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Dotcom Alleges Megaupload Raid Was Part of Deal To Film The Hobbit
c0lo writes "Kim Dotcom alleges, in an 20 min interview with the Australian public television, that Megaupload was offered up by the New Zealand's PM 'on a silver platter' as part of negotiations with Warner Brothers executives for shooting The Hobbit in New Zealand. He promises that he'll substantiate the claims in court. He also says that the extradition case the U.S. government is weak and the reason behind the latest delay in extradition hearing (postponed from August this year to March next year) is an attempt to bleed Dotcom dry of his money. Also interesting, Dotcom says that the latest debacle of the massive scale online online surveillance by U.S. spy agencies has triggered an 'explosion' of interest in mega.co.nz, the 'cloud storage' site with user generated encryption."
Civil rights, Hollywood movie. Most people chose the latter.
Kim Dotcom's main business seems to be publicity for Kim Dotcom, with the evidence postponed to a future date. On the other hand, somehow, in some way I can't quite put my finger on, this sort of thing is just that little bit more believable this week. Not sure why.
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Megaupload was offered up by the New Zealand's PM 'on a silver platter' as part of negotiations with Warner Brothers executives for shooting The Hobbit in New Zealand.
seems plausible since there are few jobs in New Zealand, and KDC seemed like a rather small egg to break for the omelette. Del Toro even said in parting words the film was "economically and politically" complicated. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hobbit_(film_series)#Del_Toro.27s_departure
the reason behind the latest delay in extradition hearing (postponed from August this year to March next year) is an attempt to bleed Dotcom dry of his money.
yes. yes it is. this is a very well documented business law tactic in which you leverage your significant legal and monitary resources against a competitor or target for acquisition and simply wait until they declare bankruptcy. in many cases the resulting acquisition (should someone decide to conveniently buy up kim dot coms holdings) can even be written off ones taxes.
the latest debacle of the massive scale online online surveillance by U.S. spy agencies has triggered an 'explosion' of interest in mega.co.nz, the 'cloud storage' site with user generated encryption.
here we see Kim jumping the deliniation between government and studio, and thats appropriate for a number of reasons. although the US government is by and for the poeple it rarely listens to anything but the most powerful lobbying groups. Hollywood lobbies through a number of channels. for example, it doles out cash to the department of defense in order to secure $war_devices for its latest blockbuster, and in return enjoys closer access to government foreign policy than had it simply made a sequel to waynes world. perhaps it kills a documentary on marijuana and gets cozier with the DOJ, it doesnt matter. these side-channel efforts are a caustic means of jack-booting the US government into wasting time and resources in bullying its NATO allies into violating the soverign rights of their citizens for the sole good of one industry. its not even our largest industry, but it serves a very important role in government and society. the TV series '24' for example is conjectured to have existed solely to acclimate the american public to the idea that torture was entirely acceptable and effective in the last-minute prevention of a terrorist attack. it makes, or was supposed to have made, the entire 'guantanamo' thing go down easier.
what Kim notes of particular importance in the last quote is particularly critical to the course of american democracy as a whole. We've known for quite some time the american system has problems, but the government has always controlled the message and the people in turn have largely chosen to move on with their 3 sick days per year and sufficient paycheck. When an individual or group 'leaks' a particular piece of information publically, in a means that cant be controlled or filtered, it breeds dissent and unrest in groups it should not. to confirm american warcrimes for example in afghanistan and iraq serves to undermine the united states authority in conducting our 'freedom wars' guaranteed each 4 years. Leaking a domestic spy program serves to underscore the fact that the government understands the only means to prevent dissent and control information is to prevent 'leaks' at their source. Terrorism is the reason, but only so far as terrorism is a definition of the challenge to a governments authority or the ability to directly undermine it. I believe Kim is correct in saying the US government has an undisclosed vested interest in precluding american citizens from gaining access to an offshore, cryptographically secured resource to which they have no access.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Did you ever hear of wikileaks??? Do you know what they did to the US state dept?
They did to the US state dept what the NSA does to everyone.
"conspiracy theories"
It think the concept of "conspiracy theories" died a few years ago, right about the time when it was confirmed beyond all doubt that our government had/has a torture program, has an assassination program, has secret prisons, has a mass surveillance system on innocent citizens, is actively lying to our allies, is actively lying to us, is actively lying to congress, etc. About the only conspiracy theories that are still on the books are the ones involving Aliens & UFOs, so far.