Kim Dotcom Releases New Raid Footage Captured By In-House CCTV
torrentfreak.com
torrentfreak.com
Reading the Wikipedia article about the task force, their job is in dealing with high risk situations involving armed offenders and possible terrorism related events. They also train with New Zealand Special Air Service Commandos. In that context, the raid makes much more sense in how it was conducted, with silencers, helicopters, dogs and 20-30+ personal. The real question then comes to who in the command structure decided to use such group for serving a warrant, and collecting evidence for an assisting copyright infringement case. Given the nature of the crime, the low threat level (admitted in court), this is rather uniquely in history. One might also wonder how much influence the FBI had in the decision.
Somewhere along the line he realized it was a police raid, but chose to wait in the panic room anyway, with the door open, to avoid startling anyone and putting himself at risk of being shot. Even so, and despite knowing of the existence of the room, it took police 13 minutes to find him, and when they finally did they weren't particularly gentle in apprehending him. Dotcom claimed he was punched in the face and kicked to the floor, and that one officer stood on his hand once he was down. http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/118975-Kim-Dotcom-...
“Despite our staff clearly identifying themselves Mr Dotcom retreated into the house and activated a number of electronic locking mechanisms. While Police neutralised these locks he then further barricaded himself into a safe room within the house which officers had to cut their way into. Once they gained entry into this room they found Mr Dotcom near a firearm which had the appearance of a shortened shotgun.”
My whole childhood, we had a gun cabinet full of weapons in technically my room. However, during my whole childhood, I was not armed.
See the difference?
Not actually a shortened shotgun, just looked like one. Pretty damning!
“She said a police arms officer said the weapon must have been modified. "It couldn't be cut off any further back because of the position of the magazine," she said. To get a license for that type of gun in New Zealand it would have had to be granted a permit.”
http://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/local-news/6298389/Judge-res...
I don’t see any signs of that. It’s a report of what was said at one of the court hearings. If you have a more verbatim version of what transpired, I’d love to read it.
> MegaUpload [is a] "a repository for films, TV shows and books, where users could watch content without charge"
That sounds like a charitable description of what Megaupload was. They could’ve easily characterized it as a child porn and terrorism information ring.
False. The bodyguard had a licensed shotgun, locked inside a safe. [1] Schmitz didn't own one, nor did he carry it. You could claim he knew someone who owned a gun, but that's about it.
> Also, he was arrested not only for copyright infringement, but also for racketeering and money laundering.
The NZ judge does not agree with your assessment. Maybe the judge is wrong, but: charges in the indictment relating to money laundering, racketeering and wire fraud are not separate criminal acts but dependent on the claim of criminal secondary copyright infringement[2].
The FBI claims that a website that offers users monetary rewards for uploading content, such as YouTube does, are conducting racketeering, money laundering and wire fraud if said uploads constitute copyright infringement. The judge did not rule if such legal claims are correct, but noted that any such claims depend on the copyright infringement and are not separate crimes to be considered. [1]: (http://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/local-news/6298389/Judge-res...)
[2]: (http://www.scribd.com/doc/95215045/Torrent-Freak-Mega-Extra) and (http://computerworld.co.nz/news.nsf/news/us-cites-united-nat...)
Both false according to your own link:
“Dotcom did not have licence for the gun, and neither did his bodyguard.”
“the gun found in an open safe in the "panic room" with Dotcom”
Meanwhile, Dotcom's head of security, Wayne Phillip Tempero, is facing firearms charges for providing Dotcom with the semi-automatic shotgun which was found in Dotcom's safe room when police cut their way in during his arrest. Tempero said that the gun had been purchased under a valid New Zealand license, and Davidson told the court that the saferoom and gun were for the safety of Dotcom's family.
But yes, the safe was apparently open. I did try to find if Wayne Tempero case of gun possession was concluded, but I can't find any news article about it.
Or it maybe my memory is a bit faulty and what I remember is regarding the search warrant used by the police. (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/06/mega-victory-kim-...) The article describe how police officers didn't know what they were looking for when executing the warrant. As the judge put it, the people executing the warrant "were not the investigating officers and had limited knowledge of the operation," despite being briefed before the raid went down.
