Megaupload extradition bid - Feds WON'T have to hand in their evidence

A New Zealand court has ruled that the Feds don’t have to turn over all their evidence against Megaupload kingpin Kim Dotcom to get him extradited. The Court of Appeal overturned a ruling that the FBI had to tip its hand to Dotcom so that he could fairly contest the case against him, Reuters and others reported. Dotcom faces …

[Busby]

Is this not e NZ court saying we are going to rule against you anyway so don't really care what "Evidence" you have? I think the local Government has already had enough embarrassment over this case and won't be likely to suffer any more.

All those details of how they bent over backwards for the US before the raid must have surely stung and if they have any spine would tell the Septics to do one, no?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah!

It's almost like he's innocent or something.

[Anonymous Coward]

Look, 2.3 million prisoners

The US has a prison population of 2.3-2.6 million offenders, yet they are building privately run prisons at the rate of 28 per year.

This will give them a surplus of 0.25 million places by the end of 2014. There is a whole industry in law enforcement that relies on the prison system, there are towns in the US where almost everyone is employed by the prison. It sucks up 11% of the US budget.

They are using it as a way to help dig themselves out of a recession and it is a self perpetuating system. Lock lots of people up, employ law enforcement officers, enact laws making minor offences imprisonable, lock more people up, build more prisons, employ more law enforcement officers, enact more laws making minor offences imprisonable etc etc.

The problem with this is that it is pyramid sales, or as they say a Ponzi scheme and eventually they will not have enough offenders, queue the next idea. Export your laws and make them applicable to other countries, bully weak Governments and use other countries to populate your prisons. Then they can employ more law enforcement officers, build more prisons, lock up more people, employ more law enforcement officers etc etc etc

[Richard 81]

Re: Look, 2.3 million prisoners

That sounds like a crazy conspiracy theory to me.

...at least I hope it is.

[LarsG]

Normally

New Zealand judges generally have the balls to say it as it is, but sadly I think there has been a bit of political pressure from very high up brought to bear on this case.

I'm sure that when it gets to the next stage of appeal the higher court will do what is right and demand ALL the evidence.

Face it, if they are allowed to get away with this then the USA need only point a finger and say 'we got evidence so send him here' and that will be that, New Zealand the next new state to join after the UK admission.

Here in the UK our judges lack the balls to stand up for what is right and it would be nice to see NZ stick two fingers up and tell the US to FO.

[JimmyPage]

Not sure about NZ ...

They seem to be a plucky little country - not afraid to bitchslap the US when needs be. Also they have a thriving home distilling market, and have just proposed a very sensible redrafting of drugs laws.

Is there much room there ;)

[Vladimir Plouzhnikov]

Re: Not sure about NZ ...

"not afraid to bitchslap the US when needs be."

But would they be able to resist "incentives" if offered to individual judges or government officials (that's probably too far-fetched...) or maybe some subtle diplomatic pressure which is not overt enough to be able to raise an international fuss about it but is easier just to accept and "push" the case through the legal system?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Not sure about NZ ...

I doubt the diplomatic pressure is subtle, remember this little gem http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/may/12/obama-threatens-to-limit-us-intel-with-brits/?page=all

[Anonymous Coward]

The whole case just seems to be BS.

I had files stored on MU, PP of course. Kinda like "Cloud" before "Cloud" was all the rage. Gone, all gone...no sharing copyright material, just....gone. I had backups of course, but..... I wasn't infringing on copyrighted material.

And now, everyone is persuading me to move my content to "The Cloud" so I can "access it anywhere"?

I had that, it's gone now, so what happens when the same thing happens to someones "Cloud"? I seriously doubt Balmer will be hauled into court if everyone decides to share their latest music or movie "In the Cloud".

Or, as Google sees it, if you put it on our "Cloud" WE have access to it (As does everyone else) and WE can use it to serve OUR own purpose.

but let me share with others.....Hell no! That infringement! Gotta shut the whole damn thing down and let everyone loose all their stuff! Can they do that with Google? Amazon? MicroSoft?

Who's watching the watchers?

[Anonymous Coward]

" I seriously doubt Balmer will be hauled into court..."

That's because his is a good cloud. The others are all black clouds.

Or to put it another way, despite the farce of pretending all are equal under the law, some are simply so far above it, they'll never have to worry.

[Scrumble]

Re: " I seriously doubt Balmer will be hauled into court..."

The big difference is the accessability of your data. Upload to dropbox and only you and people you allow access can see it. Upload a video to to Megaupload video and everyone could watch it.

[Invidious Aardvark]

Re: " I seriously doubt Balmer will be hauled into court..."

