NZ court rules Megaupload warrant legal, dealing blow to Dotcom
reuters.com
reuters.com
1. New Zealand (NZ) desperately wants closer economic ties to the US but is constrained by public sentiment
Because New Zealand is primarily a low value added commodity export based economy the NZ Government and NZ businesses highly covet lower trade barriers. However NZ's anti-nuke stance and lack of military spend means that NZ will never get free trade agreement. Therefore anything else the NZ Government can do to appease US counterparts wins NZ small favors. This is why NZ is very much in bed with US spooks and basically has a US intelligence facility in Waihopai.
I firmly believe that this was a primary reason for the NZ Government's willingness to let their US Government counterparts to run the operation on Kim Dotcom.
2. NZ has been trying to woo the US film and TV industry
The NZ Government has been doing its best to entice the US film and TV industry even before the success of The Lord of the Rings (circa 1995 with Hercules: The Legendary Journeys).
I'm of the opinion that the heavy handed nature of the raid on Kim Dotcom was to send a message the NZ Government takes the rights of film and TV studios seriously.
That said, I think the NZ Government didn't properly gauge how far public opinion would swing against them for being so heavy handed against Kim Dotcom. Kiwis love an underdog and when the local TV media showed video footage of the raid on Kim Dotcom complete with helicopters and SUVs it certainly looked like an absurd Hollywood action movie. Also the use of the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) to spy on Kim Dotcom unnerved many Kiwi's sense of privacy.
After this recent ruling I'm not sure how this whole saga will play out. I imagine that with with his personal freedom at stake, Kim Dotcom will keep pressing his case through to the Supreme Court of New Zealand.
Is this an official policy? Why is nuclear such a big deal, and how does the military factor in? Is it just that those are the major things the US would like to sell to NZ?
Yep, it's the law. Much to the chagrin of the US.
Their Military has no Nuclear weapons, and the population is pretty strongly opposed to anything nuclear, instead favouring 'green' technology.
I'd go as far to say, as it's now so entrenched in NZ's identity, if any government that tried to repeal it, it would be an act of political suicide.
* Anti-Nuke Background
The watershed was the 1985 sinking of the Rainbow Warrior, a Greenpeace protest ship, in New Zealand by French secret agents that lead to the death of one of the crew.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_Rainbow_Warrior]
This enraged the general public in NZ and lead to wide spread protest. Since the mid-1980s the anti-nuke stance has become part of the Kiwi psyche to the point where no Government would dare change it.
* Being anti-nukes effects NZ and US military relations
This causes problems with NZ and US relations because the US has a nuclear powered navy with nuclear weapons (ships and subs) and therefore no US watercraft are allowed in NZ territorial boarders as the US Navy has a "neither confirm nor deny" policy when it comes to the nuclear capability of a particular ship.
Also because NZ has a very small military budget, NZ relies heavily on the assumption that the US provides regional protection in the Pacific. This has lead to a strained military relationship. If you are interested in a summary read the Wikipedia ANZUS article.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANZUS]
* Strained military relations lead to strained economic relations
The trouble that NZ has is that the economic benefits of free trade with the US are worth a lot more to NZ than the US. NZ really has no leverage except to let the US do what it wants, and the US cares deeply about unconstrained military options. Because of the constraint on the US Navy by NZ's anti-nuke stance, this means that until NZ changes, the US will not bargain with NZ on other issues like trade.
New Zealand has a free trade agreement with China. They don't need the US.
However the sentiment in your comment, "They don't need the US" I don't quite agree with.
Yes it is amazing that NZ has a free trade agreement with China. I think it was the first in the western world to do so. However only the huge export companies and cooperatives like Fonterra have managed to make use of it. Due to the language and cultural differences 'ordinary' kiwi small to medium businesses are not able to capitalize on the agreement.
In comparison a trade deal with the US wouldn't have such difficult language and cultural differences.
Trade benefits both partners and increases wealth. So while it may be true that NZ doesn't need trade agreement with the US it still needs good relations especially for defense purposes.
I believe it is possible to invade NZ with one aircraft carrier, several submarines, a small fleet of supersonic jets and a relatively small mercenary ground force. Hardly anything really. I still think that if a Maori revolutionary group ever got serious financial backing for military weaponry NZ would be in trouble.
Why any country would want to invade NZ is another story but the point is that NZ's defense forces are weak and few and it needs defense partnerships with the US and Australia to guarantee that no one would consider an invasion because of the threat of US and Australian intervention. Sure you might include the UK but the logistics of deployment of UK military assets would make it difficult.
> A New Zealand government enquiry in 2012 found the nation's secretive spy agency acted unlawfully by giving information on Dotcom to U.S. authorities before the 2012 raid.
Does anyone know if anybody actually got in trouble for this?
