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Dotcom Drags NZ Spook Agency Into Court
New submitter d18c7db writes "Internet tycoon Kim Dotcom has won another court victory, today given the right to drag the secretive GCSB into the spotlight of a courtroom. Forcing the GCSB to be tied to the court action opens it up to court ordered discovery — meaning Dotcom's lawyers can go fishing for documents as they continue to fight extradition to the U.S. to face copyright charges. But the GCSB claimed any disclosure of what [was] intercepted would prejudice New Zealand's national security interests 'as it will tend to reveal intelligence gathering and sharing methods.' Dotcom and his fellow Mega Upload accused asked Chief High Court Judge Helen Winkelmann for the right to have the GCSB become part of the proceedings, amend their statement of claim, and for additional discovery. In a judgment issued today she gave that permission."
Poor widdle government agency lost its sovereign immunity when it started working for the wrong sovereign.
This is the point where the charges get dropped.
It's unfortunate that an utter slimeball like Dotcom is the one to drag these agencies and policies out into the sunshine.
What methods would it reveal? Surly they follow the law and have nothing to hide?
If the GCSB have nothing to hide, they have nothing to fear, right?
If they were using standard and allowed intelligence methods against this civilian, they have nothing to hide, and nothing to fear.
If however, they were breaking laws, then there may be other consequences too.
The defense only claims that it cannot be touched. Somehow, I think this is not a strong defense.
Has there always been this much Dotcom-hate on /., or is there the beginning of an astroturf campaign going on here?
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That could reveal that we illegally shared information with foreign nations!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I don't really like Kimmie either, but for the first time in his miserable life he's doing something for the greater good. Even if only to save his own sorry ass.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Possibly because that's not a crime.
To make sure all of the intelligent people are accounted for.
To stay peaceful?
The UK isn't that much bigger (probably 5-6% larger) and you don't question us having several.
I'd say an intelligence agency of some sort was probably vital to any non-trivial country (i.e. one that you've heard of). You don't have to be invading foreign countries to be able to benefit from knowing when others are planning to do that to you.
Yes, because we should put people in jail based on wether we like them or not.
. The latest ruling is another milestone in Dotcom's bid to challenge extradition to the US on copyright infringement charges.
His lawyers have already proved that GCSB's surveillance of the mogul was illegal, and search warrants for the January raid were invalid.
Are we supposed to cheer for the judge for making a reasonable ruling, or are we supposed to cheer that the judge allowed for the review of possible criminal / illegal activities by the law enforcement officers of New Zealand? Any way you look at it, it's sad that it came to this: law enforcement in NZ breaking laws (possibly under the external request / direction of others) and using force to execute searches for evidence of copyright infringement.
Arrogant douche or not, when your national spy agency is accused of giving too much information about a citizen to a foreign power so they can investigate the commercial interests of one of their own companies ... well, things might have gone a little too far.
They went outside of their legal mandate so they could go after this guy. They broke the law.
Are you defending the rights of the state to go after people by any means necessary? This is as much about the fact that law enforcement needs to follow the law as anything Dotcom did now.
I don't give a rats ass about what he did or didn't do, but I do expect governments to reign in their security apparatus and make damned sure they're following the law. In this case, they didn't, and now they don't want the evidence of that peeked into.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
I didn't have a problem with him until I read his wikipedia page. Now I have a big problem with him. I suggest you do the same. If you're basing your opinion of him on the fact that you liked downloading things from megaupload and hate the MPAA, you're missing a lot of real info.
I don't like what I heard about his personality, but it doesn't matter: If somebody is a douche or not has no bearing on whether the actions taken against him and his company are legal and befitting the alledged crime or not.
I didn't have a problem with him until I read his wikipedia page.
Complete jackasses still have a right to due process. And secret agencies that consider themselves above the law simply need to cease to exist.
Really, though, unless I missed something, his Wiki page has nothing all that damning. Some petty hacking, some (non-identity theft) carding, and a pump-and-dump on an already-dead company. Woo-hoo.
Except that he has a rare combination of tech savvy with business acumen, you'll find far, far more evil people going about their daily business of screwing the plebes in nearly every corporate boardroom in the world. Kim, at least, sounds like he just did it for kicks.
I never used Mega Video for anything, legit or infringing. I have no opinion of Kim Dotcom. But really, is Dotcom or Ochocinco really worse than "Miller" or "Johnson"? So someone in your history was a miller at some point, now all of his descendants are? Some guy's dad on your history was named John, yay! At least Dotcom and Ochocinco have real personal relevance to those gentlemen. Anyone with a stupid last name like "smith" should think about changing it to something modern. How many smithies are there in ten people, 0.2? 0.1? Retarded last name.
Is Kim Dotcom a "douche"? I don't know, I've never met him. Even if he was, though, he still doesn't deserve two government colluding and breaking laws to arrest him. I don't need a third-person written wikipedia article to determine that you, however, are a judgemental prick.
New Zealand has been the location of terrorist attacks in the past.
In the '80s a terrorist group based in France called the DGSE blew up the Greenpeace vessel Rainbow Warrior in Auckland harbour, killing one of the crew.
NZ security personal were able to capture 2 of the culprits (alain Marfard amd Dominique Prieux , but the French Governemnt made us give them back,
The "national interests" reply is getting worn more than a bit thin. The proper reposte is:
"Since national security is so important to you, you ought to take especial care not to violate any laws or commit torts. Then you won't need to worry about being before courts, or can get yourselves severed from actions."
