
BAU for the US then?
Shoot first and ask questions later.
In other news, It will rain somewhere in the world today.
America’s case against Megaupload boss Kim Dotcom is looking increasingly shambolic, with a New Zealand High Court judge finding that the property seizures in January raid were illegal. Both New Zealand’s National Business Review and TVNZ are reporting that Judge Helen Winkelmann has declared the warrants used in the searches …
Shoot first, hit you allies with friendly fire, ignore their sovereignty and legal system, then ask questions later.
Corrected for you:
Shoot first, hit you allies with friendly fire, ignore their sovereignty and legal system, then ask the wrong questions (mainly about who leaked the bad news) but not necessarily on topic later.
The US didn't really give a monkey's about DotCom or his assets as such, they simply want to shut his site down for along enough for his business to collapse and stop him hosting the supposedly copyrighted stuff MegaUpload's users had posted. The "meeja" corps in the US had obviously been making a big noise to the US Gov, so the US Gov thought they'd push their luck see how much trouble they could cause DotCom. The US knew full well they were skating on thin ice, they're not stupid but they just needed enough time to allow them to keep up the pretence long enough to achieve the aim of tripping up DotCom and his mates.
If when DotCom is allowed to to go free and get on with his life, how long is it going to take for him to get his business back together, if he even bothers? It's not going to be instant is it and the threat that US Gov will find another loophole to be pain in the arse, will be at the back of his mind.
I am sure that our NZ coppers will now know what those devious yanks are really like now, and wont be so obliging in future.
The trouble is that they are now tarred with the same brush as the FBI etc. who don't give a shit about proper legal ways or the law at all.
It has been revealed that the FBI actively encourage their men (or persons) to not be concerned about how to get evidence.
This plus the law Obama has approved that allows for indefinite detention without charge or trial shows that the "Land of the Free" should used only in the past tense.
At least the Winter weather so far is not too chilly.
Peace be with all you Poms.
Just to clarify: nicking the server clones was a violation of New Zealand law.
That doesn't mean it was against US federal law, and it certainly doesn't mean the evidence can't be used in a US federal prosecution. We're talking about a jurisdiction that publicly defends kidnapping people from foreign cities in order to get them in front of its courts, if it finds that extradition is too much like hard work.
I don't expect someone to take responsibility, but the authorities might be a lot more careful next time. Will this be a big boost for file hosting in NZ in the future?
Megaupload looks like a reasonable business model now. Thanks for clarifying that, US and NZ authorities!
I wouldn't have thought so. Copyright of the individual files probably stays with the uploader. It would be surprising for Mega's T&Cs to say that copyright vests with them when you upload - it would make them more liable to the copyright claims from the film companies.
Haven't they already frozen his assets and such like though? What about those...?
Not to mention the destruction of a business with a $4 billion dollar evaluation that was just preparing to go public and enter the US stock market with a multi-billion dollar IPO. Major auditors and world investment banks were apparently looking favourably at this so there should be some good evidence for a lawsuit to recover some of that. It's a bit of an international incident if you ask me.
The UK is slightly better, at least on the door front. I heard of one bloke who had his door kicked in by police in England, just a couple of days after he had sold his car. The vehicle registration documents had not yet been processed, and the car he sold had been used in an armed robbery. It was clear fairly quickly to the officers that he did not match the description of the robbers, and they had the damage repaired.
Sometimes kicking in a door is not quick enough... there is a device that is bolted to the ground outside the door, and then uses hydraulic rams to smash the door in one go.
I second that. Back in the day (1994 or so) I lived in the middle flat of three in an old terraced house. The [redacted] on the ground floor were bad boys, and Plod came calling one Saturday afternoon. They broke the lock on the outside (shared) door, and I presume on the ground floor flat's door as well. I peered outside a moment or two later, and saw one of the bad boys' mates being led away with his hands cuffed behind his back. A phone call to Plod followed. "Where do you live, sir?" "(address)" "Ah, ok, have it repaired, and put this operation number on the bill and send it to us, we'll take care of it."
Times change, so your mileage may vary if you try this these days...
