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Dotcom Search Warrants Ruled Illegal

Posted by Soulskill on from the federal-amateur-hour dept.

New submitter StueyNZ writes "Justice Helen Winkelmann of New Zealand's High Court (non-appellate court) has ruled that the search warrants used to search and seize property from Kim Dotcom's Coatsville residence did not properly describe the offenses under which the search was being made. In particular, warrants did not make it clear that the breach of copyright law and money laundering offenses were U.S. federal offenses rather than NZ offenses. Therefore the search and seizure was illegal. I hope this means Mr. Dotcom gets his security footage back, which should shed some light on how many tourists from the FBI were present at the NZ police raid, and how many firearms those tourists were waving around as they joined in."

27 of 316 comments (clear)

  1. It's no surprise.. by intellitech · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's no surprise that this happened the way it did, and that the rest of the world really despises us because of the way our government throws it's weight around.

    I was once proud to be an american. Perhaps I still am, but my pride is severely diminished as of late.

    --
    vos nescitis quicquam, nec cogitatis quia expedit nobis ut unus moriatur homo pro populo et non tota gens pereat.
    1. Re:It's no surprise.. by jamesh · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It's no surprise that this happened the way it did, and that the rest of the world really despises us because of the way our government throws it's weight around.

      I was once proud to be an american. Perhaps I still am, but my pride is severely diminished as of late.

      I'm also both amused and terrified at how stupid the American government can be sometimes. That investigation and raid must have cost a lot of money to put together... why not do it properly? (eg no obvious cock-ups that get the whole thing thrown out of court).

      I wouldn't feel too ashamed though... my government can be just as stupid... it's just they don't have as much weight to throw around and so their stupidity tends to to be more localised and so less newsworthy.

    2. Re:It's no surprise.. by SJHillman · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It's possible to be proud to be American and ashamed of our government. Although we are a government of the people, the government and the country as a whole are not the same thing.

    3. Re:It's no surprise.. by SuricouRaven · · Score: 5, Informative

      Here in the UK, you are despised for an extradition agreement which allows you to successfully have someone sent over for prosecution who has committed no crime under UK law and never even entered the US. America has long been seen as the global champion of freedom and equality, but the government over the last few administrations has been striving to correct this.

    4. Re:It's no surprise.. by LordSnooty · · Score: 5, Insightful

      They got the megaupload servers offline, with much publicity, even if the whole thing is overturned there's no way it's returning in its old form. I'm sure the US authorities are thinking, 'job done'.

    5. Re:It's no surprise.. by Shagg · · Score: 5, Informative

      You're assuming they didn't "do it properly". I don't mean in the sense of following proper procedure, but in the sense of achieving their real goals. Maybe they didn't really care whether or not it got thrown out of court, but wanted to "throw their weight around" in order to ruin his business and intimidate others into shutting down out of fear that they would be next. If that was their goal, then it worked out perfectly.

      --
      Unix is user friendly, it's just selective about who its friends are.
    6. Re:It's no surprise.. by AngryDeuce · · Score: 5, Insightful

      America has long been seen as the global champion of freedom and equality

      Which is, of course, mainly due to American politicians repeating it over and over and over again, not necessarily because of anything we've actually done. Certainly not within any of our lifetimes...

      I chalk it up to the last bit of Cold War propaganda that's still kicking around in the global collective consciousness. Give it another generation or two and, much like all the lessons learned during the Great Depression that have gone right the fuck out the window, it will all be forgotten...

    7. Re:It's no surprise.. by Captain+Hook · · Score: 5, Funny

      Have you see the weather at Other Location? The place is objectively terrible.

      Hey, I live in the UK you insensitive clod.

      --
      These comments are my personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the other voices in my head.
    8. Re:It's no surprise.. by Hizonner · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Um, your culture? Your traditions? Your ancestry? You can't think of anything that somebody might use to define a country other than its location and its government?

      I think those things are BS, and I think patriotism is nothing but soft nationalism and needs to go away. But it's just absolutely idiotic to say that governments are all patriotic people have to be attached to. Or even that governments are what most of them are attached to.

    9. Re:It's no surprise.. by artfulshrapnel · · Score: 5, Insightful

      ...That investigation and raid must have cost a lot of money to put together... why not do it properly? (eg no obvious cock-ups that get the whole thing thrown out of court).

      They didn't do it properly because what they wanted to do was not properly legal. The US government wanted to prosecute someone on NZ soil based on flimsy evidence provided by biased parties, without due authorization or process.

      Protip for US Law Enforcement: If something you want to do is against the law it doesn't mean the law is bad, nor does it mean the law should be rewritten/removed. It means what you want to do is wrong, and you shouldn't do it.

