Kim Dotcom, New Zealand PM spar in spy debate

To me, I value far more that people has a right to keep private information. People should have a right to not disclose information to the world about their medical history, religious belief, political opinion, or sexual preference. To me, to respect peoples right to privacy is not something that is open for discussion.

To respect copyright is however open to discussion. Is promoting the Progress of Science and useful Arts better served with a "limited" life time + 99 years monopoly, or would it work better if we had frictionless creation? What kind of respect should general useful publicly published information get? Should we not consider the usefulness in allowing information to flow to any child and any person in need, regardless of that persons status in society? I would ask what the moral argument is in denying a child culture, just on the basis that their parents happen to be poor.

Thus I see no irony in Dotcom arguing in favor of access rights regarding citizens private information, regardless of any legal disputes he might have with the copyright industry.

'Martel wrote:

'In New Zealand the actions of the government’s domestic spy agency (the GCSB) is governed by law. Clearly there are very good reasons why the powers of such a government agency should be limited by the law. There are certain things that government agency cannot do. Actually it is more properly said that the GCSB must not do certain things, because for them to do so would be illegal, in other words those actions would be criminal, in other words those actions would constitute a crime. Sorry to be so pedantic but some seem to have a real problem with the idea that the rule of law pertains to all, including government agencies.

'When the GCSB spied on Kim Dotcom their actions in doing that were against the law. Yet, the author(s) of this Washington Post article attempts to sanitise and trivialise the illegal actions of the GCSB by calling them a “misstep”, quote unquote. Is that the euphemism you use to describe all crimes? A misstep?

'Let me make it clear to you that the GCSB knew what they were doing was illegal. Further more it is known that the Prime Minister was at a meeting where the question of its legality was raised. They knew that what they were doing was against the law and you choose to characterise it as a kind of OOPS. It was not an oops, it was a premeditated crime committed against a New Zealand resident by a government agency. Why do you seem to have such a problem calling it what it actually is? A crime. A crime has been committed and a New Zealand resident has had his whole life and that of his family practically destroyed and you call the criminal actions that brought about this egregious situation a “misstep”. Your characterisation of this is simply defies belief. To whoever wrote this article, if this is the best you can do with this and if you honestly cannot see the gravity and greater significance of what has happened in this important case then you have no right to call yourself a journalist?

'All around us right now so many of we, the people, are increasingly alarmed at the outrageous and unlawful intrusion of governments into our lives and the compromising of our freedoms by them and yet you seem to want to characterise this as a trivial matter. A crime has been committed by precisely those who should have known better and yet the government tries arrogantly to simply set it aside, to ignore their complicity or (with the assistance of articles like this one) to restyle it as in, it was all just a “misstep”. Can you even begin to justify your position here? A “misstep”? Give us a break.'