Given that the judge appears to have destroyed the whole NZ case against him, I don't see how he can be extradited and he would seem to have a great case for huge amounts of compensation. The US appears to have stitched NZ up good and proper. There can be little doubt that the NZ police will be liable for several reasons. Not least amongst these being that they obviously didn't follow the laws of NZ or their own protocol as otherwise the warrants would have been legal. Given the soon to be IPO, the compensation must run into hundreds of millions at least. What about the customers? If they were inconvenienced or they lost their data because of this, they could have a claim as well.
It all seems to me that NZ could end up with a bill for a very large sum. The US will, as usual, simply walk away. In some ways, this is fair enough. If the US hadn't provided enough information and evidence, the NZ cops should have walked away. The worst they could be accused of is playing the NZ police and national authorities for fools, which seems more than ably demonstrated.
this is probably true, eventually(except the sum offered will be tiny) and it will take years of chasing it through the NZ Establishment which hates with a passion, anybody telling them that they got it wrong, probably even more so when they were obviously wrong.
(See David Bain and Arthur Allen Thomas and they were accused of Murder) Dotcom would be better served by taking the broken fragments of his business and creating something new.
Megaupload is out of action and will remain out of action for ages... and quite a few of the other web-locker firms have become web-lockers for personal access only (ie, you have to login with the same account that uploaded the content).
Personally, I'm rather annoyed as a perfectly good method of sharing collaborative work files has been destroyed. Audio projects where each of us would add the required instrument/vocal etc. parts and then get them mixed down.
I'm not so sure that the NZ side didn't do a little 'fuck america' creative sabotage...
It's easy to envision the FBI/whomever charging in shooting their sixguns in the air but for the NZ side to screw up as well on something basic like a warrant?
Do NZ have black helicopters?
@edge_e
Don't get me wrong, I've no problem with not being able but I do have a problem with being proud of not being able.
Agreed. Reminds me of the Chris Rock "Niggas vs black people" skit, bemoaning the existence of people who "love to not know" - "I don't know that shit, I'm keepin' it REAL!"
Given the number and range of things that it is possible to know, not knowing any given thing is reasonable enough. Being proud or boastful about it is not.
"Don't get me wrong, I've no problem with not being able but I do have a problem with being proud of not being able"
Oh come on! It's clear he was having an attempt at a joke. Unfortunately his sense of humour is a bit poor, while yours would appear to be non-existing. At least he tried.
[[Category:Replies to people who need to lighten up]]
Honestly, I think there is definitely market for a sequel "Team America 2: Copyright Police" or it's working title "Rise of the Pirates" - woudn't take much work either, just a few tweaks to the first script:
s/terrorist/pirate/g
s/Kim Jong Il/Kim Dotcom/g
s/North Korea/New Zealand/g
Film Actors Guild remains the basically the same evil organization - except they've switched sides.
"Gonna need a montage... Oh it takes a montage..."
Yeah, just before the Europeans turned up. Was paradise on earth apparently.
America was founded as a means for people to escape tyranny. The first settlers went about escaping tyranny with a Festival of Genocide and pillaging which some people say is still going on today.
America was cool when I was a boy... every time I drew a rocket or space ship, it would have Stars and Stripes on it. Not to mention the Dukes of Hazard ( sorry, I didn't know what the Confederate Flag meant when I was four), and the A-Team...
America used to be so cool!
So, America claims unlawful copyright infringement, without properly charging anyone and circumventing a nation's duty to protect its (no apostrophe) people. The result, after that nation chooses to duly investigate, is a big fat middle finger.
Surely this must affect the Richard O'Dwyer extradition case that Jimbo Wales is petitioning against? (http://www.change.org/petitions/ukhomeoffice-stop-the-extradition-of-richard-o-dwyer-to-the-usa-saverichard)
Isn't it time Theresa May did some work for a change?
...I think what the USA has done here will have the following consequences:
- 1: NZ and other countries will be extremely careful when the USA tries to push this crap on them. Public opinion will side with MegaUpload-like services.
- 2: Other digital locker services -which have kept a very low profile since the MegaUpload case- will regain their confidence and start working again as in the 'good old days', perhaps being more careful in their compliance with 'Safe Harbor provisions'..
- 3: Bittorrent and eMule downloads speeds willl drop again to their levels in 2011.
- 4: In the eyes of potential investors, Megaupload -and similar services- have passed a sort of 'FBI test'. "Look, it's totally legit! Even the FBI could do nothing against them". Therefore if Megaupload can keep that IPO going, they'll probably make megatonnes of cash out of it, thanks to the FBI.
