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Kim Dotcom Wins Case Against NZ Police To Get Seized Material Back
New submitter Mistakill writes "It seems the case against Kim Dotcom for the NZ Police isn't going well, with Kim Dotcom scoring another victory in his legal battles. Police have been told they must search everything they seized from Dotcom and hand back what is not relevant to the U.S. extradition claims. Justice Helen Winkelmann told police their complaints about the cost and time of the exercise were effectively their own fault for indiscriminately seizing material in the first place. She wrote, 'The warrants could not authorize the permanent seizure of hard drives and digital materials against the possibility that they might contain relevant material, with no obligation to check them for relevance. They could not authorize the shipping offshore of those hard drives with no check to see if they contained relevant material. Nor could they authorize keeping the plaintiffs out of their own information, including information irrelevant to the offenses.'"
Kim Dotcom really comes across as an amazing douche.
The thing is that in this everyone else in this whole saga is SO douchey that he actually manages to come across as a sympathetic character.
It's really quite incredible if you think about it.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
An overzealous police force being made to face the consequences of its own misconduct?
What a country!
If they do that, the judge will *know* they are lying, and will hit them even harder. There were *plenty* of perfectly legitimate files on those servers. People have tried suing to get access to their files. All of that is on the record.
Granted, considering the volume of information would be problematic to sift through, but is it fair to say
"since there's so much, let's just seize the lot, including every person's legitimate files stored there and keep them to ourselves"?
Like that wouldn't backfire..
They also were ordered to give Kim a copy of everything that they are keeping.
NZ Electronics Enthusiasts: Check out my Trade Me Listings
I don't think that would fly since, as you quoted, the judge pointed out that the expenses were their own damn fault.
Now, if the citizens of NZ decided to sue their government for wasting so many resources on a personal vendetta against a single individual... THAT I can see making it to court.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Its the rights of assholes and attention whores you have to stand up for. Once those are violated, you get a precedent. Don't let it happen.
Can we have a month hiatus on Kim Dotcom stories? Please??
Never mind, make it a permanent hiatus. He's now just a grandstanding figure and I think he is beyond the "news for nerds" scope that /. was supposed to have.
Seconded. Then we can focus more on John McAfee.
Innocent motorists are routinely relieved of their cash and belongings by police, without ever being charged with a crime, and with no recourse to recover their stolen property.
They should just extradite him to the US along with all of his seized property, and then the US government can just keep it forever under its insane civil forfeiture laws.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
It's less about Kim and more about the elements that come into play in a seizure of tech/files. If Slashdot uses any cloud services or other tech that accesses/points to files then this is relevant to our issues. This also deals with international laws and how they are enforced between jurisdictions. Not many people like Larry Flynt but there is value in seeing how his story played out, the same goes for Kim.
Beware of those who profit off the docile and persecute the unbelievers.
Kim Dotcom sold me a 3D printed Raspberry Pi for 20 Bitcoins you insensitive clod!
I used it to program an Arduino based robot that will deliver GMO wheat to Julian Assange.
Do we really need any more info about this attention whore?
Is he the attention whore, or are the authorities? It seems to me he's just defending himself, while the Keystone Cops are going out of their way to maximize any and all bad press that can possibly be brought against them. Whether we know all the intricasies in the law is one thing, but shouldn't the cops have at least some competence in wielding it? They've apparently forgotten entire swaths of related concepts such as warrant procedure, jurisdictions, evidence handling, ... How do they retain their jobs with this level of performance?
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
You want to see how it is really done check out washington d.c.
Douchery with the almost complete complicity and full support of the press.
You want to do this kind of stuff, you need the press.
No brain, no pain.
Oh do fuck off.
This is an important case for the boundaries of where the line between legitimate hosting and illegal file sharing is drawn.
It's about as important and relevant as any news you can get on Slashdot because the result of it has real repercussions - either the internet is safe from the authorities arbitrarily shutting down hosting companies because they feel like it, or the authorities win another battle to the point where state/law enforcement based censorship slips even further towards companies like Google also being guilty of supporting infringement to a legally culpable degree.
Can we have a permanent hiatus on you commenting instead?
Yes, there seems to be two facets to the ruling:
1) That they hand back anything irrelevant to the case and do not keep a copy themselves.
2) That they hand a copy of everything that is deemed relevant.
So Kim will get access to all the data once more and the police will lose access to all data and hardware that isn't directly relevant to the case itself.
Kim seems to be (or have been) quite cozy with a few of NZ' officials.
I admit to not knowing much about NZ politics, but if it's anything like what we have here in the States, friend of politician A == enemy of politician B.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
It's also important for the boundaries of where the line between legal and illegal action by the authorities is drawn. Our police forces all too often think the law doesn't apply to them. And even in this case, who in the police have any risk of seeing jail time for the many illegal actions we have seen. It makes me sick to see such blatant disregard for the law and I have no respect for these people or the laws they try to enforce.
-- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
In the U.S., when the Feds take your stuff, they won't give you squat, even if they have nothing on you. They'll keep your computers for years, then finally return your stuff if they don't have a case. They won't let you get copies of your data, either.
With your computer gone for so long, you will have had to bought new ones, and the old one will be obsolete by the time you get them back.
The rule really ought to be that they take your computer, mirror the hard drives, then give it back unless they have immediate proof of wrongdoing on the drive. Seriously, there's no excuse for taking your stuff for years.
"Screw Sun, cross-platform will never work. Let's move on and steal the Java language." - Visual J++ Product Manager
Now, if the citizens of NZ decided to sue their government for wasting so many resources on a personal vendetta against a single individual... THAT I can see making it to court.
Never going to happen.
NZers have a "she'll be right" attitude to everything.
No matter how shocking or horrifying the actions of their government, Kiwis just sit back and say "oh well, never mind" and then ask "what's for dinner, where's my beer?"
The government(s) of this country have forgotten that that their job is to *represent* the citizens, not rule over them like some despot dictator.
In just the past year or three we've had a raft of instances where the courts have ruled that the government or its agencies (such as the police or GCSB) have acted illegally/unlawfully.
In the case of Kim Dotcom, they raided the man's house, held him and his family at gunpoint then took away virtually everything he owned. The courts said "that was unlawful".
Now if *you* or *I* did such a thing it would be called armed robbery and we'd be playing "find the soap" with Bubba in the big house by now -- but when the government or its agencies do it -- they simply sweep the whole damned thing under the carpet and citizens are supposed to accept it.
We've also had armed police in black riot gear invade a small town, hold its people at gunpoint and carry out searches, interrogations and detainments which the courts have again ruled to be "unlawful". And yet again, nobody is held to account for this. Nobody is censured. Nobody is fined imprisoned or even loses their job.
The GCSB (our version of the NSA) was found to have unlawfully spied on over 80 NZ citizens or residents (including Kim Dotcom) in recent years, despite laws that prohibit such activities. The government's excuse was that people were apparently building weapons of mass destruction here and needed to be monitored. Really??? Nobody censured, nobody fined, nobody imprisoned for these breaches of the law.
In the latest fiasco, the courts have ruled that government moves to unilaterally change the way that accused citizens are entitled to legal aid (a public defender) is also illegal. So what was the government's response? "Too bad -- we're sticking with those changes anyway."
And they call this a free democracy?
Surely no government should be above the law and all must answer to the courts for their actions.
You may think that all the above is a horrible crime against the people -- but ultimately, the biggest crime of all is that the people of this country just sit back and take it. Aside from a few "radicals", nobody seems concerned that the government(s) of the day hold themselves and their agencies to be above the laws that have been created to control them. Unbelievable!