If you thought your Liberty Safe was safe you might want to think again.

Liberty Safe Gives Feds Backdoor Access To Customer's Gun Safe

In my opinion, safe companies should not have any kind of access to YOUR property.

Glad I don’t have a Liberty safe and now I’ll never buy one.

All the more reason to have a mechanical dial combo.

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USS Brewton FF1086
SWCA#3597

I read about this last night and couldn’t believe it. Liberty wasn’t served with a warrant to provide assistance in breaching the accused man’s safe, they voluntarily did so. It seems to me Liberty could and should be held accountable for their actions. The man taken into custody stands accused, not convicted of anything at this time.

Almost a moot point! An Angle Grinder with a metal cutting blade will cut through any safe's side wall in minutes. If they want to get in, they will - they don't care about ruining your safe or its contents!

"Gun Safe's" are really only meant for three basic reasons. First to slow down a thief's access to what's inside. Second is to protect against unauthorized access from children. Third is to protect contents against fire, flooding (if you have a self sealing gasket around the door) and natural disasters such as tornados. The truth is that any thief, LEO, or pretty much anyone with a little mechanical ability and an Angle Grinder can gain access faster than you would ever think! I'd bet it would take less time to cut a big hole in the side faster than Liberty could give the FBI an access code. Even Liberty Safes top of the line model (Presidential Series) has sides of only 7 gauge steel which measures .179" thick or less than 3/16". Child's play!

All that said, Liberty should be much more discrete about betraying a customer's trust! I am not a Lawyer and do not know what their legal parameters are for this type of situation. I do not know what other safe company's provide that we have not found out about yet. I'd be more concerned about them breaching your trust for scams, illegal search and seizures, etc. All in all - NOT a confidence building report!

It says right in the article that the FBI provided Liberty proof that they had a valid search warrant. Liberty's statement indicates they have refused to provide access codes when agencies have failed to exhibit warrants.

You can make an argument that Liberty wasn't served with a warrant for the access code, but it's a distinction without a difference. Basically what they did is prevent the FBI from destroying the safe to enter it.

Hard to fault Liberty in this case, though it is concerning that some 'universal' access code exists at all.

I don't see the problem with Liberty Safe Co. They verified a valid warrant and request before giving the combo and thus saving destruction of the vaults lock system. The owner should have just given them the combo as they would get in one way or another and the later would have destroyed his lock assembly possibly damaging the vault itself.
I have two of their safes and they are a great company.

A lock only keeps honest people honest.

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Remain Viable

That was my point about mechanical vs electronic.

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USS Brewton FF1086
SWCA#3597

The bean counters won! Liberty could have fought the request in court but that would have cost lose of money in legal fees. It was easier (and cheaper) to give in to the request, so that option was taken.

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Bill

How safe is his stuff now.
If you need his property
Just call the FBI.

I had Liberty swap out the electric lock for a S&G 6730 before it left the show room

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213th FBINA

How did they know he had a Liberty safe? Were they already in the house?

I do not see anything from Liberty that says they have a back door. They do keep a record of the combination the safe is shipped with, should the owner forget, but you can change the combination on a safe in about 5 minutes and the manufacturer would have no way of knowing what it was changed to.

On good safes (ones with dial locks instead of keys), regardless of whether they are electronic or manual dial, the lock mechanism itself is mechanical and as far as I know, is only capable of supporting one combination at a time, so there is no way the manufacturer could have a 'secret' code to open a safe. Of course that won't stop some journalist from misstating the facts.

Here is a more comprehensive article on the story: Gun Safe Manufacturer 'Liberty Safe' Gives FBI Access Code to a Protestor's Safe Who Was Arrested at Gunpoint Due to Involvement in January 6th Capitol Event (VIDEO) | The Gateway Pundit | by Jim Hᴏft

Much ado about nothing....

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So many S&W's, so few funds!!

Unless you change the combination the safe came with, they have that on record also.

True
Mechanical safe locks can only have one combo.

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213th FBINA

That’s the first thing I did when I got my safe. The S&G keypad would support several combos, one master and some slave combos. It’s not beyond reason that there may be an over riding master code only available to the manufacturer and S&G that can’t be changed or deleted that would be the back door.

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USS Brewton FF1086
SWCA#3597

If I get a Liberty safe, will it come filled with Bud Light?

