for a smoke at night and
another man sneaks into the dark room
and gropes the woman who thinks he's her
husband, the man cannot argue that this
was not sexual assault because the
woman consented.
Casual Friday November 26, 2014 12:55
PM

Shouldn't "Not telling the judge" be a

serious issue that would get someone fired
or disbarred? How are we supposed to
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have anything resembling justice if we have

law enforcement and prosecutors by proxy
lying to judges about the source of
evidence, this needs to stop right here right
now. If you lie to a judge about where the
evidence came from and the details of how
you got it, you belong in jail.
Jeremy November 26, 2014 2:15 PM

IANAL, but--absent some special

circumstances--wouldn't deliberately
sabotaging someone's utilities be a crime,
before we even get to the search part?
And if you were only able to conduct the
search because you committed a crime,
doesn't the "fruit of a poisonous tree" legal
doctrine apply?
It seems to me like this evidence should be
excluded EVEN IF the consent is valid.
vas pup November 26, 2014 3:53 PM

@Jeremy:"It seems to me like this

evidence should be excluded EVEN IF the
consent is valid."
Yes, Sir. But for parallel construction
and/or criminal Intel - will work. Not all
information obtained for purpose of
evidence. See difference?
Daniel November 26, 2014 3:57 PM

Bruce writes, "If we can't be sure they are

not government agents in disguise, then
we've lost quite a lot of our freedom and
liberty."
Uh, Mike writes, "I believe this will fail the
court test, because government agents are
more limited than private parties are for the
collection of evidence."
I must be one of the few who think this is
not an important case. Because of the third
party doctrine the feds can still get
information from a third party, in this case
your repairman. Even if the feds lose this
case it won't stop the cable guy from
cooperating with the police. Let's imagine
what would happen if the government
would lose.
Would it stop the government from
breaking one's internet connection? No.
Would it stop the government from getting
data from the service professionals who
comes to repair? No.
Would it stop the government from getting
a warrant based upon the data provided by
the service repairman? No.
All it would do is stop the government from
impersonating repair men. But given how
the telcos and the ISP already bend over
backwards to help the government, all a
loss for the government would do is add

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some more paper shuffling.

AlanS November 26, 2014 5:47 PM

But it's funny when the boot is on the other

foot and they get all upset about it.
One of the people who exposed Cointelpro
cased the FBI's office for the burglary by
posing as a "Swarthmore College student
researching job opportunities for women at
the F.B.I." See Burglars Who Took On
F.B.I. Abandon Shadows.
And I can imagine Alexander and company
muttering (to paraphrase Bruce): "We
constantly allow contractors into our offices
to run this or that technological thingy. If we
can't be sure they are not civil libertarians
in disguise, then we've lost quite a lot of our
freedom and liberty to violate the
constitution."
Ryan Mitchell November 26, 2014 5:55
PM

@CallMeLateForSupper Are you implying

that government agents need to answer
truthfully when you ask them questions like
that? That's an incorrect, and dangerous,
misconception.
At any rate, this blog post really only
scratches the surface of the craziness that
went on in this case, both in how the
warrant was obtained, and in what
happened after the men were detained (or
not detained?). The article Bruce linked to
is extremely interesting.
Prinz Wilhelm Gotha Saxe Coburg
November 27, 2014 4:30 AM

I can see the government that does this

letting itself in for a power of hurt if it runs
across anyone as scrupulous as itself.
Some tradespeople do have an unsavoury
reputation, after all, for losing sane
inhibitions when they find an unoccupied
house ... now if the faux-tradesman was
there under false pretenses, it would be
comparatively easy for someone as deeply
scupulous as himself to videotape said
faux-trademan, and creatively edit the video
to make said faux-tradesman a pervert,
and release it anonymously on Youtube
and the like. I'm sure there are ways one
could also incriminate said faux-tradesman
as a drug-fiend, or engaged in any other
number of equally savoury occupations.
Clive Robinson November 27, 2014
5:19 AM