The big difference is the accessability of your data. Upload to dropbox and only you and people you allow access can see it. Upload a video to Megaupload video YouTube and everyone could watch it.

Mind telling me why YouTube hasn't been taken down yet?

[Anonymous Coward]

While I share your doubts about the safety of the cloud for storing stuff, MU unlike some cloudy providers had a reputation for storing dodgy stuff. Some assault on it by the powers-that-be was likely.

I don't want to suggest that those who kept their only copy of files on it were naive but eggs-basket springs to mind.

Household names with a different reputation pay a lot more on lawyers to maintain that reputation, or semblance of it and it is technical issues that will bring your offsite storage down around your ears rather than legal ones.

[JassMan]

Regardless of the ethics of Dotcom himself, the whole thing is starting to look like a case of US imperialism. If you aren't a US entity, you aren't allowed to setup a service which remotely resembles cloud.

[Anonymous Coward]

Rrrrright, JassMan...

That explains Deezer (France), Genie (Korea) and about 200 more.

The mouth-breathers really are out tonight.

[Anonymous Coward]

Noooooooooo we are not a bunch of corrupt shit heads......

"A New Zealand court has ruled that the Feds don’t have to turn over all their evidence against Megaupload kingpin Kim Dotcom to get him extradited."

Nooooo all they need to do is rubber stamp his arse on his way through customs.

Satan: "Yes the US foreign policy sure has united the world. They all have the same flags as us, but theirs are all on fire."

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Noooooooooo we are not a bunch of corrupt shit heads......

Kim has already said he will appeal it to the NZ Supreme Court. Hope he wins. If he does then the US can't appeal it anymore....

[Anonymous Coward]

"The whole case just seems to be BS."

Are you retarded?

"but let me share with others.....Hell no! That infringement! Gotta shut the whole damn thing down and let everyone loose all their stuff! Can they do that with Google? Amazon? MicroSoft?"

Amazon negotiated a licenses, so everyone's happy. Google negotiated licenses too. Ol' Fatboy was streaming and he didn't have one. It's pretty simple to figure this stuff out, dude.

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, no, not retarded, making a valid point. Maybe you should reread what I said.

A "negotiated license" ?

I see NO WHERE is this entire CASE where the US is saying "We want him because he didn't "negotiate a license".

I didn't say the guy was clean, or that the service wasn't being used for illegal purposes, I'm saying I was legit, and my files were legit, and the whole thing got shut down.

Now, try the other foot, if this was Google, or Amazon, or the mighty MS.......THEY wouldn't be shut down, and Balmer, Gates, and whoever else these "Cloud" Clowns are wouldn't be dragged into court.

And yeah, Amazon, Google and MS do have illegal content on THEIR clouds, "negotiated license" or not.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why wouldn't they want to hand over the evidence?

Seems strange to me, if they are so sure they have a case why wouldn't they just hand over the evidence instead of wasting time with various appeals, surely once he is extradited his defence team in the US will have to be given access anyway.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Why wouldn't they want to hand over the evidence?

ah, yes, but then he will have been where they want him to be, at all cost, i.e in the US of A.

And "in the US no-one can hear you scream".

[ecofeco]

Double-plus Good

Wow. No civil rights in NZ, it seems.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: No civil rights in NZ, it seems.

Indeed. Go straight to jail do not pass Go. Not a reputation you'd have thought NZ would want to have, even if they are becoming Hollywood lickspittles.

Sounds like New Zealand is becoming the next Sweden.

[Anonymous Coward]

Short Form FBI Evidence

He did it.

[asdf]

the problem with only two parties

Obama is even bigger copyright whore than W Bush was (even Bush didn't use Homeland Security to go after copyright infringers). Both parties bend over backwards to defend big media for the same reason as was happening in the UK with Murdoch. Corporatism at its worse but really it is a very large country with a lot diversity so don't judge us all by the few retards that won the popularity vote.

[asdf]

Re: the problem with only two parties

meant to say a popularity contest. Total why don't you make like a tree and get out here moment.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not about justice, OK?

It's about finding him guilty.

Got it?

[Tomas K.]

Re: It's not about justice, OK?

You are incorrect. The judicial process is the same for Kim Dotcom as it is for anyone else accused of a crime. The full evidence is presented to him prior to trial. The extradition process only requires reasonable grounds for conviction. Extradition has nothing to do with finding a person guilty. It's a legal process to bring the accused before a judge who will decide if there is merit to the case. Justice is not served by allowing an alleged criminal to flee to a different geographic location to avoid judicial process. That is why extradition agreements exist.

