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Kim Dotcom Demands Access To Seized Property To Defend Himself
redletterdave writes "On Wednesday, Kim 'Dotcom' Schmitz and his legal team visited the High Court in Auckland, New Zealand, to demand access to the data stored on his computers and hard drives that were confiscated during the police raid, and also requested a judicial review of the general legality of the search warrants police used to raid his mansion. Dotcom's lawyer, Paul Davison, argued that his client needs the data for a few reasons: To mount a 'proper defense' case, to fight possibly being extradited to the U.S., and also to show that 'excessive police action' was used during the raid. Dotcom could prove this in court because the entire raid was recorded by CCTV data, which is stored on Dotcom's confiscated computers. Even though the FBI demanded Dotcom turn over the passwords for Megaupload's encrypted data, he refuses to give up any passwords until he can regain access to his seized property."
It's all a bit of a mess really. Here's an article giving a few more details: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10808032
Usually people making copies for criminal investigations have immunity from that sort of copyright claim.
In US law it's worded like this:
Law Enforcement, Intelligence, and Other Government Activities. â" This section does not prohibit any lawfully authorized investigative, protective, information security, or intelligence activity of an officer, agent, or employee of the United States, a State, or a political subdivision of a State, or a person acting pursuant to a contract with the United States, a State, or a political subdivision of a State. For purposes of this subsection, the term âoeinformation securityâ means activities carried out in order to identify and address the vulnerabilities of a government computer, computer system, or computer network.