@ Bruce,
In the preface to one of your recent books
you gave an example of a trades person
comming into your house to fix a faulty
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service. And that the --then-- reality was

they were unlikely to need supervision etc.
You've also recently expressed doubts
about the NSA / GCHQ "bugging"
European cryptographers.
Can we assume that your view points are
currently undergoing a realignment?
My own experiance in the past of finding
out I was subject to surveillance by the
authorities for no legally tenable reason
was a form of cognative dissonance which
transformed through quite a few of the
major negative emotions. Luckily I had
been through something similar when
younger when another European Nation
subjected a companies entire engineering
and sales teams to somewhat hamfisted
surveillance to try to gain economic
advantage in a major contract with a third
nation. The old hands on the engineering
team had been under it before and had
prewarned us it was likely to happen.
Usually such behaviour starts out as not
personal, but political / financial, where
people feel they have to succeed at any
cost to protect their own future or to protect
an income stream. With the result that for
some with LEO or diplomatic protection,
virtually anything goes. The best you can
hopefor in return is to firstly watch out for
them and catch them at it. Then either "out
them" publicaly, or "set them up" so they
fail very very badly in a way their bosses
cannot ignore. I'm aware that in the US
publicaly outing some with protected status
is a criminal offence treated more seriously
than murder. However the latter course of
action has it's own problems and is best
avoided lest they seek revenge in some
manner.
The problems arise primaraly because too
few bosses have the actual or emotional
intelligence to cut their losses rather than
listening to the bleatings of their underlings
saying in effect "He's dirty, my gut tells me
so, look at the way he behaves, we've just
got to wait or put preasure on him untill he
makes a mistake and then we've got him",
it sounds appealing and is an easy choice
to go with. But as time goes on the cost of
cutting loses get so high that sense and
morals go out of the window and the
bosses own future becomes threatened.
Sadly it's actually worse these days
because the work is often "contracted out"
and even the most senior of bosses will
give free reign to their underlings as long
as money is comming through the door,
and will actually influence those beneath
them to provide reports etc that will keep
the money tap on.
I see no easy solution to this worsening
situation especialy as there is no political

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will to do so, and for those subject to

surveillance it can be an endless
nightmare.
Perhaps one small crumb of comfort is
that for the many innocent individuals they
remain blissfully unaware of just what is
being done to them, and thus do not have
to face the cognative dissonance being
aware of surveillance causes a normal
individual.
Dirk Praet November 27, 2014 5:07 PM

@ vas pup
2. Hotel and businesses should have
security verification procedure of the repair
guys who are not their employees. They
should know their contractors in person
(like banks know people who collect cash
for them) and in case somebody new show
up - take a picture of that person by your
phone and send to their headquarter for
verification.
Should is indeed the word here. Apparently,
Caesar's Palace management not only
approved of the warrantless search but
actively facilitated it. So much for "What
happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas".
Although it's a common technique with
criminals and LEA's alike, I doubt this will
hold up in any court unless someone pulls
the "terrorism" card.
thevoid November 27, 2014 6:09 PM

"what happens in vegas..."

this just struck me as absolutely absurd.
vegas is the most surveilled
place in the world i believe, and supposedly
they already have profiles
on you as soon as you enter the city.
really, vegas seems to me to be the
world's biggest honeypot.
maybe what 'stays in vegas' are the
videotapes...
NobodySpecial November 28, 2014
4:45 PM

What would happen if somebody shot one

of these "intruders"
A fake cable repairman starts wandering
around my house looking in cupboards he
might get shot. Is shooting an FBI agent a
crime ?
Clive Robinson November 28, 2014
6:46 PM

