back to article NZ spooks acted unlawfully in Megaupload wiretap

New Zealand authorities have informed the nation's High Court that individuals at the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) “acted unlawfully while assisting the Police to locate certain individuals subject to arrest warrants” in the case of Kim Dotcom's Megaupload service. New Zealand Prime Minister John Key issued …

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  1. Notas Badoff
    Facepalm

    Bigger and badder booger bogeyman

    "I'm now a real life James Bond villain in a real life political copyright thriller scripted by Hollywood & the White House."

    Fear me, Julian... Here comes Ass End's Assange Revenge: The Movie

    1. Shagbag
      Holmes

      Keystone Cops

      "the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) 'acted unlawfully'"

      OMG. MEGA fuck up. You pay peanuts, you get monkeys.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Oh dear...

    "I'm now a real life James Bond villain in a real life political copyright thriller scripted by Hollywood & the White House."

    Here's a hint, Mr. Dotcom - when people refer to you as 'larger than life', it's due to your girth rather than your mirth.

    At any rate, talk about arrogant - I'm guessing that the White House has bigger fish to fry (Syria, Chinese-vs-Japanese diplomacy, Euro-zone crisis) than some low-rent copyright infringement case. Sorry, buddy, but you're not even on Obama's radar, let alone on his most-wanted list next to Assad and Merke... next to Assad.

    1. sam bo
      Black Helicopters

      Re: Oh dear...

      Sorry, buddy, but you're not even on Obama's radar, let alone on his most-wanted list next to Assad and Merke... next to Assad.

      it would be good if it was so, unfortunately, you are more likely to end up in gaol for life for copyright infringement than genocide with our present political leaders.

      1. Danny 14
        Stop

        Re: Oh dear...

        It will become a big issue if there is a link to the fbi forcing the NZ government or a trail that can show back handers etc. That will open avenues for counter lawsuits getting the FBI or NZ gubbermint to fund megaupload for a while.

        Whilst I dont really care for megaupload or their businessmodel it is just not cricket to dodge the law to enforce the law.

        1. Alan Brown Silver badge

          Re: Oh dear...

          NZ has a fairly long history of its "law enforcement" bodies doing whatever the hell they want. The difference these days is that it's much harder to cover up the evidence or intimidate people into silence.

          1. elderlybloke
            Happy

            Re: Oh dear...

            Dear Alan,

            I live in NZ,and I am not aware of our local law enforcement persons doing whatever the hell they want.

            Could you provide an example or two for me , to improve my knowledge of this naughtyness.

            Thank you for your time on this matter.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              @ elderlybloke Re: Oh dear...

              "I live in NZ,and I am not aware of our local law enforcement persons doing whatever the hell they want.

              Could you provide an example or two for me , to improve my knowledge of this naughtyness."

              Can think of quite a few myself.. A few of the murders, a few sex abuse cases, and a hell of a lot of other less noticeable things out there.

              Corruption is quite rife in our sad little country, and it's far worse than you think. Planting/fabricating evidence is one of the lesser things that goes on.

              Debated posting under my normal nick, but in this case... Sorry, I've seen too much. If you live in NZ and have money, go elsewhere. Pretty much any elsewhere is better. And if you need someone as a "travelling companion", I'd consider pretty much anything that leaves me alive and (relatively) physically intact to get out of here.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Oh dear...

        "it would be good if it was so, unfortunately, you are more likely to end up in gaol for life for copyright infringement than genocide with our present political leaders."

        You care to post any references on that? No, I didn't think so. Feel free to continue with the hyperbole, however; I guess it makes you feel good.

        For what it's worth, I think that Mr. Dotcom is in the right on this issue (even if he is a twat). But I'm guessing that at least 20 of you assumed that because I think that Obama actually thinks that the Euro zone crisis is a bigger deal than MegaUpload, I'm an evil Orwlowskian bastard who wants to kill everyone who listened to an infringing song. Sorry, guys, the world is more complicated than that.

