Slashdot Mirror
NZ Broke the Law Spying On Kim Dotcom, PM Apologizes
Mad Hamster writes "In the latest installment of the megaupload saga, an official study has determined that New Zealand's Government Communications and Security Bureau broke NZ law by spying on Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom. NZ Prime Minister John Key has apologised to Dotcom and all New Zealanders for this, saying they were entitled to be protected by the law but it had failed them. Link is to writeup in The Guardian."
Lots of outlets are reporting this, based on TorrentFreak's report.
Don't do wrong, especially to bad people, since in the latter case you have to apologize to bad people, and it sucks.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
A politician and government owning their mistake? Color me impressed.
Awesome. Thanks.
Now, how about handing out some punishments to the people responsible, so they don't try this sort of bullshit again?
"My God...it's full of trolls!"
Come back when you've prosecuted those guilty of breaking the law during this process, all the way up to your own staff. I'd also say that he should be compensated for losses, but it would be paid with tax payer money, and ultimately it's not the tax payers who threw him to the wolves.
FWIW, Kim Dotcom is a scheister with a history of extremely shady business dealings, but even criminals deserve justice.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
Kudos and well done John Key you have earned my respect, New Zealand sounds like a awesome place.
Here in America we are still waiting for Obama to apologize for murdering American citizens, and putting us in concentration camps.
---- GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
This report shows that officials broke the law. People that break the law should be investigated, if they did it willfully or worse, for profit, then they should go to jail.
Fairly sure that won't happen.
Hope Kim DotCom has the balls to sue the hell out of the New Zealand government, basically they are now responsible for disrupting his business and the service to millions of users with no cause. No point in sueing the US, Americans have no honor but if the New Zealand government has to cough up several hundred millions, other governments might grow a backbone. Human rights matter little but no politician like to be held accountable for such a visible waste of tax payers money. HAHA, yeah, I know.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Talk is cheap. Sending the people who actually broke the law to jail and paying Kim for lost revenue would be a step in the right direction. Even then, his company has been irreparably damaged by these actions.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Now the PM needs to follow up by tasking their equivalent of the US Attorney General to investigate and prosecute. If that equivalent is implicated, the PM needs to appoint a special prosecutor to carry out the investigation and file charges where appropriate. As a conservative American, I gladly include our representatives to New Zealand in that mix if legally possible and they conspired to break the laws (meaning were briefed and involved in the strategy for taking down Dotcom). If the roles were reversed, I'd want to see New Zealand's people taken away in dark SUVs by G-Men on charge of violating civil liberties under color of authority (a felony in the US).
This business is amazingly stupid on the part of the US and New Zealand governments. MegaUpload really was a criminal enterprise: their entire business model was facilitated on fake takedowns, incentives for copyright violations, and other games. That it is gone is good riddance.
But they didn't need to create a massive violation of the law like this and create a huge circus about it: They had enough evidence to get plenty of legal wiretaps. They didn't need to come in with the SWAT team. If they played it by the book, Mr Dotcom would probably already have been extradited to the US.
But instead it is horribly misplayed, and as a result there is a non-trivial chance that Dotcom will slip free with his millions intact.
This is why law enforcement needs to actually follow the law.
Test your net with Netalyzr
"Megaupload's Kim Dotcom, a willfully tacky fat guy with a baby face and a vanity license plate that says "guilty," has styled himself as a kind of comic villain, a composite of everything people love to hate. He effectively serves as empire's face of piracy: an overweight nouveau-riche wannabe hacker who finally gets his comeuppance through the macho justice of Uncle Sam. It's so easy to hate Kim Dotcom that you almost forget that the US convinced the New Zealand government to send in an assault brigade, bereft of a valid warrant but outfitted with automatic weapons and helicopters, to arrest a Finnish citizen at the demand of Hollywood studios. If Kim Dotcom didn't exist, the FBI, with the help of the MPAA, would have invented him."
http://jacobinmag.com/2012/08/gimme-the-loot/
Well, The next time I break the law, I will issue a sincere apology. This apparently makes everything all right and obviates the need for punishment, prosecution, or any such things. Or, are politicians simply a different class of people with different rules and consequences than the rest of us? Orwell said: All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others. Oh yeah.
Kim Dotcom is unlikely to even have to go to court with this many screw ups, let alone do any time.
And he already has backing for a new megaupload, this time better setup to not be so easily taken down. And you got to be really stupid as a foreign prosecutor to go after this guy a second time when the first time was such a disaster.
Kim Dotcom is back, with more resources, more experience and now untouchable.
I doubt this is what the content mafia wanted.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
So if you break the law in NZ, all you need to do is apologize?
"I will not apologize for my palmed struggle against moisturizer."
FTFY
So, since the Government Communications and Security Bureau broke the law, are they going to go in with a swat team, take all of their computers, and shut them down for six months?
~Loyal
I aim to misbehave.