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Supreme Court Won't Hear Kim Dotcom's Civil Forfeiture Case (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Kim Dotcom's civil forfeiture case will not be heard before the Supreme Court this term, America's highest court ruled on Monday. The civil forfeiture case was brought 18 months after 2012 American criminal charges related to alleged copyright infringement against Dotcom and his now-shuttered company, Megaupload. In the forfeiture case, prosecutors specifically outlined why the New Zealand seizure of Dotcom's assets on behalf of the American government was valid. Seized items include millions of dollars in various seized bank accounts in Hong Kong and New Zealand, the Dotcom mansion, several luxury cars, four jet skis, two 108-inch TVs, three 82-inch TVs, a $10,000 watch, and a photograph by Olaf Mueller worth over $100,000.
"We are disappointed in the denial of the cert petition -- it is a bad day for due process and international treaties," Ira Rothken, Dotcom's chief global counsel, told Ars. "Kim Dotcom has never been to the United States, is presumed innocent, and is lawfully opposing extradition under the United States-New Zealand Treaty -- yet the United States by merely labeling him as a fugitive gets a judgement to take all of his assets with no due process," Rothken said. "The New Zealand and Hong Kong courts, who have authority over the assets, will now need to weigh in on this issue and we are cautiously optimistic that they will take a dim view of the Fugitive Disentitlement Doctrine and oppose US efforts to seize such assets."
"We are disappointed in the denial of the cert petition -- it is a bad day for due process and international treaties," Ira Rothken, Dotcom's chief global counsel, told Ars. "Kim Dotcom has never been to the United States, is presumed innocent, and is lawfully opposing extradition under the United States-New Zealand Treaty -- yet the United States by merely labeling him as a fugitive gets a judgement to take all of his assets with no due process," Rothken said. "The New Zealand and Hong Kong courts, who have authority over the assets, will now need to weigh in on this issue and we are cautiously optimistic that they will take a dim view of the Fugitive Disentitlement Doctrine and oppose US efforts to seize such assets."
dont do the crime
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/forfeiture-without-due-process/2011/12/22/gIQAckn3WP_story.html?utm_term=.2bb81d9378c5
https://www.wsj.com/articles/its-still-seizure-without-proper-due-process-1453321983
Sorry, but extraterritorial theft is just that ... the US can claim all they want they suddenly own someone's property, but that's entirely bullshit.
I sincerely hope those courts tell the US to go fuck themselves.
You don't have the jurisdiction to do this shit. But, oh, wait, America are self entitled whiny cunts who think the world has to follow everything they said.
Let's see what happens if another country made a similar judgement against an America.
Your laws apply to your own country, for the rest, fuck off.
That's what this country does. Want respect for the law? Then respect it yourself. Not happening.
So much for "due process", "presumed innocent" and all that.
Of course he's guilty. His guilt is self evident. Just look at all the cool stuff he had. Look at how fat he is.
And that's the argument from envy.
....and yet we want to trust the government with managing Net Neutrality. For me, it is these examples that make net neutrality scary as designed. Do not mistake my opposition to current net neutrality as sign off that corporations like Combat/XFinity (err I mean comcast) should be free to do what they want with the internet. As designed, I'm concerned government managing it will good until some excuse comes along. It needs to be run by neutral entities. Like domain registration was at one time in the past.
I've always said English was my second language. Had Romeo and Juliet been written in C, I might have understood it.
WTF does "presumed innocent" have to do with Kim DotCrim?
He boosted a massive fortune thru illegal business and then bribed his way into our country and suddenly we are supposed to think he is a citizen and should be protected from the nasty legal process.
Somebody push him onto a plane already.
He has an important appointment in the states that he shouldn't miss.
He did those things but this isn't about kim dotcom. It is about the other innocent people who get their possessions stolen without due process.
The U.S. only applies its legal doctrine (most of the time) to its own country. For the rest of the world, they're just fucking bullies, period. They routinely violate all their international treaties. The U.S.'s signature isn't worth the paper it's written on.
The best thing the world could do right now is to let Trump build his fucking wall, build another one up north, and let americans rot in their own filth for eternity. All countries should sever all diplomatic and commercial relations with them. Isn't that what they want, after all ?
After a period of adjusment, the world could do fine without the U.S. Could the U.S. survive without the rest of the world ? Let's find out.
Sorry about this off-topic comment, but AFAIK slashdot lacks a meta-discussion area.
Is it just me, or have the # of posted stories and the # of comments really dropped off a cliff here of late?
Yes, I think he's guilty. However, we still have due process and I think this sets and perpetuates a horrible precedent.
I don't believe in karma, I just call it like I see it.
I've never once heard it mentioned on a major campaign. Nobody likes it, but when it comes time to vote the 'tough on crime' voters always seem to outnumber the civil rights voters.
Until folks start showing up at the polls and voting the Tough on Crime crowd out this is all just pissing in the wind...
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How the fuck are one country's laws valid in another? No amount of traties/conventions would make this applicable.
What sort of country would allow un-convicted suspects to be robbed by the USA? This should be settled in NZ courts for New Zealand's own benefit. Anything else will be bad for all of New Zealand.
..Civil Forfeiture is an immoral and most likely Unconstitutional act.