- 5: Taxpayers in both countries will foot the bills.
The USA accidentally shoot themselves in the foot here, several times :-)
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1: Corrupt police (Gene Hunt style) who aren't afraid to fit people up for things they haven't done (multiple payouts, multiple cases. It's the _main_ reason that the Privy Council was abolished as the highest court in the land - it kept voiding cases and making pithy comments about the quality of t court and police proceedings) as well as indulging in or covering up things things like gang rape of drunken females in a station or having prisoners fall down the non-existant flight of stairs on the way to the cells.
1a: Of course such police never think to actually question the all-knowing, all powerful FBI and they would have loved the chance to raid and trash a fat rich boy's pad. Too many NZ cops were the schoolyard bully in their younger days.
2: Corrupt politicians, up to the level of ministerial orders shutting down criminal investigation of illegal commercial activities.
3: No press protection or freedom. Defamation cases are used at the drop of a hat to gag the press anytime they find information that companies, politicians or rich individuals don't want made public (NZ's version of the parliamentary expenses scandal almost didn't happen thanks to politicians using this tactic everytime someone got close - the only reason it blew open is because the journalist concerned got the story aired before the politicians knew about it. NZ had superinjunctions years before the UK was making use of them.)
4: Gang mentality: NZ doesn't just shoot messengers of bad tidings, it mobs them and stomps them into a bloody pulp.
5: Wilful blindness, aka sheeple: The average kiwi still thinks the politicians and police know best. The prevailing attitude is best summarised as "he got arrested so he's got to be guilty", along with the self-delusion that NZ is "corruption free" (Hint, it starts at the top, not on the street).
6: Transparency international NZ is govt funded and its internal workings are a closely guarded secret. Most actual transparency campaigners have been ejected form the organisation. That should raise eyebrows.
7: Susceptability to be blackmailed. France did it by blockading agricultural exports to the EU in order to get its DSGE agents back. The USA will do it to get Kim Dotcom (subtle things, such as cancelling visa waiver status, blocking agricultural exports or imposing punitive duty on imports)
8: Eager puppy syndrome. If you thought Tony Blair was a poodle, you haven't seen how NZ politicians try to curry USA/EU favour.
Good on the judge. She just seriously limited her career by making the correct ruling, instead of the expedient one.
Kim Dotcom will get damages awarded out of this, but probably no more than a couple million dollars and he'll become a target for police harrassment everywhere he sets foot. It's highly likely that his seized property will be in pretty battered shape when it's returned, along with photographic proof that it was always in that state.
Canada under and I mean being crushed under the right wing extremism of the harper fascists is moving in that direction. It's going to take some upstanding judges, like the one in NZ, and an awaking of sheeple here to rid ourselves of these types of menace..
People become complacent when their needs are easily met and in NA and much of the EU it's been that way for a long time. Those times have changed and the people want to be in control again. Big changes are required politically for this to happen. Let's hope this happens soon.
9: Powerful companies with enough commercial power to _kill_ news stories by threateing to withdraw advertising.. The incumbent telco used this muscle to make a news story about a $250k fine for anticompetitive behaviour "go away" in the late 1990s between the time it was reported on the 6pm news on both TV channels and the time the 10pm news rolled around. The only media outfit which ended up reporting it was ComputerWorld.
The internet is changing things. It's hard to keep news covered up any more, unlike times gone by. Even 5 years ago, the FBI and NZ police would have gotten away with this stunt.
I couldn't help but notice how many commenters here seem to think that American authorities treated this case with a “Shoot first and ask questions later” approach. To any American, myself included, this illustrates just how little you know about how things work over here. That gunge-ho attitude you seem to attribute to American behavior is a myth. I agree that the seizures were completely illegal but if you think American authorities didn't fully know this before any action was taken then you've got your head buried up your arse. Money changed hands here. Plain and simple. And judging by the fact that they were willing to risk an international incident, I would say it was a LOT of money. Corruption in politics is something of which we have plenty.
Good, good. Just keep whittling away at the case, finding more and more illegal moves. The man may have had a dubious past (allegedly, from some reports) but throughout the case, details have emerged that challenge the way things were done and the man deserves due process. It's just the good ol' boys of the US of A trying to rule world again. The country needs standing up to from now on.