If I do find the article, I will post it. Maybe its was in the court document.
"such group" needs practice similar to how firemen use controlled fires to practice their skills. As such it makes total sense that you would use this as an opportunity to hone the groups skills for a time when the target is much more important.
I've seen cases where the NYPD sends officers overseas to (sorry can't find a link) help with matters that have nothing to do with NYC at all. I assume this has to do with some kind of practice for when they need the same at home.
Fire departments generally don't set fire to some guy's house for training purposes.
Firemen don't go around setting people's homes on fire in order to practice putting them out.
I think you missed my point. When firemen want to practice they set up a fake fire at a safe location. When paramilitary police forces want to practice, they should and do set up a fake raid at a safe location, rather than practicing on some random non-violent offender's home.
Personally I have no clue how they justified such a heavily armed response particularly considering the fact that Dotcom never posed a physical threat to anyone let alone the fact that there were a number of children in the building at the time.
It looked pretty amateurish to me. They had trouble climbing a 3 foot high gate, which after they had ‘scaled’ it, turns out was easily opened.
> such a heavily armed response
I counted 5 police officers who approached the house together, only one of them was armed with a rifle. I saw no violence whatsoever, it was pretty laid-back. At no point in the video did they point a gun at any of the suspects, and they lowered their fire arms before they entered the building (highly unusual if you think you’re in danger or if you want to intimidate someone).
> Dotcom never posed a physical threat to anyone
When you’re dealing with a rich suspect who loves expensive toys and has a large staff, you have to be prepared for anything. In the US, they would’ve sent an army to surround and comb through that enormous mansion. Given that Dotcom is morbidly obese, I doubt the agents saw him as a physical threat, it’s his staff and the presence of weapons they needed to worry about.
Seriously just cause you live in the US and everything is over the top including police force, that doesn't mean its the norm. I can ensure you police force in the US and the use of guns is over the top and unjustified, so was this in the case for Dotcom.
In your country, police officers don’t carry guns and tactical units are armed with flowers?
Correct. UK.
If the police plans to raid a building which they suspect hosts armed suspects, like in the case of Kim Schmitz, surely they’ll send in units carrying fire arms.
Countries where Police do not carry guns as part of normal duty:
UK
New Zealand
Japan
Norway
Iceland
Cook Islands
St. Helena
Falkland Islands
Pitcairn Island
sources: http://www.policespecials.com/forum/index.php?/topic/32618-c... http://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/50601024
I can't say I know what New Zealand's procedure for this actually is, but in the US, one of two things would occur in a white-collar case like this: The suspect would either surrender with his attorney at a prearranged time and place, or he would be arrested by a couple of officers who peacefully knock on his door.
Anything else would be seen as grossly excessive force, the fallout of which could easily involve ruined careers and political repercussions.
And I don't know who you're talking about that "idolizes" him. I don't. I actually have no particular opinion about him one way or another, only about the manner in which the case has been handled.
You're the one who seems to be taking things very personally.
This may seem a minor point, but the housekeeper and other staff were not "suspects", they're innocent members of the public.
Did they worry that Kimble had a Dr. Evil escape pod?
I suppose we could call it "crowd censorship".
Edit: OK, egg on face. Its now very visible. I'll eat the humble pie and shut the hell up.
Of course, the counter to that would be to contact whoever hosts his data ( it's doubtful it's in his basement ) and have them pull the plug before the raid.
Of course, if you do that, there's little point in raiding his house in the first place as the "doomsday device" would be neutralized. A simple summons would likely have been sufficient. "Hi, we've taken your servers from the co-lo, come in for questioning by tomorrow at blah blah blah".
What if he runs? Who gives a shit? It was a copyright infringement case. If he runs, you then lock his assets, put him on a watch list and let him crawl back out at his leisure, letting his servers rot in an evidence locker somewhere.
I'm not sure how they justify the car removal at all. I suppose they didn't, since the warrant was deemed to be overreaching.
This was just ridiculous.
A behaviour one would expect from adolescents, not leaders.