It would be naive to think otherwise. The USG is amazingly patient. Kimble has been on their radar for a long time. Now they really want him, and I would be very very surprised if they don't get him eventually.
Somehow I really think he has a small chance to stick it to the man, so I kind want to root for him, even though he's more than likely a tool.
Here's the Campbell Live interview -
> He's very well spoken, intelligent and surprisingly compelling individual _fraudster_.
Mega wasn't exactly the first time he's been in trouble [1]. The MCI / AT&T calling card fraud was a lot of money. The Letsbuyit.com fraud wasn't small fry. He's a fraudster through and through. The only difference between his actions with Megaupload and the previous frauds was that this time he was defrauding media companies and not the man on the street. The man on the street was on his side, mainly because he was enabling them to get free content.
The English Wikipedia page also misses out on another rather nasty part of his history, namely [2][3]:
> And he copied all data he found, and brought the captures to Germany’s most hated intellectual property lawyer, Günter Freiherr von Gravenreuth. Who sued the hackers on behalf of the copyright owners and allegedly paid Schmitz per bust.
So yeah, he's a tool. He fucked over his fellow crackers for money.
On a side note (just in case you falsely think I'm some kind of RIAA / MPAA lover), I also think that the same media companies that are screwing over their customers using copyright law are also a bunch of fraudsters, but sadly they are doing that screwing within a legal framework that they have lobbied congress to impose. More fool congress and more fool the voter who voted for those jokers.
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Dotcom#Criminal_investigati...
- http://eclamus.wordpress.com/2012/01/26/megaupload/
- http://cd.textfiles.com/thegreatunsorted/texts/bbs_legal_inf...
Is that just based on how you'd like the case to have turned out, or is there some greater level of familiarity with the laws and jurisprudence of NZ than I'd have expected at HN? Is it possible that the warrant was ok and that the initial ruling was in error?
At any rate, according to the article there seems to be another court which can hear an appeal, so it may not be entirely decided yet.
Here's an example how: Stores in a Berlin tourist neighborhood began opening on Sunday all at once. The council let them because it would be too embarrassing to fine them all.
They found a niche where the law says government has power, but Realpolitik says it does not.
I swear I'm going to find as many of those as I can in my everyday life, and I will use them.
Who's with me?????
I'm not trying to be defeatist, but you'd need massive civil disobedience Ukraine-style before NZ decides to soften its stance on "piracy" (or more properly, copyright infringement).
Massive civil disobedience is to the local council as hitting a home run on national television is to batting practice.
People may stick it to the Man in a personal way, but not collectively.
Your example of the businesses banding together isn't quite a Libertarian example, more like a Capitalist response of maximizing profits in the face of constraining government regulation.
If life was harsh, or the political institutions totalitarian or corrupt, then collective social revolution would eventually appear.
New Zealand is so far away from that type of environment that I doubt it will ever see the type of Libertarian activism that would be required to make lasting social change.
1. Lifestyles in NZ are good, and it really is quite a lot more egalitarian than the USA or UK. New Zealand ranks 11th in the world for Quality of Life Index.
2. Political institutions are not totalitarian or corrupt. New Zealand ranks the lowest in the world for corruption (equal to Denmark) in the Corruption Perceptions Index [http://cpi.transparency.org/cpi2013/results/].
This is about widespread ignoring of government, which is then forced to agree to save face.
As I got older, I can afford something. I went ahead and got a Netflix account to celebrate my first internship (yeah, literally, I thought that was the best way to celebrate...). But a lot of great movies are missing from Netflix and I didn't feel like renting one from Amazon Videos or Youtube store. $3.99, $5.99? Meh. Only a few times because I was desperate to see watch them.
From time to time, I was hoping MU was still alive. I would find a link easily. Putlocker took the lead after MU went down. That's probably the most popular domain to view illegal contents.
I prefer to have high-quality video. As I grow older, I am side with the music and film industry. I want to pay. I still go to theater for awesome films. I don't know if people have studied how bundle HBO, movie on demand into cable TV ever helped subscribers to reduce the incentive to download illegal contents. My guess is some good percentage of individuals probably feel less motivated to get illegal contents if they could just find them from their on-demand channel.
I know making a film or making a music album is a big investment. But ultimately, owning a DVD is going to sound old and useless in a decade. Everyone wants instant play, or digital copy on their device. I am glad the music industry is becoming more open to streaming service (thanks to iPod and iTunes - though Apple wasn't really the first one to do that, but Apple pushed it). I can listen to free legal, high quality music on Spotify, 8track, soundcloud, pandora. I am just waiting for the film and tv industry to become more open :) I really hope that one day, I can turn on my computer, and select a movie I want to see and I get to see it.
Last, I still like going to movie theater. I don't mind if new movies won't be available right away on Netflix until the new movies are away from theater.