Slashdot Mirror
Dotcom Wins Right To Sue NZ Government
An anonymous reader writes "A Court of Appeal judgement released today has ruled in favor of Kim Dotcom and will let him sue the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) alongside New Zealand Police. During the High Court case, it emerged that the GCSB had been illegally spying on Dotcom prior to the raid on his Coatesville mansion, on behalf of the FBI, who now wants the Megaupload millionaire extradited to face trial in the US over copyright infringements."
When did we start to allow police forces in Western countries start to behave like militias?
How Cops Became Soldiers: An Interview with Police Militarization Expert Radley Balko. There ya go.
DHS just dropped ~$100 million on a bunch of APCs,
Department of Health and Safety bought some UPSes?
school Districts are buying assault weapons for their on-campus police forces
You've got a fucked up country if you have an on-campus police force
The bottom line is: the police have realized that they can practically guarantee they get to go home at the end of the day if they treat every interaction like a military engagement and utilize overwhelming force to suppress their enemy. The fact that innocent people will get murdered in their zeal of officer-safety-at-all-costs doesn't even enter their thought process.
Does it really?
There have been 22 police officers killed in the line of duty in the UK since 2000 Half of those were traffic collisions (accidents or delibete), so I'm not sure how a SWAT team would solve that. That's a 1 in 90,000 chance of dying in the line of duty each year.
New Zealand has 7 deaths (half accidental) since 2000 (1 in 19000)
Canada had 5 deaths in 2012, 4 of which were vehicle related (1 in 13000)
The U.S has had 19 deaths SO FAR THIS YEAR. Last year was about 130, out of 794,000 officers (1 in 6000)
The U.S. is an anomaly, don't lump the western world into your dysfunctional society.