Kim Dotcom seems to have created his own problems by hosting pirated materials. With his money and team of lawyers he will probably escape any serious punishment for copyright infringement.

[Intractable Potsherd]

Re: It's not about justice, OK?

Extradition absolutely should require all the evidence available. To remove someone from one country to another for trial is far from trivial. Whilst KD is familiar with the US system of law (note: I didn't say "justice"), many extraditions, or for people who have never even been to the US.

All extradition hearing should follow these basic rules:

a) evidence must be shown that satisfies the courts in the accused's country of domicile that a crime has been committed that would carry a sentence of imprisonment of more than 5 years according to that country's sentencing guidelines

and

b) that there are exceptional reasons why the case can not be tried in the accused's country of domicile.

c) if the alleged crime isn't on the books of the county of domicile, then there is no case to answer anyway.

Even if the treaty doesn't specify this, judges should work to these rules in order to protect individuals. OK, it might give some people "stay out of jail" card fro the small(!) price of moving to a different country, and it probably favours the rich, but that's the way the law works.

I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to decide what to do with charges brought by the International Criminal Court.

[Field Marshal Von Krakenfart]

Re: It's not about justice, OK?

It's hard to make a reasonable comment about any of this since we haven't seen what constitutes the FBI's summary of evidence, however most extradition agreements (except the possibly the USA/UK one) do require some evidence that a crime was committed.

Also, it's usually not possible to extradite somebody unless the alleged crime they are been extradited for is also a crime in the country they are being extradited from.

It's not clear to me what the fraud and money-laundering charges relate to, certainly he seem to have been involved in some criminal activity in Germany and ran an unregistered company in Hong Kong (dodgy business practice in Hong Kong, what a shock).

The 'merkin DOJ has already called Megaupload an 'international organized criminal enterprise' and claims that the "the Mega conspiracy websites" were run with a business model that was "expressly designed to promote uploading of the most popular copyrighted works" and that the Megaupload uploader rewards program was a means of laundering money.

Infringement of copyright is usually considered a civil matter and not a criminal matter, dotcom may have encouraged uploading of copyright material but I'm at a bit unsure as to how it was a money laundering operation.

Jumped up criminal charges so the 'merkins can get dotcom to Amerika so he can face the civil copyright infringement charges. They wouldn't do that would they????? They wouldn't get someone brought to Sweden to be questioned about alleged rape charges so they could extradite him to Amerika to face other charges would they????

[Chris 228]

All evidence is presented

This is not some unusual procedure regarding extradition. All evidence is presented to Dotcom's attorneys prior to trial. The extraditon process only requires that proper evidence is presented to the country where the extradition must be processed. Dotcom will get a hearing and bail and then have a year or more to file stalling motions before he ever gets a trial. There is nothing unusual at all about these legal proceedings.

[localzuk]

Re: All evidence is presented

So in this normal procedure, he is forced to be out of his home, away from his family, in a foreign country? Potentially remanded in custody without ever having seen the evidence.

If the extradition request is going to hold ground, it should be able to be scrutinised by the accused else it is a bit of a folly. How can a judge make the decision that there is likely a conviction if the defendant can't counter claim in the first place - pointing out any inaccuracies or frauds in the evidence for example...

[ysth]

You can determine whether there's been compliance with candor and good faith simply by noting you are dealing with the U.S. Government.

I'll let you all decide which way to take that.

[Matthew Hale]

Heads in the clouds

....just look after your own data! Why trust it to some faceless organisation?? It makes no sense. Storage is cheap.

Why oh why does anyone store anything with any third party? Especially the way the law works now, once it's on the cloud, you lose any traditional `rights` of ownership. If it gets destroyed or is fucked over by the US jackboot brigade you have no rights. None, zero. It's gone and that's that.

Fuck that. I'll keep my data, thanks very much.

[Chris 228]

He'll get his day in court

The FBI doesn't need to show all of their evidence to have Dotcom extradited. He'll get to see all of the evidence long before he gets to trial. All the FBI or other proper authority needs to do is present reasonable evidence of the perps alleged crime. Extradition is not a conviction, it's part of due process. Once he's extradited due process can continue and the FBI must prove their case. Considering how easy Dotcom has made it for authorities, that won't be difficult. The only qustion is will the punishment be appropriate or just a slp on the wrist?

Japan has made the process crystal clear on digital crimes. You pirate you spend 2 years in prison plus a fine. You facilitate piracy as Dotcom is alleged to have done, you spend 10 years in prison plus a huge fine. All countries should adopt these mandatory punishments so there is no place to run to or hide after committing digital crimes.