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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.
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/
Which was precisely the point of the drill, wasn't it? Legalities matter little to those in power: results do.
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
Whoa Whoa WHOA!
That's not the kind apology the PM was offering. It was more a "sorry about your luck" kind of apology, not the "this is broken and needs to be fixed" variety.
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/
That term "Enemy Of The State" gives me the creeps.. I'm old enough to remember clearly the old USSR and all of the behavior that went on in that country during that time. That term, enemy of the state, was used a LOT back then.. When I hear *my* country using it, I become very upset. Of course, the US government could care less what one 62 year old Vietnam vet thinks.. Clearly it seems the USA is well on its way down the road to being a replay of the old USSR, without the Russian language..
THANK YOU, Edward Snowden!! Americans owe you a debt of gratitude (whether they know it or not..)