I don't get it. If the evidence is so overwhelming (emails, chat logs, skype logs) why in the world didn't the US use all this to take them down? Why the drama? The breaking of international rules and the violence?
This is a better coverage: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/justice-department-... (and shame on your ars, for not bothering to link to or quote the source material for your article)
That's what has happened. Someone ordered this material released to try to counter the massive pressure the NZ government is under locally not to do comply with US requests for extradition.
"This sounds like 191 pages of a meritless criminal theory,” Rothken said.
"The notion that they keep piling on more evidence to bolster civil claims of
secondary copyright infringement, to us look like they’re desperately trying
to mislead the public.”
I'm not arguing that he (.com) was (and almost certainly still is) a Bad Guy who deliberately built his business on selling other peoples work, but this... is just PR posturing to try to counter the thus-far terribly terribly botched efforts of the justice department.
I am not sure about your reading comprehension, it sounds like a slam dunk to me.
To make Kim Dotcom look bad, just spell his surname with a K instead of a C in the middle. It evokes images of the German and Russian languages, rather than the French, and hence Nazi and Soviet undertones rather than romance and the Riviera. Imagery has more impact on public opinion than informed discussions.
To point, there is really no question that Dotcom is generally not a good guy. He is a shady business man at best. It just happens that many people consider his brand of evil to be absolutely dwarfed by the motives and tactics of his government adversaries.
And even if the NSA did collect the info, it's not clear that they could do so in a way that would allow it to be admissible in a federal court--making it effectively useless.