Megaupload case: New Zealand court wants FBI evidence | Hacker News Reader

Megaupload case: New Zealand court wants FBI evidence

bbc.com

69 pointssdoering22 comments

I was recently in new Zealand and friends in their late 40s and early 50s were upset by the raid on a new Zealand citizen by foreign authorities, in new Zealand. Some of them used mega upload and some hadn't heard of it prior to the raid.

NZ told the us navy they didn't want their nuclear ships in the Harbour, which makes no sense to me, but does show that they have a spine. I wouldn't be surprised if the Mpaa doesn't get their way on this one.

NZ does make quite a bit of money from the film industry, so that might affect things.

http://www.med.govt.nz/sectors-industries/screen-industry

Dotcom is not a New Zealand citizen. He is a resident alien with some extra restrictions due to his extensive criminal background (for example, he cannot own land in New Zealand).

If he wanted to become a New Zealand citizen, the criminal background could be a big hurdle.

Some context on the nuclear free policy in NZ - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealands_nuclear-free_zone

It's an important part of the New Zealand national identity. There has been talk of allowing nuclear power generation but given how geologically unstable the country is most kiwis seem content to maintain the current policy.

Nuclear power generation isn't extremely practical for NZ, because it normally comes in large chunks which we don't have the population to support in most places.

Plus we've got like 70% hydro or something anyway, so we're already doing relatively well as far as burning fossil fuels for power goes.

Of course, we have high emissions from agriculture. (All those sheep farts...)

That Wikipedia link doesn't lead to a valid page -- perhaps you meant this?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand%27s_nuclear-free_zo...

Oops - something must have gone wrong with the formatting. Cheers for pointing that out!

I don't know much about it, but refusing the ships in the harbor could be due to crazy laws/restrictions the US has about them. For example, watercraft are not allowed within a certain radius of aircraft carriers, and if they get too close they can be shot without penalty. I don't remember the measurement, but it was large. Could really mess up the flow of a working harbor.

> Prosecutors allege that pirated movies and other content shared through his site cost copyright holders more than $500m (£322m) in lost earnings, making it one of the biggest cases of its kind.

I doubt the point / accuracy of this statement. Those who downloaded the content would have just gotten the content somewhere else. As much as the FBI would like to, you really can't point the finger at Dotcom for this loss of revenue.

Correct. They're probably trying to calculate that number by assuming that every person who downloaded something copyrighted would have otherwise purchased it. Pure bunk.

That's not the point. This whole case has been just testing the water for the FBI - seeing how far the public (and the NZ government) will let them go. Whether they have grand designs for after Dotcom nobody knows (conspiracy!), but this case is clearly about more than all that money copyright holders supposedly lost (I'm in agreement with you on that - I doubt they would have lost any less without MU).

I never suspect conspiracy when incompetency is much easier. Men with badges hiding behind organizations often forget the scope and source of their vested powers.

I doubt there is a conspiracy behind this; I just left the comment (too?) open to the possibility.

"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor

I'm intrigued by the FBI presence off US soil. I thought they were a domestic-only agency.

>In June a judge ruled that the warrant for the initial raid on his mansion and the way evidence was seized were illegal.

It's amusing the case still exists at all when it's clearly been identified the raid and evidence seizure were illegal.

I wonder why we even have laws when the authorities can so blatantly ignore them without consequence.

The legality of something such as evidence seizure effects how it can be used in court, not necessarily the whole case if they have other evidence they can use instead.

The FBI seized his server farm independently on the raid on his house.

I don't think they actually have much _evidence_ that they plan on using from the raid; I think the main action out of that was his arrest.

Unlike the USA, a lot of jurisdictions allow evidence to be used in court even if it was collected illegally.

I am surprised the NZ courts didn't have the evidence to begin with. How could they decide over the validity of the extradition request without it?

Apparently the NZ courts came to the same critical question that you did.

In all honesty, it seems ridiculous that the FBI thought they could withhold evidence.

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