I was, on one level amused, and another level shocked, to read that Mike Lindell, (The My Pillow Guy) was served a warrant by the FBI for his phone in a Hardees drive through.
On the one hand it’s ludicrous the the FBI is following Mr. Lindell around during a hunting trip waiting for a opportunity to serve a warrant. That they should choose to do so in a Hardees Drive through is laughable.
Mr. Lindell explained to the FBI that his phone runs five businesses and also controls his hearing aids. I know the latter to be a real thing, having known several folks whose hearing aids were controlled through their phones and one of which had the audio picked up and reprocessed through his phone’s microphone prior to the sound being sent to his particular hearing aids.
Mr Lindell notified the FBI that he did not own a computer and that all of his business was conducted through the phone and that effectively they would be stopping him from conducting business. It’s been reported that he was not able to make a backup of the phone prior to its seizure.
This whole thing strikes me as “Odd”.
Why does the FBI want his phone? If they can get a warrant for his phone, they could as easily get a warrant to present to the cellphone provider for his call logs. Why take the phone? If they were after his email or messaging do they honestly think that he’d have messages from 2 years ago when Trump was contesting the election?
I don’t know about Mr. Lindell but I never have messages older than a month or two on my phone. Similarly my call logs are purged regularly. Even my email is never more than a month or two old. Why have old ephemeral data sitting on my phone forever? It’s pointless and a waste of space.
This leads me to conclude the FBI did this in the hopes that Mr. Lindell’s phone might have some data that would be of interest to them. This warrant, like others the FBI has recently served seems to target a phone among other things. It seems like this tactic is nothing more than harassment and / or intimidation.
Gee Sorry FBI… I’m not going to give you my password. I’m going to the first computer terminal I can lay hands on, log in, and command the phone to wipe itself remotely. Then I’ll go buy another phone.
I seriously doubt that you’ll return my phone to me in a reasonable timeframe, even then, it’s likely you’ll have infected it with spyware of various types so that you can effectively illegally wiretap me.
If however you were to specifically ask for a particular set of documents or documents regarding a specific subject, I’d turn them over to you. I see no need to allow you to invade all of my personal matters, photographs, or whatever at your whim during some kind of fishing expedition.
I see no need to make your job easy. I will exercise my 4th amendment right to be secure in my papers and possessions against illegal search & seizure.
Mr. Lindell apparently spoke with his attorney who advised him to hand the FBI his phone.
Which then left Mr. Lindell in a potential safety hazard depending on how his hearing aids reacted to not having the control software of the phone nearby. The friend I mentioned earlier said his hearing aids shut down completely if he got too far from the phone.
I’m not even sure what Mr. Lindell is supposed to have done. Other than continuing to believe that the 2020 election was “Stolen”. He’s chosen to bring law suits to prove the point and accused Dominion of contributing to falsifying the election. Hey he can spend his money any way he wants to. He has a First Amendment Right to free speech.
Since when is it a crime to express your opinion, demand answers, and if it comes to it, prove yourself a fool. In a court of law?
Stacy Abrams has been saying the same exact thing for years about her LOSS in Georgia.
Could it be that Lindell perhaps was in contact with the Nefarious, Satanic, Hitleresq, bane on all human existence, the Pestilence, the Orange Horror, the Anti-Christ, known as Former President Donald Trump?
Duh! We all know there were probably calls. SO FUCKING WHAT?
We all know this is about the bullshit Jan 6th “Insurrection”
FYI no insurrection in the last 200 years has been carried out without the insurrectionists having a shit ton of guns, explosives, or weapons of some kind.
Even if the weapons were nothing more than torches and pitchforks the ensuing violence left 100s of people from both sides dead in the streets.
Funny, I didn’t see any pitchforks or torches on January 6th. The only person on record that died that day was Ashli Babbitt and she was shot by a capital police officer that has been reprimanded more than once for carless gun handling. (Really dude… Leaving your gun in the mens room?)
The officer that died the day after, died of a stroke. He didn’t have his head bashed in with a fire extinguisher as had been reported.
For the last fucking time… January 6th was not an insurrection, it was a rowdy crowd that got out of hand and devolved into a riot. A riot that was mostly peaceful if one applies the standards of the previous “Summer of Love”
I am sick to fucking death hearing the over emotional reporting, and endlessly repetitive questioning by the January 6th committee. Especially since there is nothing remotely like a rebuttal. allowed. I don’t like my tax dollars wasted by a bunch of posturing junior high school theater wannabes.
I’d give those congressional morons a piece of my mind. I’m absolutely certain that their contempt of Congress couldn’t hold a candle to the white hot rage and utter contempt I feel toward them…
ALL of Congress! That little (R) next to your name, Senator or House member, whatever your name is, ain’t gonna protect you. You’re all corrupt as hell. None of you speak for the people you’re supposed to represent.
In my view you’re all liars, grifters, thieves, and scum. The only one of you that has the slightest modicum of my respect is Rand Paul. At least he’s calling out that liar Fauci and trying to hold the little Troll’s feet to the fire. Where are the rest of you? Why aren’t you standing up and screaming “ENOUGH”?
Bought and paid for, every stinking one of you!
All of this has lead me to think that perhaps the FBI really wants phones. Perhaps their budget has been cut and they can’t afford to supply their agents with these devices?
I have 3 or 4 old cellphones lying around here, I’m sure that most people have at least one or two lying around their homes. The American people would be more than willing to drop off their old cellphones at local FBI offices.
That way the FBI would have plenty of phones to use and we’d all be going “Green” allowing the FBI to recycle those old phones for us.
This also makes me think that everybody should have two phones. One that can be handed to the FBI, and the other to actually use. Think of it like a bribe.
I sincerely hope that since the FBI has been turned into a weapon, when the other party gets control… and they will at some point, I hope they turn the full force of the FBI loose on the Democrat party. The wailing and gnashing of teeth would be epic. Hell, I might get cable just to watch the raids on Democrats. I’d make popcorn, pour myself a drink and laugh my ass off.
The FBI is a scary joke. They have power, they’re drunk with it and have become dangerous.
They were supposed to be about justice and now they’re about political gain.
Sadly, I don’t think we can trust our government and certainly not the Department of Justice anymore.
My Dad was right. Every 50 or 100 years, we should turn off the Government, fire everyone, dump all the laws, and reboot the system starting with founding principles.