        Oversimplifying things into a mouth-foaming, OMG OBAMA CARES ABOUT NOTHING MORE THAN A FEW INFRINGING SONGS PAYMASTERS GENOCIDE THEY WANT TO KILL ALL OF US AMERIKKKKKKKKA IS A KKKORPORATE INKKORPORATION rant does nobody - least of all people who actually care about rational copyright - any good.

        1. SleepyJohn
          FAIL

          Re: Oh dear... -- Oh, very dear indeed

          I suspect Obama is well aware that the Eurozone 'crisis' is going precisely according to plan, enabling the EU bosses to force the affected countries into complete economic and political subservience to the EU bosses, so they can construct a powerful European superstate that will relieve the US of the expensive and increasingly unpopular task of bossing the rest of the world about.

          I am sure his pals in the MAFIAA wish that their plan to destroy Dotcom's impending competition for their global, and extremely lucrative extortion racket was going even half as well as the EU's plan to destroy democracy. And I suspect they are less than pleased with the US government's hamfisted handling of what their street corner gangster mentality probably saw as a straightforward 'shut up peasant, we make the rules here' shakedown.

          I suspect the US government is mindful that while the Eurozone crisis will likely save them a lot of money and heartache, the Dotcom crisis could cost them dear indeed.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Oh dear...

      "At any rate, talk about arrogant - I'm guessing that the White House has bigger fish to fry"

      Politicians rarely have bigger fish to fry than people who piss off their paymasters.

    3. WillbeIT
      WTF?

      Re: Oh dear...

      low rent? have you seen the size of the house he rents?

  3. Mikel
    Thumb Up

    The new service looks interesting

    Have to give it a look when it launches.

    1. Ole Juul

      Re: The new service looks interesting

      This whole thing is quite spicy. With his new service coming out at the same time as we have a very publicity generating incident, there is lots going on.

      Dotcom: "We are building a massive global network. All non-US hosters will be able to connect servers & bandwidth."

      Non-US hosters? Hmm, this could have an interesting international flavour. With "filesharing" turning into the new radio, this could also be game-changing. I don't know what we will see exactly, but I feel we are close to a critical point regarding this new internet medium.

      1. Danny 14

        Re: The new service looks interesting

        game changing indeed, if the traffic and revenue start to increase outside the US then there will be little point hosting inside the US. Good luck with the US enforcing their snoop laws on a Czech server.

  4. JaitcH
    Happy

    The New Zealand Government is ...

    so unlike it's counterparts in other countries.

    Their healthy legal attitude is to be recognised.

    So many governments break the law in achieving their goals that law-breaking becomes the norm. Look at the USA and that piece of tattered litter called The Constitution, that much hallowed thing American children are taught about. Nearing the value of toilet paper now that all those sworn to uphold the words are busy passing laws that shred it still further.

    The UK doesn't even have a Constitution and runs rampant over the rights of it's citizens.

    Canada, but even more so New Zealand, have Constitutions that work and the judiciary that observe them.

    The FBI is looking more stupid as the days go by. And Holder's US Justice Ministry can't even get service of documents straight!

    1. Tony Reeves 1

      Re: The New Zealand Government is ...

      New Zealand's "constitution" is effectively the same as the UK, a tangle of legal precedent, a few laws and aging treaties... http://gg.govt.nz/role/constofnz.htm

      The reason the judiciary appears to operate in a more transparent way here is that the country is small and it is very hard to hide stuff for long.

    2. This post has been deleted by its author

    3. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

      Re: The New Zealand Government is ...

      Hi, Tony Reeves1 and JaitcH,

      What a very rosey blinkered and skewed view you have. How nice for you both.

      The judiciary appears to not bother with the rights and wrongs of actions and calls to arms for action, which is, some would say, a much greater abuse and even more perverse and subversive in an age when reality is run with media sharing corrupted views and self-serving opinions, with their pontifications being everything to do with whether something is legal or otherwise and illegal and ineligible. And that is a flexible subjective assessment to be argued and changed at will by the most skilled of wordsmiths/brainwashers/call them what you will.

