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Kim Dotcom Raid - What Really Happened
chill writes "People have been discussing the raid on the Dotcom mansion for months, but now more details and video footage of that morning have begun to emerge from the trial. From the article: 'At 6.46am on January 20, the raid was underway. The helicopter carrying members of the elite special tactics group flew into the Coatesville home of Dotcom.
"Ground units, Gates are open," someone says into the radio.
Dotcom's pregnant wife their three children, some guests and about a dozen staff were also there.
All is quiet below.
Within seconds four armed members of the special tactics group ran towards the main door.
The helicopter immediately took off. The main justification for using it at all was that Dotcom's security staff could have stopped police vehicles at the gates. But as the chopper flew out, ground forces were already arriving just seconds behind.'"
On Bernie Madoff.
But who really robbed people for tens of millions?
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
I mean, such a violent guy.... he's like a terrorist. His children could have been at the windows with their ak-47s.
I'M A CYBERLOCKER IN NZ
SON OF A BITCH AMERICAN
AMERICAN IS PIG
DO YOU WANT A HAMBURGER?
DO YOU WANT A PIZZA?
AMERICAN IS PIG DISGUSTING
GEORGE WALKER BUSH IS A MURDERER
FUCKING U.S.A
If it would not have been to capture an armed and dangerous mafia boss..
Oh, wait...
I'm not a complete idiot... Some parts are missing.
...to stage a raid on a high-profile target like this...
First, shock-and-awe factor, in the real terms of cowing the target of the raid and ancillary subjects so that they don't do something dangerous to the authorities, like grab weapons. This can be especially important for security staff that might not be wired quite the same as everyone else.
Second, disruption of other elements of critical thinking. If there are things to be destroyed, from the perspective of the target of the raid, this might disrupt that plan.
Third, and in my opinion, most likely, to make a show of force for others. My guess is that this raid didn't require air support, a number of practiced officers could have detained or arrested people on the ground, even security, quickly enough, if enough people were involved in the raid in the first place. It is possible that this was more cost effective in not requiring as many officers to breach and secure, but helicopters aren't cheap either.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Firstly, the NZ Police for being such a nice lapdog. Pretty funny when NZ stands up over something as silly as a nuclear free zone, but then does this.
Secondly, this is the time of when the government needs to smack the government, HARD, and award Kim damages. Nothing else is really acceptable.
If you ignore ACs because they are anonymous - you're an idiot.
Is it me or that was the type of raid that could/might have been used to capture Osama Bin Laden ?
Wer war der Thor, wer Weiser, Bettler oder Kaiser? Ob Arm, ob Reich, im Tode gleich
And almost immediately Dropbox made it harder to share my family photos to extended friends and family (to new users).
As a New Zealander, I'm frankly outraged that the US has this kind of influence down here. It's about to get a LOT worse as the Trans-Pacific Partnership gets finished off and pushed through... Most people won't have even heard of it until the deal is done. Dodgy, dodgy secret deals with US corporations, and my country stands to gain absolutely nothing but the unjust legislative offspring off the MAFIAA.
This post was made in complete sincere seriousity; as such any attempts to derive humour are doomed to instant failure.
This whole thing is just a huge dog & pony show by Hollywood and the FBI. Its the exact same tactics they use when they catch someone downloading illegal content.
Early on, they made a huge "example" out of the first offenders. Huge fines, drag them into court, media everywhere, blah blah blah. Now, the majority of the cases settle for a few thousand bucks and everyone moves on.
Well, this is their first hosting provider that they (HollywoodFBI) have gone after, and they want to put on a big show so that everyone else knows they mean business. They'll bring in helicopters & troops & go after your kids and pregnant wife if you don't play by their rules.
No man is an island, But if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie them together, they make a pretty good raft.
So a criminal who became extremely rich from shady filesharing + other operations was arrested in such a way as to prevent him from destroying evidence. What is your point here, apart from brown-nosing some guy you have a mancrush on?
Megavideo was a nice thing to have, as was Megaupload. But, just as I don't give a fuck about publishers whining that their stuff has been copied without authorisation, I don't give a fuck about this larger-than-life playboy losing the gains he didn't deserve to make. Pirate as much as you want, but profit from piracy and you've lost all the moral high ground.
The "pregnant wife" stuff is particularly bullshit. Unless she was being imprisoned in the house, she knew what was giving her the luxuries she enjoyed.
Kiwis are bored and feel left out, especially the NZ media which desperately craves big time American-style action and excitement.
So, everyone who does anything online is a 1337 h4x0r genius ubercrim preparing to hold the world to a Bond villain-like ransom.
Every 12-year-old kid of Asian descent who gets picked up shoplifting sweets is a Triad boss.
Anyone who breaks any law is a "cunning and daring" master criminal, which is why the NZ police haven't yet captured them/which is why the NZ police are so amazing for capturing them.
The NZ government, like some 14-year-old emo kid, is desperate to be noticed by big, powerful grown-up governments, and so will comply with any demands if it means an opportunity to be seen with somebody who may have been on the cover of Time magazine.
