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FBI Used FedEx To Sneak Dotcom's Hard Drives Out of NZ
First time accepted submitter bpkiwi writes "FBI agents, working with New Zealand police on the Megaupload case, took a copy of Kim Dotcom's hard drives and then immediately sneaked out of the police facility and FedEx'ed them back to the USA. Despite the fact that removal of evidence in this manner without official approval (and a chance for the defendant to challenge it) appears to be illegal, the New Zealand government is now left arguing on a technicality — that the law only covers 'physical' items." Things got slightly better for Megaupload users trying to get their files back today. In a court filing the MPAA said users can have their files back as long as access to copyrighted files is blocked. “The MPAA Members are sympathetic to legitimate users who may have relied on Megaupload to store their legitimately acquired or created data, although the Megaupload terms of use clearly disclaimed any guarantee of continued access to uploaded materials,” MPAA lawyers write.
Wait, the MPAA is claiming the Megaupload EULA/TOS as a reason why people shouldn't get their data back? That's kinda a dick move.
Also, if I was the NZ government, I would be asking FedEx some pretty hard questions. Like: "Considering that you helped a foreign power conspire to break NZ law, why should we allow you to continue to work in our country?"
So then what are the hard drives made of if they are not physical?
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
it would be tortious interference of contract, but because they've bought themselves criminalization of copyright violations, we now have the FBI chasing halfway around the world for stuff like this. Great going, FBI!
Dog is my co-pilot.
When the revolution comes, MPAA's CEO and the managers under him should be in the line for beheading. (Or we could just pass a constitutional amendment that corporations don't have human rights and are not a fictional "person" under the law.)
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
An actual altering of the magnetic particles on the disk between 1 and 0 states.
So it is a physical item. Lots and lots and lots of them. Billions of bits worth of physical items.
What seems to cover this would be say copyrights. And everyones all hard-on for defending copyrights these days...
So the goverments and riaa/mpaa/whoever broke the ONE rule they expect the rest of us to follow.. Not breaking peoples copyrights and illegally copying data.
the ONE THING they want us not to do.. they did in this case. lol
Looks like everyone involved here all agree.... Fuck copyrights. kim dotcom did nothing wrong. the goverment of the usa did nothing wrong. the goverment of new zealand did nothing wrong. Everyone needs to have a coke and a smile and shut the fuck up. EVERYONE involved is guilty.
One of the reasons for the law about shipping evidence out would be to make sure the evidence isn't lost or modified. So in this case the physicality of the data actually is relevant and the law may make sense.
Of course there are separate issues of privacy.
This article puts quite a different spin on it, http://www.nzherald.co.nz/technology/news/article.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10811266 From the article: "He said he had contacted the agents to offer to take clones of the items to the United States Embassy only to find they had already sent the clones to the US." Sounds like the NZ cops were going to give it to the FBI but the FBI wasn't waiting from permission anyway.
FedEx aided in copying data illegally. FedEx should have filters in place blocking any illegal items (or data) from passing through their services, thus stopping companies and people from breaking the law. /SARCASM
I remember when the prosecution was opposing Kim's bail application, the reasoning for their opposition being that Kim would flee the country, being the dishonest rich person he is.
He never did.
And now the prosecution were caught doing unethical and illegal behavior.
Who are the dishonest ones here? Who are the criminals blatantly breaking the law?
Unsurprisingly, the majority of the NZ population side with Kim Dotcom throughout this entire farce.
Yes, but are FBI an offically sanctioned law enforcement agency in NZ ?
Just saying it like it are.
What MPAA wants to disallow is in bold...
"If the Court is willing to consider allowing access for users such as Mr. Goodwin to allow retrieval of files, it is essential that the mechanism include a procedure that ensures that any materials the users access and copy or download are not files that have been illegally uploaded to their accounts."
To that, I'll add "allegedly illegally uploaded." The court as a finder of law can't determine that the files were illegally uploaded; a finder of fact (jury) needs to do that.
If the evidence had been paper documents and the NZ police had let the FBI take xerox copies back to the USA would you say that they took evidence out of the country? The actual evidence --the actual, original drives-- is still in NZ. No evidence was made unavailable to the defense. I oppose criminal prosecution for copyright infringement, but let's try not to invent bogus outrages. The real ones are quite sufficient.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
You people are all insane.
Nononono you have it all wrong. The US is against information LEAVING the U.S., this stuff was coming INTO the U.S.
While it's unlikely that any FBI agents would face charges of contempt of court, judges don't like being lied to, or having their orders ignored. Given the FBI's behaviour, I wouldn't be too surprised if the judge denied the extradition request solely on the basis of the actions of the FBI.
In short, the FBI are acting like arrogant bullies and they are going to destroy their own case.