14 DAY TRIAL // Nowadays, it seems to be common practice for the FBI to search premises of suspects after dressing up as repairmen and cutting utilities.
It might sound like a smart move, but a federal judge thought otherwise and deemed the FBI’s descent in Las Vegas illegal, Ars Technica reports.
Apparently, the Federal Bureau of Investigation thought they had the right to cut off the Internet to several villas at Caesar's Palace Hotel and Casino in order to look around the place for evidence of an online betting ring.
Unable to get a warrant because all they had were some suspicions of illegal activity inside the one of Las Vegas most famous casinos, the FBI agents decided to go with some unorthodox practices and disrupt Internet services for the high-profile Chinese gamblers accommodated at the hotels.
People see FBI's actions as a violation of privacy
Now the agents are accused of illegal practices in their attempt to uncover the criminal organization.
They did manage to apprehend eight individuals involved in the illegal betting, but they seem to have omitted to reveal how exactly they run the operations and gather up the evidence.
The Chinese gamblers were quick to condemn the illicit practices and hurried to file a lawsuit against the FBI agents who had used these tricks to get their way.
Ever since the events were made public, people have become paranoid about the whole thing and the idea that the repairmen that cross their threshold might be undercover agents trying to search their houses is quite terrifying.
Law professor Stephen Saltzburg declared for NPR that such a possibility is utterly alarming, “It means the government can cut off your service, intentionally, and then pretend to be a repair person, and then while they’re there, they spend extra time searching your house. It is scary beyond belief.”