    10. Re:It's no surprise.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      I'm sure the US authorities are thinking, 'job done'.

      I think you mean: 'Mission Accomplished!'

    11. Re:It's no surprise.. by C_amiga_fan · · Score: 5, Informative

      I'm sure the U.S. authorities are not thinking anything, but instead picking-up the phone and telling Universal, "We followed your orders. Mission accomplished." Why Universal? Those are the guys that demanded Youtube remove the Megaupload Song in december. They even filed a lawsuit, which they lost.

      Then two weeks later the FBI raids and shutsdown megaupload. Coincidence? I don't think so. Pretty obvious Universal lost their case to remove the Megaupload Song, then called their buddies in D.C. and asked them to remove the company. Ultimately the U.S. government serves the corporations that donate money to its reelection campaigns.

      --
      FREE magazine : http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/prior/
  2. Jurisdiction by Tommy+Bologna · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Whatever happened to the concept of jurisdiction?

    1. Re:Jurisdiction by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Jurisdiction died that fateful day when copyright pirates flew their torrents into the WTC. NEVER FORGET.

    2. Re:Jurisdiction by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      My next door neighbour had an extra-marital affair recently, and she's going to be travelling to Iran in the near future. Does anyone know the contact number for the Tehran Sharia Police?

  3. Impressive... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Has there, so far, been a single aspect of this case that didn't turn out to be an embarassing cock-up by the feds? Warrants not in order, video footage of the raid quietly goes missing, seized materials swiftly duplicated and fedexed out of NZ before anybody has a chance to object, Carpathia left sitting on tens of thousands a day in servers-in-legal-limbo, random megaupload customers who were using the place as a backup/transfer system locked out for months...

    Was somebody delusional enough to start out thinking that they had an open-and-shut case, and bodged it up? Did they start out thinking that; but start 'improvising' once it became clear that they didn't? Was the whole operation fully intended to be an incrementally-more-legal-than-just-having-a-Reaper-handle-it intimidation job?

    1. Re:Impressive... by L4t3r4lu5 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You seem to still think that this was about prosecuting Kim Dotcom. It wasn't.

      MegaUpload is done and dusted. There doesn't need to be a prosecution; It's Mission Accompllished. Dozens of similar sites shut their doors based upon these actions out of fear and intimidation, and that's what it was all about. "We're bigger than you, and we don't like what you're doing. We're going to beat seven shades of shit out of you in public, nobody is going to do a damn thing about it, and at the worst we'll get a strongly worded letter, which we'll use as toilet paper."

      --
      Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
  4. Well.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'm sure that'll make kim happy.
    Now that the goverment has destroyed his business and siezed a bunch of his assets.

    See, thats how serious the riaa is. Guy starts talking about promoting independant artists himself on his own site... And the riaa gets the usa goverment to stomp on him with both feet. ILLEGALLY!

    Such bullshit.

    1. Re:Well.. by magic+maverick+ · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Not only does the "goverment has destroyed his business and siezed a bunch of his assets" (which government? please be clear), the damage done to his house, and the money spent in defence is all gone. He won't be compensated for damaged property, let alone mental anguish or similar.

      The police in NZ really fucked it up, and nothing will happen. The cop in charge won't even get a blackmark, let alone the judge who signed off on the illegitimate search warrant.

      It doesn't matter if this individual is the most foul and awful person ever, they deserve to be compensated (and not a mere pittance either, but damages plus extra) to discourage this sort of behaviour. And some of it should come out fo the pockets of those directly responsible.

      But no, we can't have that, we can't have any sort of fetters on the ability of the police to fuck up livelihoods, nor can we possibly actually hold accountable those responsible.

      (Most of the above post applies to all the world, not just NZ.)

      --
      HELP MY ACCOUNT HAS BEEN HACKED BY AN ILLIBERAL ART STUDENT SET TO DESTROY THE INTERWEBZ!
  5. MegaBoxed by wild_quinine · · Score: 5, Interesting
    How interesting that Kim Dotcom has his assets seized and his business killed just a couple of months after announcing a new service called MegaBox that would have competed directly and legally with record labels.

    The bad news for those guys is that it's still good to go. I wonder if it will be successful.
    http://torrentfreak.com/kim-dotcom-artists-rejoice-megabox-is-not-dead-120621/

  6. Re:And why is this bad? by dargaud · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So when you come to Europe and have a beer at 18, it's perfectly all right that you be arrested on setting foot in the US if they saw your vacation photos on Facebook ?!? Cancun is gonna close shop.