In 2001, he told the NY Times his net worth was Euro 200 million. Obviously not true, but he did make at least some money by selling Data Protect to TÜV Rheinland.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/22/business/worldbusiness/22i...
It is known within NZ as "the Chrisco mansion", as it was built by the owners of Chrisco - a Christmas hamper mail order company. People still get wealthy the old-fashioned way down under.
Yes, it is groceries on layaway.
1) That some very official looking people are forced to address him as Mr. Dotcom... which is on my list of the most ridiculous names a person could give themselves.
2) The giant statue of a rino in his yard. Really? A Rino?
His marketing team does its job well, but surely, HN users are smarter than to fall for this rhetoric.
And his past convictions are irrelevant on every conceivable level -- not only is he not currently serving a sentence in relation to them, they provided no basis to believe he could be dangerous.
In the video, I didn’t see physical force used. Neither did I read of anything like it in any of the reports of the arrest. What part of the operation is violent to you?
Schmitz was found with a sawed off shotgun, and the police had to cut him out of his panic room, so he could obviously be dangerous.
Pretty much all of it?
Something doesn't have to be as bad as Nazi Germany to have lessons learned from Nazi Germany usefully applied to it. No one said "OMG Kim Dotcom is exactly like Anne Frank!". The police raid was clear overkill and many people are, rightfully, bothered by the militarization of police forces. It is important to object, even in defense of a fairly shady character like Dotcom because eventually that apparatus will be turned on others and it will be too late to stop it. Really, we should have been complaining a long time ago when the police (at least in the US) started treating the inner city like a war zone.
Your comment is about the militarization of police forces, which I agree, is scary and should be objected to, even if it were only used against the scum of the earth.
I plead guilty. I do not like Kim Dotcom and what he does. My impression of him is that he’s an egotistical sociopathic opportunistic hedonistic grandstanding thug without moral compass. Megaupload is only a small part of what gave me that impression, I’ve been reading about his ‘endeavors’ for over a decade.
As for Megaupload, in the articles I’ve read over the years, he hasn’t done much to combat piracy on his network, some go as far as suggesting he encouraged it. He also claims patents over web tech like two factor authentication.
He also posed on photos with all the firearms he has, which surely must’ve made the NZ authorities queasy about peacefully apprehending him.
>Megaupload is only a small part of what gave me that impression, I’ve been reading about his ‘endeavors’ for over a decade.
Specifically as it relates to megauploads is there anything that differentiates megauploads from say dropbox or google drive (even youtube for that matter), and I don't care if its your opinion or you point me to a third party article. We all know copyright violations take place, but in no other instance, I am aware, has a website been criminally liable for the acts of its members, in fact the US created the Digital Millennium Copyright Act which creates a legal firewall between the websites and its members activities. Even Napster only got sued in a civil context, no criminal charges, much less a counter terrorist unit sent to detain Sean Parker.
>he hasn’t done much to combat piracy on his network, some go as far as suggesting he encouraged it.
According to this Wired article (http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/10/ff-kim-dotcom/) Megauploads gave Copyright holders far greater access/control to protect their registered copyrights than any other cloud sharing service.
>He also claims patents over web tech like two factor authentication.
Kim is the registered patent holder for this in the US, perhaps it is inappropriate, maybe even unenforceable, but compare this patent with Apple having a patent on rectangular electronic devices, or the ridiculous patents Motorola owns which is the sole reason for Google acquiring them. Do you equally hate Apple and Google?
>He also posed on photos with all the firearms he has, which surely must’ve made the NZ authorities queasy about peacefully apprehending him.
This is a slippery slop, more or less it appears you justify the use of counter terrorist operations, complete with helicopters and silencers to take down alleged non-violent criminals so long as there is a picture showing the alleged suspect with a gun. Having guns does not make someone a violent person, and I do not think pictures of Kim with guns made NZ authorities "queasy", because their intelligence was not limited to pictures depicting a man with guns, they knew everything about their target, Kim, including the fact that he is non-violent.
I don’t perceive him as a victim, even though his marketing team does a great job at making it seem as if he is. The video in the linked article has a lot of production value.
Information wants to be free, man!
Except when it's my information. Then it's just a terrible invasion of privacy.