@ NobodySpecial,
Is shooting an FBI agent a crime ?
It's a fair question but first you have to ask
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another question,
"When is an FBI officer not an FBI
officer?"
To which the answer is "when they have
not identified themselves to be FBI by voice
or visable identification".
I suspect you would need to go back over
some court cases but I do remember a
case where a Federal agent in camouflage
shot a family dog, and members of the
family shot the agent and in effect got away
with it.
In the UK a rather unpleasant career
criminal that had been involved with the
gold from the Brinksmat robbery, stabed a
camouflaged police officer to death on his
property, he was found not guilty of murder.
Though he stabed somebody else at a later
time and is unlikely to see the light of day
as a free man again.
Having been a contractor in the past, it's a
question that has crossed my mind on the
odd occasion.
As far as the lawful occupier is concerned
the agent/officer/contractor is in an illegal
position even if consent to enter had
originaly been given. Because the consent
is conditional on the agent/officer posing as
a technician performing a specific function.
Thus the legal occupier seeing the
agent/officer behaving outside of that
function has as a minimum the right to
chalenge the agent/officer as well as
defend themselves against the
agent/officer and if they can, arrest and
detain what they now quite correctly regard
as an illegal intruder.
Now the weasel part of that is "self
defence" and what it means, after all
"running away" is a form of self defence,
and in some parts of the world "just shoting
an unknown person on your property" is in
quite a few cases not an action that would
lead to an arrest or charge let alone a trial.
I know of a case in Texas fairly well where
a young man from Dundee Scotland was
traveling in a taxi, he jumped out of the
moving vehical for some reason ran up a
drive way screaming for help and banged
on the front door, the property owner shot
him through the door and claimed self
defence...
I suspect that in some parts of the US that
the property owner having shot an
undercover FBI officer would fairly easily
defend their action. However, whilst they
might not suffer legal consiquences for the
shoting, I suspect that their life would
nolonger be the same, in that they would
become a marked person subject to
repeated checks / surveillance etc.
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As has been observed "All cops want to

capture a cop killer and take them down" it
does not matter if the killing was justified or
not it's a tribal issue.
Coyne Tibbets November 29, 2014 4:06
AM

I would comment that the reason they

probably undertook this was because a
"sneak and peek" wouldn't work with the
residents continuously present.
Ten years ago, I was robbed: someone
entered my house and helped themselves
to my pants (with wallet, keys, cell, PDA,
and etc.). Leaving out a ton of specifics, I
came to suspect the possibility that the
robbery was actually a sneak and peek. I
can even ascribe a motive: to obtain a copy
of the contents of a flash drive that I always
carried with me, on my key ring.
I have no proof that the robbery was a
sneak and peek, or even any proof the
government had any interest in acquiring
the flash drive. I do have reason to think the
government was interested in me and
watched me quite closely for a time: again
leaving out most specifics, the best
indication is the report I received of "suited
men" entering my home in my absence. So
an interest in my flash drive is plausible.
But consider the realities of a sneak and
peek conducted in this manner: First of all,
I have no proof that a sneak and peek
occurred; no proof that the person who
entered was anything but a robber. But the
robber entered my home, in daytime, and
stole my hung pants while I was napping
less than three feet away, having to
approach me in direct view if I had opened
my eyes. That's rather brave for a
robber...but...not proof.
Second, almost all the items were
recovered. I have no way to know if the
contents of my flash drive were copied, but
they could have been. But the fact that I
mostly only lost credit cards, with all the
rest being returned is, from a certain
viewpoint, suspicious in itself. Why didn't
the robber discard uninteresting and risky
items like my driver's license, keys, PDA,
and wallet?
The robber "got away", and, as far as I
know, was never apprehended. Even after
ten years?
Suppose I had something "to hide", some
type of criminal activity. After "busting" the
robber (who they never need let me see)
the cops could have "discovered" the
evidence among the recovered items.
Evidence obtained from objects recovered
from a robber is admissible. To prove it
was a violation of my rights, I would have to
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prove that the robber was an agent of the

