Kim Dotcom Spying Operation Was Illegal, NZ High Court Rules
torrentfreak.com
torrentfreak.com
I listened to the whole live streamed appeal trial, ( over 50 hours of arguments ).
There is a clear miscarriage of justice, and protecting the justice system's integrity should come above pleasing Hollywood.
Fraud can result in substantial revenue?
The US Authorities haven't followed the New Zealand Law before, why would they follow it now? They didn't break the law in using GCSB, why should their case be affected?
Just because they illegally took the evidence collected? Than they would have closed the case before now.
This makes it extremely problematic if the US start going after a NZ citizens who have been cleared of the alleged crime by a NZ court.
One requirement of the grant of citizenship is that the applicant is "of good character", which presumably means you haven't recently been convicted of a crime. As a matter of due process, I would hope that a mere accusation by a foreign government would not count as proof of someone's bad character. On the other hand, I also suspect that the executive is given quite a lot of discretion to withhold the granting of citizenship from anyone, and there is the matter of his 2009 dangerous driving conviction.
Does anyone know enough about NZ law to determine whether gaining the protections of citizenship is an avenue that is open to him?
Very few states exempt non citizens from the protections against government overreach, as most interpretations of UN's human rights treaties kind of forbids it, so even if he is not a citizen the NZ government still have to obey it's own laws in prosecuting a case against him(the US is notorious for non-compliance with treaties they themselves promoted when a treaty goes beyond the protections offered by the rather washed out US constitution).
The problem here is again that any action taken against Kim Dotcom by the NZ government in spite of it's domestic court case falling apart will be government overreach by just about any sane standard. so there is not a lot neither the US not the NZ authorities can do if the NZ court end up deciding that the he cannot be extradited to the US or convicted under New Zeeland law.
Diplomatically the problem is also that this isn’t a one of against a shady businessman but a part of a trend that have already seen the EU court nullify a data safe haven agreement due to the US court systems rather strange belief that it's not actually bound by any international treaties.
[1] https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/kim_dotcom_caught_in_the_we...
GCSB, the NZ spy agency, has certainly strayed by using their powers against a NZ citizen, and there should be repercussions.
However, the DoJ's case against Dotcom does not revolve around GCSB. Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater.
So, now that it's clear the GCSB broke the law and did wrong, who of them is going to jail?
Until individuals are held responsible and go to jail, this kind of thing will never stop, because there are no consequences.
Not only are their no consequences, but the actors at that level know there will be no consequences if they get caught before they commit the crimes. The justice & legal system is far too corrupt to ever touch the de facto oligarchy.
Violating human rights against one individual, is, as per the original definition, violating the rights of all of humanity.
I get that this was an extreme case, but there's always an extreme case that goes first, and the line gets gradually pushed further and further. We've seen this in history countless times.
Would have been better if the US took the Taliban up on their offer to turn over Bin Laden shortly after the WTC attacks. Very few people even remember the offer was made.
Yeah you could. But that's a constitutional procedural issue. It's very separate from whether it was in practice a war action, and it was.
Governments never punish their own agents for illegal deeds performed in furtherance of the governments agenda, that'd just be tremendously inconvenient.