    --
    Non-Linux Penguins ?
  7. Re:And why is this bad? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The fun part is how you can do something overseas that's completely legal in the country you did it in, but then get arrested when you return to the US if it's a crime in the US. This is often used when citizens go overseas, have sex with young girls who are of legal age in their country but under age by US law, then arrested when they return to the US.

    I'm sorry, I'm just not seeing the downside of this.

    Did you ever shoplift as a child or teen? How would you feel about having your right hand cut off upon entering an islamic country? What if you had a friend who lived in a western country but had dual citizenship by birth?

    Or how about this: Have you ever attended a rally or written a letter of complaint to an official? How would you feel about being jailed as a subversive if you went on holiday to China?

    If you don't understand the reason for jurisdiction, you really shouldn't be commenting. Laws vary so widely that you're bound to be a criminal somewhere no matter how you behave. Without some limits and barriers everyone who ever went overseas would risk jail.

  8. Re:At Least... by SuricouRaven · · Score: 5, Interesting

    He was refering to a recent well-known incident in which a SWAT team was sent to arrest a suspected drug dealer teenager still living with his parents. They proved to be very trigger-happy: Even though no-one at the property resisted, the team still destroyed part of the house, held the entire family at gunpoint and shot dead the two family dogs. To add further insult, the team was sent on false information - the suspect did have a small quantity of pot, but wasn't a dealer, only a user - and none of the family received any compensation for the disruption, distress, property damage or dead dogs.

    http://gawker.com/5532226/swat-team-raids-house-shoots-dogs-over-small-amount-of-marijuana

    SWAT teams are trained for assaults on property occupied by the armed and dangerous. Their training says to strike hard, without warning, with overwhelming force, and shooting anything that poses the slightest threat to their own safety... like a dog. So when a SWAT team is send to raid an ordinary house and ordinary family, they tend towards overkill and a shoot-first, ask-later policy.

  9. Appalling cost to NZ taxpayers by FeatherBoa · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I wonder, when the dust settles, as I suppose it one day must, will anyone add up the appalling costs to the NZ taxpayers to play out this farce? The Crown is likely going to have to fold their entire case and may face liability for wrongful conduct. It's all well to say that the Americans have achieved their goals just by putting the fear of god into all the offshore quasi-ethical file-share outfits and screwing up Mega's business. But NZ taxpayers will face millions in court costs and lost police and prosecutor time sorting this out. If the costs are large, the embarrassment significant and the gains are negligible or non-existent, how many more times will NZ or other small powers accommodate American expeditions of this type so willingly?

    I think there's an onus on New Zealanders to complain to their parties about the policies that let this happen, use access to information to ferret out the complicit officials into the light of day. Make the costs and embarrassment of following though on this farce a political issue for the government.

  10. Re:And why is this bad? by MartinSchou · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Well, let's look at this another way then.

    You need to be 18 to get a drivers license in Denmark.

    If you're an exchange student to the US you can get a US drivers licence at 16.

    Should those Danish exchange students be arrested and thrown in jail for having driven a car while in the US, once they return to Denmark?

    Keeping in mind, that they broke absolutely no laws while in the US nor while they were in Denmark?

    Or how about we turn it around.

    In Denmark the age of consent is 15. Suppose a 15-year-old US citizen travels to Denmark on holiday with his or her family and ends up having sex with a 15-year-old in Denmark.

    Should the 15-year-old be charged and marked for being a sex offender (statutory rape), travelling to engage in such etc., upon returning to the US?

    How about this one. US citizen living in Nevada travels to New York. In New York he's arrested for having paid for sex with a prostitute in a licensed and regulated Nevada brothel. Something that is completely legal in Nevada, but illegal in New York.

  11. That's impossible by Sloppy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They got the megaupload servers offline, with much publicity, even if the whole thing is overturned there's no way it's returning in its old form. I'm sure the US authorities are thinking, 'job done'.

    But.. but.. that's impossible. The US government would never use force to create fear of vigilante justice in the minds of civilians, for purposes of effecting political or behavioral changes. Why? Because US government is against terrorism.

    --
    As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
    1. Re:That's impossible by Internetuser1248 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      US government is against terrorism.

      I realise you are being sarcastic, but some other people probably think this is true. I would like to state for the record that the US has been convicted in international court of supporting terrorists and ordered to pay reparations, which are still unpaid to date. In addition the US and Israel were the only two countries to vote against a UN resolution to combat terrorism in the 80s when the whole war on terror thing was getting started.

      The US is resolutely pro terrorism in policy and has been for a long time, they are only anti terrorism in their PR and propaganda branches.