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.'"

Comments

A confederacy of douchebags.

[serviscope_minor]

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.

Re:A confederacy of douchebags.

[dbIII]

That's what happens when due process is ignored. Governments just come across as bullies when they ignore their own rules.

Re:A confederacy of douchebags.

[serviscope_minor]

The fact that this is getting sorted out is really unfortunate.

Really? I would say that the rule of law shouldn't be suspended simply because the accused is a massive (to quote an AC from a previous thread) chucklefuck.

Really, it's best for everyone if he wins this, because despite being a prat he was subject to a massive abuse of the law from several governments simultaneously. It's far more important that the rule of law is maintained than one dickhead gets away with being a dickhead.

Re:A confederacy of douchebags.

[poetmatt]

it's not as incredible as a complete shitpost for a first post that has no relation to the situation and instead is an ad hominem comment about Kim Doctom. Whether he has an ego or not, whether he's douchey or not, who *cares*?

the problem is the US government is breaking the law just to try to prosecute file sharers, and no government in the world (including the US's own caselaw) really support this concept.

Re:A confederacy of douchebags.

[Anonymous Coward]

In this level of douche vs douche, I automatically side with absolutely nobody

One douche is a threat to no one. Another douche is a threat to you, me, and pretty much anyone in the world. (Wow, how often do you get to say something that grandiose and sweeping without it being an exaggeration?!)

Root for the first douche, this time. It's ok for him to lose, but it really is important that the second douche lose much worse, publicly and with the most exposure and embarrassment possible. The second douche needs to know that all societies and laws hold them in utter and complete contempt. (The first douche, otoh, already knows that.) And any politician who ever hopes to be elected in the US, needs to know that "fire those guys" absolutely must become a part of his platform. If someone can run for next President or next term of Congress without publicly stating they intend to clean house at the DoJ, then we aren't making enough noise.

Re:A confederacy of douchebags.

[fustakrakich]

Correction, rules are for poor people...

Goodness me, apparently NZ justice is real

[Anonymous Coward]

An overzealous police force being made to face the consequences of its own misconduct?

What a country!

Re:Goodness me, apparently NZ justice is real

[SilentStaid]

If by consequences you mean that no one is being taken to task for this massive invasion of privacy even though it doesn't take a legal eye to see that the mad grab of Kim's assets was retarded. They basically were able to take his stuff for months and their penalty was to... give copies of it back? Awesome.

You do realize, that they already sent copies of the hard drives across the ocean to the States. And no matter what that NZ judge says... Kim is already guilty according to our most important citizens - business. This is data they had no right (literally) to take. He's a dick - but they're worse.

Re:Goodness me, apparently NZ justice is real

[swb]

Failure to abide by the decision may influence the court's decision to extradite him.

Re:Cost

[CanHasDIY]

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.

Re:kim dotcom

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Meanwhile, in America

[EmagGeek]

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.

Re:Meanwhile, in America

[Anonymous Coward]

If the FBI could get him to the US, they'd put him in a room with a single agent with no camera or recording device. He'd decide to sign a confession, but just before he did he'd try to attack the agent and he'd have to be shot dead with an entire magazine's worth of bullets.

Re:A fair conclusion

[CanHasDIY]

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..

That's what they get for using American-style strongarm tactics, without an American-style kangaroo court system to back them up.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:kim dotcom

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:kim dotcom

[tqk]

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?

Amateur douchebags.

[drainbramage]

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.

Re:kim dotcom

[Xest]

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?