government: How would I do that?
In fact, this is the first event from which I
developed an understanding of "evidence
laundering". Suppose it was a sneek and
peek: Having hidden the entry to my home
behind a facade of "robbery"; having
"recovered" the items behind the same
facade; and therein having discovered
incriminating evidence: that evidence is
now "laundered". It is perfectly admissible
despite the obvious Fourth Amendment
violation, since there is no possible means
by which I could prove the violation.
(If it was government action and the agents
thought the flash drive would contain
incriminating information, they were sorely
disappointed; it contained only a backup of
the computer I used, that was routinely on
the web, which they probably already had
access to, if they were interested.)
Anyway, if this kind of thing is done, then
the entries described in the story make
sense: entering routinely to "rob" people, it
is not a reach to assume that agents would
concoct a scheme such as this to obtain
evidence, when residents were always
present and active and a "robbery" couldn't
be conducted or would be ineffective.
In fact, it seems to me quite clear from the
story, that they thought that it would never
be discovered that agents had entered, at
best; or worst, that the residents would not
be able to prove the agents entered.
Given that, the rejection of the prosecutor's
advice makes sense, since the prosecutor
may not be normally aware of sneak and
peek activities even when prosecuting
cases. It's not hard to imagine the agents
concluding that what she didn't know would
not harm their case and to proceed even
against advice.
If so, one is left to wonder just how
extensive Fourth Amendment violations-and evidence laundering--are.
For that is certainly what they were doing
here: Laundering evidence obtained during
multiple Fourth Amendment violations.
vas pup November 29, 2014 10:29 AM

@Clive:"To which the answer is "when

they have not identified themselves to be
FBI by voice or visable identification".
In one German movie, it was shown that
police office when his uniform hat is on is
acting in official capacity: on duty with
functions assigned, but when he took his
hat off - he is acting as civilian only. Benny
may confirm or deny that. Problem is in US
- LEO is not clearly on duty or not (not
uniformed in particular (Bruce noticed
that regular Joe have no idea how their ID
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or badge looks like)

War Geek December 1, 2014 11:51 AM

@CliveRobinson
"I suspect you would need to go back over
some court cases but I do remember a
case where a Federal agent in camouflage
shot a family dog, and members of the
family shot the agent and in effect got away
with it."
That was Ruby Ridge, where agents
proceeded to throw an institutional temper
tantrum that involved a two man sniper
team killing the 14 yr old boy who shot the
dogs killer, wounding two more men inside
the house, and not stopping until they killed
the dead boy's mom.
More recently, an Iraq vet was shot inside
his own house in Tucson in the last couple
of years for shooting back at agents who
had just killed his dog. An unknown had
claimed the vet was a dealer...and as it
turned out he was innocent. 'Swatting' is
something of a sport for the real drug
dealers.
Summary: There are really very few
policemen left over here in the U.S., I like
and respect those few that still hold out to
remain policemen, but most seem to
behave more like an occupying force.
anonymous December 2, 2014 8:53 AM

See, also
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/20
09/10/evil_maid_attac.html "Evil Maid"
Attacks on Encrypted Hard Drives
Paula Thomas December 3, 2014 1:04
PM

The only surprise here to me is that people

are surprised.
If you make a process too cumbersome
people are going to find ways round it.
required December 3, 2014 8:39 PM

The Duct Tape and Wire economic class

wins one.
Matthew December 5, 2014 12:16 PM

Something important is getting lost here.

The Hotel reported this gambling ring in the
first place. Hotel employees saw the illegal
gambling operation and called the FBI in to
help.
The FBI had the Hotels permission to
disconnect the internet.
The FBI had the Hotels permission to
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masquerade as tech support.

This was not someone's house, this was
public accommodation.
I think that is an important distinction.
Edward Hasbrouck December 15, 2014
9:43 AM

More on the role of the hotel/casino:

"What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas."
(Not.)
http://hasbrouck.org/blog/archives/002158.
html
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