It's all simply the inevitable consequence of living in a tiny country at the bottom of the world, forgotten by everyone else.
If it would look stupid as a 3D shooter, then you've probably used too much.
Unless of course 'disarming unarmed citizens' and 'avoiding pregnant wife' suddenly became genre staples.
Certainly not anybody posting here. Maybe they wanted to make sure they got somebody in there before he could destroy any evidence. Maybe they thought he might flee in his own chopper. Maybe they just thought it would be more fun that way.
But worse guys have got off so I say, let him go with a warning and fine !! 500 million american should cover the loss of all the big artits !! We don't care about no stinkin small artits !! Fake artits, neither !! Gotta be real to get your share of wht DotKing stole !! And it only is a start !!
We can fake outrage over poor innocent Kim Dotcom. We can compare him to more egregious criminals (Madoff). We can white about excessive police force. But the reality is, he was hosting stolen content. His entire business model was built around hosting stolen content. You may not like our laws, but they are the law. If you want them changed, do something about it. The fact is that the government, created by the people, took action to defend the law. I don't care if you are democrat, republican, libertarian or other, if you dislike it, go become active in your local politics, start making a difference (and that doesn't mean occupying a random street corner). We need your outrage focused on fixing our government, not complaining about it from the sidelines.
We can fake outrage over poor innocent Kim Dotcom. We can compare him to more egregious criminals (Madoff). We can white about excessive police force. But the reality is, he was hosting stolen content. His entire business model was built around hosting stolen content. You may not like our laws, but they are the law. If you want them changed, do something about it. The fact is that the government, created by the people, took action to defend the law. I don't care if you are democrat, republican, libertarian or other, if you dislike it, go become active in your local politics, start making a difference (and that doesn't mean occupying a random street corner). We need your outrage focused on fixing our government, not complaining about it from the sidelines. (reposted because slashdot was being odd and not keeping my login right when I went to post, when used from chrome, but okay in firefox)
This is like religion in the 1600's and earlier controlling the government to take out those who didn't play by their rules. We are better off with the separation of church and state and will be better off with a massive reduction in the breadth and depth of copyright/patent rules. I agree that it is good that if someone writes a book that the publishing industry can't just rip them off. But I disagree that the writer of Happy Birthday is still able to control who sings his song all these years later. Even the same with the Beatles. By this point people should be at least able to rework them into something modern and potentially more interesting. I suspect that much of the lack of variety in pop music is that they don't dare do something interesting that might be similar to something done
Copyright rules at this point would be like a guy who you hired 50 years ago to paint one of your apartments is somehow able to demand 30% of the rent from that unit. He may have done a really really nice job but when you look at copyright as where the public good lay it would be better for all if these things came available way faster. Also the restrictions should be more relaxed. A song is the majority of a composition. Any copyright on a few riffs should be done in a year or two.
The same with a story. The whole composition might have a decade or two of protection but the characters and storyline should lose out in a few years. It is definitely time for new blood in the Star Wars series but even Harry Potter characters should be fair game soon if JK can't be bothered with continuing their journey.
That looks like a computer animation. Do you expect me to believe that?
Can't believe I just spent 10 mins reading this guy's wikipedia entry yet this is the most important piece:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/jun/28/kim-dotcom-judge-raid-illegal
It's clear that the FBI acting on behalf of the MPAA/RIAA had an overzealous NZ police force keen to impress.
The really interesting item for me was how UMG submitted an invalid takedown notice on a video on Youtube on baseless grounds. I'm surprised that some of the artists didn 't sue the record company.
Wearing pants should always be optional.
I think I went to New Zealand once, it's right beside Florida at the edge of the World..... right?
New Zealand is like Australia's Canada.
Oh, so Australia has 51 states too? Cool.
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
State violence at its finest. When collecting evidence (computers, paperwork) and not disarming violent criminals, all you need is some regular plods and some pencil pushers. Disgusting.
The whole Whitehouse staff was watching the Dotcom raid on closed circuit TV. The servers, once shot to death, were flown to an aircraft carrier where an IT specialist gave an eloquant Pastafarian ritual. The servers were then tied to the largest non-floating object they could find (an F16) and dumped into the Pacific Ocean. The Orcs (from Weta Digital) were caught by suprise and failed to react on time to save their masters.
Unlike previous fiascos in Iran and Pakistan, the brilliant minds behind this daring raid didn't lose a bunch of helicopters (not even a secret helicopter). MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!
Dear Pirate Bay,
I was just visiting your web site (http://thepiratebay.se) and noticed you had a video of police storming a house to stop someone from copyright infringement. When I watched the video, I thought it was a bit over the top. Then less than a minute later, I discovered this video. Boy, how wrong was I...
You may want to change your video with the one above.
As others have said ... why were there no arrests from the major fraud caused by Wallstreet, even though billions were stolen? The system is rigged and people have had a gut full. We have a lot of respect for your stand against the system.