      And that very particular and peculiar Intelligence Sphere, is that which is now engaged in changing the future with the seeding and feeding of presents which are not blighted by persistent failures recycled from the past and expected to be permanent status quo positions/realised situations/virtualised realities/media productions, run by a tired old clique of fiat currency churning dinosaurs/dynasties, with nothing novel to transparently offer the worlds that are to be remotely controlled by ......... well, be patient and if one needs to know, one will know. The future is logically completely different from the past if progress is the natural default of intelligent beings?

  5. tkioz
    FAIL

    /sigh

    Why should ordinary people follow the law if the people entrusted with enforcing it can't be bothered to do so...

    1. Oliver Mayes

      Because if you don't you vill be shot.

    2. Tom 13

      Re: follow the law

      While I generally concur with that statement, recognition must also be given to the fact that we reached the Robocop 2 point with "the law": it's become impossible to comply with all its contradictory rules. This has to be corrected before ANYBODY can comply with the law.

      1. tkioz

        Re: follow the law

        @Tom 13

        That's an interesting point, and one I agree with. It brings to mind a Sci-Fi novel I read a few years ago, I can't for the life of me recall which one, but it had something that stuck with me. It mentioned in passing that one of the articles of the constitution of the fictional nation in the book was that every century they'd hold a convention, chaired by the finest legal minds, and basically go over every law that was on the books, every exception to it, every precedent pertaining to it, and then write a new set of laws taking that all into account, removing the entire tangled mess.

        The idea was that over time laws become like a house that has been constantly renovated, growing, but in a haphazard way, until they become structurally unsound, and after a while it's better to rip it down and start over, keeping the lessons learned, but instead of needing to know a dozen judgements that might pertain to it, it's all there in the new statutes.

        The idea stuck me as remarkably sane, expensive and time consuming certainly, but sane. We've got laws on the books with dozens, perhaps hundreds of differing interpretations dating back centuries, it's part of the reason lawyers need to study for so long. If we occasionally went through those laws and cleaned them up, like trimming computer code, we'd all be better off.

  6. Graham Marsden
    Big Brother

    But... but...

    .... the Yanks *told* us to do it, so it *must* have been ok!!

    1. Alan Brown Silver badge

      Re: But... but...

      Refer to the book "Smith's Dream" aka "Sleeping Dogs"

  7. FartingHippo
    Facepalm

    Weird

    I can't believe this whole sorry episode has made me feel sorry for Kim F*cking Dotcom.

    1. Elmer Phud

      Re: Weird

      I don't but he's got so much free advertising via the NZ tools of the US.

      (Arrogant shit that he appears to be)

    2. tkioz
      Meh

      Re: Weird

      I know mate, it's shocking isn't it? The dude is a egomaniacal prick, but the way the U.S and NZ governments and their agencies has acted is so disgusting, so contrary to the principles of democracy and the rule of law, that any sane rational person has to support him...

      1. ChrisM
        FAIL

        Re: Weird

        As a fellow chubster, I can't help looking at him and thinking of the Stay-Puft Marshmellow Man though.

        On topic though, this has been almost Keystone Cops in scale with all the calamitous screw-ups

        1. Alan Brown Silver badge

          Re: Weird

          If you think this has been a screwup of monumental proportions, look at the NZ Police's other big cockup of late:

          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_New_Zealand_raids

          The echos of that one will last far longer than Kim Bibendum's infamy.

  8. sueme2
    Black Helicopters

    mmmm

    If the FBI thought the place was full of sheep, they were right. The scale of the KDC swat ops makes me think there MUST have been ministerial approval. In fact a deal this big should have had more than one minister doing the OK. Or else, we have a bunch of loons with guns and choppers loose on the land. So, who was it that thought this was a good idea at the time?

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