You can't have governments just taking your shit because they THINK you have been a bad dude. If they have proof, then prosecute and confiscate.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
It's really the only thing that makes the US government listen anymore.
I quite agree, and as horrible as civil forfeiture is that's not even the worst of it: the drone war (conducted across US administrations from US Presidents G.W. Bush, through Obama, and now Trump) kills people extrajudicially including Americans and children. Put another way: civil forfeiture typically takes people's property (including their money), the drone war typically takes people's lives. So far nobody has used the drone war as much as Pres. Obama, but there's more continuity of policy showing how (like civil forfeiture) there's an agreement across both corporate parties. The reasoning justifying the killings is almost always absent, and when pressed revealed to be horrific.
Under Obama's administration on September 30, 2011 the US killed an American named Anwar al-Awlaki said to be involved in al-Qaeda operations. There were no charges filed, no evidence offered, no trial held. Two weeks later in a separate drone strike his 16-year-old son Abdulrahman al-Awlaki was also killed. Again no charges filed, no evidence offered, no trial held. When reporters asked what Abdulrahman's crime was that justified killing him extrajudicially Robert Gibbs, Obama's press secretary, replied in a way that made it clear: the US government kills whomever it wants whenever it wants on any or no evidence while he also blamed the son for the alleged sins of his father. Lots of passers-by die in each drone strike as well; completely untargetted people who happen to live or pass within the killing zone of a missile. This is how wedding and dinner parties full of people (we don't even know their names) have died.
Obama famously made a joke of drone war at one of his press dinners where he joked about killing a boy band his daughters liked. What made that 'joke' so unfunny is precisely that when he said it he was one of the few people who could have ordered such a strike and gotten away with killing them too. I think it important in this age of replaying Pres. Trump gaffes to indicate how little he cares about the disaffected people to show how little people knew of what was going on in these drone strikes, who was being killed, and why.
Continuing the policy of unlimited extrajudicial killing Obama once feinted to be concerned about: On January 29, 2017, the Trump administration killed Anwar Al-Awlaki's 8-year-old daughter, Nawar Al-Awlaki in a drone-led Navy SEAL raid.
As other countries get killer drones, what future has the US committed its citizens to? One can only hope that other countries continue to show a restraint that the US has not shown with nuclear weapons. There's still far too much danger with nuclear weapons too, but the above are some of the reasons the world fears the US most. You won't hear many people criticizing Trump mention civil forfeiture or drone strikes because bringing this up at all runs the risk of not being uniquely anti-Trump, of pointing out the continuity of American policy that in some way hurts us all (none so much as those assassinated, of course).
Digital Citizen
I like how so many of the comments are complaining that he didn't get any due process rights. On a story about his lawyers submitting an appeal to a court that then ruled on it.
I know, it is absurd but the charges are brought against the assets and not the suspect....Insane mental gymnastics needed for this. How the supreme has allowed these laws to stand is beyond me. They should be ashamed.
As a US citizen, I'm not sure if I have ever wanted a foreign power to give the finger to our government quite so hard. Civil Forfeiture goes against everything the Founders stood for. IMHO, our first revolution started over matters far less concerning. The only reason we haven't burned it all down yet is because it isn't hurting enough people.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
JEsus fuckin christ, man, give it a goddamned rest. Yes, your cash depends on your employer getting to fuck over their customers and worse, this was a ngger's law that was produced, so by default really really bad. Probably satanic. But give it a fucking rest, mate. When she cheats on you, do you go "Well, I guess you're going to trust the government to protect the internet too, huh?".
Dumbass.
I agree with all of Kim's points. This is political and has been bought and paid for by the media production and software companies. The United States strong-armed New Zealand. I think all other Countries need to take a look at what my country is doing and revoke extradition treaties and instead do things on a case by case basis.
He did nothing on American soil. Case closed. If they want to go after him for copyright then that should be through New Zealand law. Our supreme court can't contradict the lower courts since the fix was put in but at the same time don't want to get their hands dirty.
What if China labelled Zuckerburg as a fugitive from Chinese justice because facebook does business there, and it violates their communist ideals. Should the USA hand him over? Let China seize his money and foreign assets? When I think of a German Finnish national living in New Zealand and doing business in Hong Kong. The first place I think he should be extradited to is... America?! WTF?
Presumed innocent means nothing to the Government and its members. This is so wrong on more than I care to write about, so I won't.
I'll just say that after 60 years of living in the U.S., this is NOT what my father and family fought for, and I wouldn't give a crap about it if I could leave it.
They didn't take the mansion. He was renting it.
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Isn't this the reason you have all those guns over there? Maybe I misheard, but I thought you needed all those guns to stop The Man abusing you?
of US tyranny and why the Ubited States is not respected by countries like Russia and China.
You truly live in a fucked up country.
I think civil forfeiture is a pestilence that should be completely stamped out. Fortunately this can be done by simple legislation. What we cannot do is rely on the Constitution to save us from this plague.
In interpreting the phrase "due process of law", the Supreme Court looks at Anglo-American law as it existed at the time the Constitution was written. The British Navigation Acts had provided for civil forfeiture in smuggling cases, and the early US Congress wrote it into US customs laws. Therefore this unusual (and, IMHO, patently unjust) practice is understood to satisfy "due process of law". I don't like it, but that's the current state of US constitutional law.