Slashdot AC ...)
(Posted Anonymously for fear of repercussion from the police state that is in place
long term survival they're g0ne Mac 7hey started to
Heh. Yeah, if there's one group that stands their ground against entities with deep pockets, it's the Republicans.
Corzine. Hundreds of millions in 'segregated' funds. Currently enjoying new multi-million dollar offices on Wall St.
It helps to be a friend of the President of the United States and a leading member of the Democratic party.
“Jon Corzine one of the best colleagues I had in the Senate and one of the best partners I have in the White House.”
President Barack Obama, Oct 21, 2009.
I have seen a lot of upset posts by people that don't like US leadership over this issue. Furthermore others have mentioned that the two top individuals most likely to get elected in November are both unlikely to take this issue in a different direction. What I have not seen are suggested alternate candidate names that upset US citizens can or should vote for. I did see the name Dennis Kucinich mentioned though I don't believe he will be on the ballot in most states, if any. Does anyone else have some suggestions we can all get behind and vote for?
There is or can be built a machine that can simulate any physical object. -Church-Turing principle
Helicopters? What for? It's New Zealand not Afghanistan, they could just drive there...
Just wanted to point this out to the 2-3 non-americans who might not already know, but in the USA 'lightly armed', IE with a service handgun, is pretty much the default for Law Enforcement personnel.
You see an officer, he's going to have a handgun unless there's something special going on. 'Special' being it's somehow specifically dangerous to be wearing one(sometimes happens during crowd control duty), or 'special' in that an elevated danger situation is going on, where they'd be breaking out the shotguns/rifles and heavier body armor.
I don't read AC A human right
The **AA could simply have sued MegaUpload for not taking sufficient action against copyright infringement. I don't see why the NZ police had to go after the founder directly, other than to intimidate him on behalf of US corporations.
Kim Dotcom was on the way to launch Megabox which would flip the ratio of money the artists get versus what is held on to by the labels. Color my cynical but this upcoming service seems to be the only major difference between Mega Upload and the other file storage services. He claims to be planning on still going through with the launch. If so it will cut the labels out of the loop by allowing artists to sell more or less directly to the public. Good riddance I say.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Voting for Obama means voting to be raped up the ass.
Voting for Romney means voting to be raped up the ass with a sandpaper covered telephone pole while having to pay your raper.
Welcome to American democracy. Your choice between bad and really goddamn awful fucking bad.
Obama bows to his friends in business.
Romney IS business.
Obama at least has to pretend to listen to the voter, Romney openly states that business is not just his first priority but his ONLY priority.
When you are a lamb let to be slaughtered, pick the butcher who least enjoys torturing small furry creatures. That is what I do.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Overblown would be the understatement of the year. Next they'll be making a documentary of the raid, interviewing the special ops warriors who took part and giving them presidential medals for their heroic participation. I mean, if Hollywood if the beneficiary, then Hollywood can promote the documentary ...
A few days ago I stumbled upon this video: http://vimeo.com/45864549
At first I thought it was a little over the top but somewhat plausible, after watching this video today I am starting to become a little afraid of them on a more personal level. What is going to happen when the USA loses it's power in the upcoming decades? I don't dislike the citizens of this once (some 40+ odd years ago) great country, but today I have a firm idea in my head that the US is the terrorist of the world.
This isn't to say I would go off and strap a bomb to myself, rather that I will start to exert my influence on those around me to side with my views and beliefs. A peaceful and intellectual push akin to one more little ripple in the pond that considers the USA the enemy of freedom. Hopefully the waves grow with power over the coming years but with as peaceful a resolution as possible.
Bernie's high crime was robbing rich people, instead of poor ones. That is the only reason he is in prison.
(30)
People must be free to start whatever business they wish without asking any governments for permissions.
nobody required your church to obtain a license to form, and it is having no difficulties keeping high profitability in the us. being as all that a business owner wants is to make money, they should just follow your example and start a religion.
No one on Wall Street goes to prison, drnb. Obama didn't make that happen. Wall Street did. They run the country. Don't like it? So vote Republican. Oh, wait...
We had a chance to stop this takeover back in the eighties and nineties. We needed to provide taxpayer money to fund elections, remove all contributions WHATSOEVER, and restrict candidates to single points of communications. Running for office should require three staffers and a camera, not a billion dollars for media buys.
But now, candidates must, truly must, do what money tells them to do, not because they want to get rich, but because they know that if they buck Wall Street, a billion dollars will rain down in opposition to them and kick them out of office. This is the death of democracy you're seeing, not "Obama", who somehow you've noticed has just invented kowtowing to Wall Street. Bush and Reagan utterly caved and let them take over, for Godzakes. This isn't about Democrats, it's about money and how our collective distaste for funding elections by taxes has let infinite amounts of money shut down democracy here, and soon around the world. We did this to ourselves with our own ideology and distaste for politicians and the political process. Democracy has never been popular with Americans. They prefer wealthy landlords, more or less, as long as they are entertained.