Feds cut off internet, dress up as technicians to conduct warrantless search

Feds cut off internet, dress up as technicians to conduct warrantless search
(Image credit: iStock)

Well, here's one more reason not to trust Comcast: Those internet repairmen at your door may actually be undercover agents — especially if they arrived promptly after the outage occurred. Indeed, Nevada courts are currently considering whether it's legal for the government to cut off your internet or other utilities, dress up as technicians, and then gain entrance to your house to conduct a warrantless search.

Earlier this year, FBI agents did exactly that after becoming suspicious of Chinese gamblers staying in Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas. Per the agents' defense lawyer, the decision was, "We'll dress up as technicians, we'll come inside, we'll claim to be fixing the internet connection — even though we can't, 'cause we broke it from outside — and then we'll just look around and see what we see."

After seeing what they saw, the FBI concluded the Chinese group was doing nothing illegal.

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Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.