No problem here with Liberty supporting law enforcement instead of alleged lawbreakers. I am not aware of one instance here in cornfields and cows country where a company did not provide information requested by law enforcement when a valid warrant had been issued.

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"In God We Trust"

Liberty should not be concerned about keeping the safe from being destroyed. It is the private property of the individual charged. He obviously doesn’t care if safe is destroyed. He’s not going to make things easier for investigators. In my mind Liberty way over stepped here.

Once again, while we are diligent in keeping our firearms out of the wrong hands and putting them in expensive fancy gun safes, ALL OF THEM are easily and quickly gotten into with an angle grinder or similar power tool.

When I moved two years ago I had to take down a very expensive and well made basketball pole, backstop and hoop installed on the side of my driveway. The contractor that put up the 1/4" thick 4" diameter pole also filled it with concrete! I cut through the steel and the concrete in minutes with my angle grinder. After it toppled over, I cut it into 2 foot sections with the same tool so I could dispose of it by bringing it to the dump in my car.

Gun safes are made out of cold rolled steel which is actually pretty mild steel. Not a major task to get into. Jewelry safes which are way way better constructed are a little harder but still no competition for an angle grinder. If one were to make a safe that was resistant to these types of tools, no one would be able to afford them! So wether or not Liberty had no choice or did this voluntarily is almost a moot point.

That is WHY it's important (at least IMHO) NOT to "display" your gun safe out in the open. I feel by installing it in a lockable closet that is alarmed and having it bolted into the floor is the way to go. I have also seen a few hidden gun rooms made of poured concrete that were so well planned out and hidden, they are probably way more secure than any conventional safe. The key is that no one would ever know they were there! Out of sight - out of mind. Many here don't have the luxury of doing that - but those who can might want to think about it. At the end of the day, NOTHING is absolutely secure and anything man made can be dismantled or destroyed by man.

Quite honestly, with what is going on today, his guns are the least of his problems!

The Gun Stores and individuals I know whose safes were breached -
The perps cut through the side or rear.
So that tells me that was the planned MO and they brought the appropriate equipment to do the job.

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NRA LIFE MEMBER

Liberty has no standing in fighting the warrant.

They could say no but the FBI still had a valid warrant to get into the safe and would have just destroyed it.

It isn't like they demanded the combination from Liberty. While I know it is in fashion to beat up on the FBI right now, in reality by calling the safe company they saved the suspect some money in the long run.

Actually did the guy a favor by not destroying his property.

But hey, believe what you want.

Liberty knows they screwed up . They have since changed their policy concerning this kind of situation and also now give people the option of deleting their combination on record .
Liberty was not under any legal obligation to provide the combination and it appears the owner was willing to make them destroy it to get in . His call .

This appears to have just happened last week. Where did you see they changed their policy at?

I find it odd that it took two+ years to track this guy down when the instigator of the incident lived in government housing a mere 1.5 miles away from the capitol building, and hasn’t been nabbed.

It's on Liberty's Facebook page .

Thanks. Not a Facebook person and didn't see it on their website.

The change makes sense for them. Cost of customers vs. someone's safe being destroyed and getting to sell them a new one.

Might as well be on Mars for me, then.

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Release the Kraken

The wellspring of memes overfloweth.

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Music/Sports/Beer fan

Well it is what it is. There’s lots of people on either side of the line in this situation. I wonder why it took 5 FBI Agents to take this guy into custody. That seems like overkill. The security cameras at the man’s home showed 7 vehicles turning right into the property and another 3 vehicles turning left into the driveway a few minutes later. Not a clue who the vehicles belonged to. Law enforcement must have considered him really dangerous for some reason. The fact that Liberty supposedly has a master code or some magical way to access all of the gun safes they sell is a mystery to me. Never heard that before. Liberty Safe Company may have saved the man destruction of his gun safe by giving the FBI access to the safe but it still just don’t feel right. Just about everybody knows that with a good angle grinder you can cut out the side or back of the gun safe. Really the important thing to remember is the FBI had a Warrant against this man so they must have thought he was dangerous. The fact this man has multiple firearms and ammunition, just as most of us do, labels him a possible threat once the TV Networks and news people across the country get wind of this story. Still don’t seem right or fair.

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James
On the Llano Estacado

I'm at a loss for words . Seriously . Have you been living under a rock for the last couple of years ? Decades ?