But No. The real problem is that at least some government officals believe themselves to be above the law. The same belief as held by common criminals. These officals believe that their "mission" is more important than obeying the law. Never mind that most of them are breaking some laws to enforce other laws. The irony escapes them -- must have thick heads. And please understand, obeying the law isn't tough -- there are lots of tame judges who will give out warrents. The rogues just don't want to submit, and can get away with it. Power trip.
I wonder why large numbers of office-holders aren't charged with treason as they wilfully violate their oath of office to uphold the US Constitution. But then, we live in a praetorian culture, much worse since 2001.
The lesson to be learned is to keep investigative branches separate; do not have the same body responsible for investigations into issues of national security and investigations into trivial copyright infringement.
His asshole of a personality is going to benefit him, actually. He's got those psychopathic traits to succeed because he's willing to trample anyone who gets in his way. The fortunate thing for us is that the crummy FBI and the MPAA are the ones in his way.
Maybe the GCSB will say their methods are secret and can't be disclosed in open court, and the court will dismiss the charges against Dotcom, giving the government a way out. It's happened in the US a few times.
I get the argument that some state secrets need to be kept to prevent aiding enemies from circumventing intelligence gathering activities. However, if that privilege is invoked, then the coutrs should simply give a default judgement as if the opposing side's claims are proven by the evidence provided. In other words, keep the secrets and be quiet and lose the case, or defend against it with the requested information - possibly provided under seal and only seen by the judge and a security-cleared lawyer for both sides.
Just like the DVD Jon bullshit it's blatantly obvious that the locals were just there to serve a warrant for an investigation run elsewhere. There's nothing to keep secret apart from embarrassment that they were working for another country, which has got to have been authorised by somebody in politics that wants to pretend otherwise. So the real secret is whose arse is being covered.
Actually, I just read through most of his wikipedia page and it's a whole lot of "wow!" Dotcom is amazing. As a criminal, you simply have to admire his drive, guts and ability. Of course he's a criminal scum-bucket and deserves to be removed from society to better protect society's interests. But that said, it does not and cannot excuse misbehavior by our governments. If they expect us to respect and live by the rule of law, they should do the same. And if they are willing to break the law "to get a bad guy" then I have to wonder why we even bother with courts and due process at all. Also, who will be considered a "bad guy" tomorrow? Will we even get to know who it might be?
Without sanity, openness and accountability in government, we cannot hope to protect anyone and definitely not you.
DotCom rocks the boat and conservatives don't like that. Not for any reason. Most people don't. Rock the boat even to stop people from drowning and the very people who are drowning will complain the loudest about being saved. People want a quiet life. They REALLY don't like someone who makes them think or do anything. Not even if they agree. Oh you might THINK you are left or right wing but as soon as someone starts hinting you actually do something about it, you start to resent that person. It happens to all of us to a greater or lesser degree. We LOVE pragmatist and hate idealist where pragmatist stands for: what you are doing goes against everything you believe but hey, it is the easy way out so as long as you don't feel 100% happy about doing wrong, it is okay to do wrong. An idealist is an extremist who dares to suggest that if you believe something to be wrong maybe you should consider doing just the tiniest bit less of it. RADICAL EXTREMISTS!
Julian Assange, Kim DotCom, Richard Stallman, they are all hated because they don't just say on accasion we do wrong but actually expect us to change, claim that if we keep doing X there are consequences! Linus Torvald is loved because he has no opinion and just lets us do what ever we were doing.
We love environmentalists just as long as we don't have to anything about, love opensource just as long as we can keep paying companies to lock us into walled gardens and Kim DotCom reminds us to much that filesharing is not just about copying a file from your friend but a huge economic battle between two ways we can run our economy in the future. Thinking about the effects of this battle going either way would do us good but thinking hurts and the Simpsons are on, a show that for a quarter of a century hasn't changed ANYTHING. We like that. It is safe.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
but before making idealistic declarations actually consider how it would be achieved and how little benefit it would be.
You mean, consider what it would mean if the CIA hadn't turned the entire Middle East against us by selling arms to both sides just for shits and giggles? If they hadn't run the world drug trade through the 80s, leaving all of Central America and most of Mexico under the control of the drug cartels? If they hadn't made the whole world hate us by running secret torture prisons through the 2000s (and probably still do it today)? If we didn't have to undergo irradiation by an unlicensed medical imaging device to board a plane just because the DHS think silly little things like auditable 3rd party calibration would give away too many of their secrets? If we actually had the right to sue AT&T et al (never mind the actual criminals in the government) for colluding with the NSA so they could illegally watch every bit we send or receive domestically?
Imagine if agencies like the GCSB had to actually obey the law? How, then, would they secretly get scum like Kim Dotcom, who poses a threat to no one except Hollywood, off for a bit o' the ol' waterboarding? If the KGB (yeah, sure they don't exist anymore) couldn't just go around assassinating political rivals with conspicuous, almost flamboyantly exotic poisons (then again, I suppose they do that more-or-less openly and with permission from their government, so, perhaps not the best example)?
Yeah... How little that would achieve. Why, Americans might feel safe traveling places more exotic than Western Europe and Australia, and where would that leave us? Why, practically anarchy, I say!
The Short Version: President of France rang up Prime Minister of New Zealand and said (roughly) "Let my two spies go or you'll never sell another pound of butter in Europe again"
NZ was broke and economics always wins over principles.
NZ was hoping that at least one other country would support them over the issue. Even the UK wasn't going to help prevent France hurting NZ trade to Europe. So the best NZ could hope for was a token compensation payment from France and handing the spies back.
Extra galling when tens of thousands of NZers died in two world wars defending France and the UK.