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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."
What's the German word for "the boner you get from too much Schadenfreude"? Speaking as an American expat living in NZ: fuck the US government and its thuggish international corporate rent-a-cop policies.
The US government has illegally copied his data, in the hope of extraditing him of charges of illegally copying other peoples data.
It was on the local news last night. The FBI are confirmed to now have a copy of the personal HDDs.
It's causing a bit of a stink as it looks like the Police have done it illegally given they had previously agreed to return them first.
Yeah, why not?
George Bush hired people to commit crimes in Iraq and the USA still haven't extradited him to face justice from his victims. Or is extradition something that should only happen to non-US citizens?
[1] Physical presence of the perpetrator should not be required -- if the crime causes damage in that country, then that's real presence.
Copied files! Oh, the horror! That's almost as bad as a kid selling lemonade without a permit!
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
The previous post is missing a disclaimer:
Today, in the United Fascist States of America (UFSA for short, spread it around!), you're more likely to be branded a cyberterrorist, and then you'll be in a world of shit: You won't get any due process, because you are, after all, a terrorist. Hell, if you're overseas, President Obama might just authorize your assassination, because obviously the US Constitution doesn't apply in foreign lands, right?
Regards,
dj
P.S. I had an account on the Illuminati BBS when it was seized (had to call long distance from NY to get to it), and I was shocked, appalled and angered when I learned of the raid.
Although it worked out in the end, and Steve Jackson Games won, doing so was an enormous hardship for the company at the time. It was, in addition to the fact that they make great games, another reason that I bought as many of their games as I could at the time, and continue to do so to this day.
There was no declaration of war. There should have been. Generally speaking, leaders of countries are not subject to legal action in other countries, even if they visit that country. Otherwise, Castro would be in a US jail today, following his arrest decades ago when he came to NYC.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
No, I just honestly don't see this as anything more than a petty matter. Copyright infringement. So what? People are treating it as if it's some sort of national security emergency that we must extradite people in other countries for. Wow, files were copied! That's just terrible.
What a waste of taxpayer dollars.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
No, you need to read it again. Megaupload said that they can hash cp images and automatically block them from being uploaded again. They flip this claim against them for none CP files.
Read item 24 carefully.
"Members of the Conspiracy have indicated to each other that they can automatically identify and delete such materials on all of their servers by calculating MD5 hash values of known child pornography or other illicit content, searching the system for these values, and eliminating them; in fact, such files with matching hash values have been deleted from the Mega Conspiracyâ(TM)s servers. Members of the Mega Conspiracy have failed to implement a similarprogram to actually delete or terminate access to copyright infringing content."
How can you be so stupid?
I am pretty sure that it is illegal in all jurisdictions to even store child pornography. Preventing it from being uploaded is a no-brainer, since there are no cases where it could be legal.
However, it not illegal for me to upload a copy of an album that I own, to my private Megaupload account.
Why should Megaupload automatically prevent me from uploading a backup of a song (or album) that I legally purchased, and which shares MD5 hash with the exact same copy which someone else uploaded and shared with others?
You seem to think that you are not able to make a copy of purchased song/album onto external hard disk (which is what Megaupload really is).
That is really sad.
I think a more valid question is why should MegaUpload be expected to prevent you from doing anything illegal? We don't require manufactures of other products to do that.
How come GM is not required to have cars verify all passengers are willing in some way to prevent kidnapping and human trafficking? How come nobody is prosecuting the guys who painted John Edward's house for not verify they were not being paid with illegally converted campaign contributions?
I think setting the precedent that service providers or manufactures are responsible for the actions of their users is wrong.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html