I have 2 gun safes. Neither are Liberty. One is mechanical.
I changed that combination the same day I brought it home.
One is electronic. I changed that combination same day too.
Electronic safe had a cheep lock. After 3 years it started to
eat batteries. I replaced it with a S&G monster with a 12 digit
code.
Changing combinations to personal numbers makes a lot of sense.

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I'm with her

It doesn’t look like you’re at a loss for words.
I believe you got plenty.

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James
On the Llano Estacado

I'm a little lost. What makes some of you think that a business has any duty to question a legally issued warrant? As the safe no longer belongs to Liberty, what legal grounds would they have for denying the FBI's request? It's pretty moot, IMHO. Had Liberty said "no", the FBI would have simply sat in the house awaiting a court order telling Liberty to hand over the goods.

Yes, I read where it said the warrant related to "searching the property", but I think it has long been accepted (or it might even be case law) that such a warrant includes all containers therein, be they safes or Tupperware.

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Release the Kraken

I have a Liberty Safe with electronic lock and chanced the combo on purchase. I don't recall Liberty mentioning any master code (if they do have one, it should be something that you can disable).

However, the big question I have is "how did the government know he had a safe (or a Liberty Safe for that matter)"?

Monitoring purchases are we?

I wonder how many other safe companies have "default" combinations to their safes? I have emailed the manf of the safes I have to ask them if default combination exist and how I can eliminate them.

Also, safes with key locks might also have master keys available from the manf.

I'm not seeing a defined timeline in the article. They could have gone to Liberty once in the place.

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Release the Kraken

"As the safe no longer belongs to Liberty, what legal grounds would they have for denying the FBI's request?" Since it is no longer Liberty's property what right do they have to give out a combination? If a company installs a security system in your home, can the FBI make that company unlock your home?

Well, the FBI couldn't make Apple unlock a suspect's phone.

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So many S&W's, so few funds!!

Well....can OnStar shut down a car they don't own?

,

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Death? Smile back...

I remember following that story and finding this:

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Music/Sports/Beer fan

Question for all of you that think Liberty did the right thing...most appear to be LEO's: If a law enforcement agency has a warrant to search a car, is the dealer it was purchased from obligated to come unlock it? No difference. The warrant is to search the car, its not a court order for the dealer to come unlock it. Some here say that Liberty saved the safe from being destroyed so they did the right thing...a baffling argument.

I certainly don't believe Liberty did the right thing. Liberty should require a subpoena that orders them to provide any such information before releasing it to law enforcement. It's a basic tenant of customer confidentiality that many businesses adhere to.

In the long run, it really doesn't make a difference as a search warrant would allow LE to cut the safe open if the owner refuses to provide the combination.

My greater concern is the existence of a 'master code', but information on other sites about this incident seem to indicate said code is unique to each safe and referenced by serial number.

Liberty has apparently already changed their policy for these types of incidents, but it may be too little too late where many gun owners are concerned.

Retired LEO here, Liberty Safe should have refused to comply with the FBI request and should have instead insisted on a subpoena for the requested information. It’s pretty standard procedure, especially with media corporations who make their living protecting personal information. Having said that, I assume the Judge who issued the search warrant probably would have issued said subpoena. Liberty screwed the pooch.

I have done some more reading about Liberty and have found that they are owned by Monomoy Capital Partners LP. I won't say anymore, do your own research, as I don't want to be dinged by the moderators.

Luckily for me I payed cash for mine and didn't send in a warranty card so my name is not in their database.

Interesting read on how they assisted the FBI and that they have backdoor combinations on all their safes.

Liberty Safe, owned by a woke private equity firm, assists feds in tyrannical overreach, and mistakenly exposes an ideological Potemkin village

If true Just the thought that every digital lock has a secret master unlock code is quite damning.

Whats next, a master key?

A locksmith or a lock manufacturer can get into locks. Not too shocking to me. And far better than breaking the locking mechanism, which an ordinary search warrant allows.

I was once given an old Mosler floor safe that had been used in a local store for generations. Got it free because A) no one wanted to move it; and, B) the combination had been lost 30 years back. A borrowed truck, dollies, and a few dumb friends took care of A. A 10-minute call to Mosler took care of B. Yes, after nearly a century they still had the combo on file, and were willing to hand it out to the first guy that thought to call them.

I would never expect Liberty to do differently.

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Pisgah

I love how part of the country spends years complaiing about "Cancel Culture" and then changes the name to "Woke" and that makes it all okay.


Not arguing for one side or the other but Americans need to take a long look in the mirror.