
Mega-victory: Kim Dotcom search warrants “invalid,” mansion raid “illegal” - evo_9
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/06/mega-victory-kim-dotcom-search-warrants-invalid-mansion-raid-illegal/
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w1ntermute
I hope Dotcom comes out of this victorious and relaunches MegaUpload. It was
the best free one-click hosting site out there - everything available at the
moment sucks. Not to mention it would be a wonderful "fuck you" to the US
government, abusing its global hegemony for personal purposes.

~~~
planetguy
You do realize that if people like Kim Dotcom ... is that really his name?
Fuck him, apparently his name is Kim Schmitz and I don't care what stupid name
he changed his name to.

Wait, sorry, I got distracted, let me start my paragraph again.

You do realize that if people like Kim Schmitz win their legal cases it'll
just mean a massive push to change the law? If current laws aren't good enough
to stamp out things like MegaUpload (which, let's face it, is a massive scale
piracy site which exists to make money off other people's IP) then the laws
_will_ be changed until they can.

~~~
jat850
I'm going to throw in my opinion on the name thing. I welcome disagreement,
especially in this specific case, but there have been 3 or 4 different
occasions lately where I have seen something similar come up.

Kim Dotcom legally changed his name, for whatever purported reasons
(publicity, most likely). He willfully has chosen this as his legal name, and
while the name (or his reasons) might be silly or frivolous, I think he is
owed the due respect of calling him by his chosen name.

Other noteworthy examples of late have been Ron Artest changing his name to
"Metta World Peace" and Chad Johnson to "Chad Ochocinco" (which he may have
changed back, I cannot recall at this time).

Their chosen names may too be silly or frivolous, and I have seen media
examples where they have called it out and said "forget that, I'm calling him
Ron Artest/Chad Johnson, I don't care what his legal name is."

In my belief this is patently disrespectful, in the same way that it was
disrespectful for people to call Muhammed Ali "Cassius" after he changed his
name, and in the same way it would be disrespectful for me to call you by some
name that you did not wish to be called by (legally, for religious purposes,
or any other personal reason).

I do fully understand your stance and I wouldn't call it "wrong", I just don't
agree with it.

~~~
planetguy
>In my belief this is patently disrespectful, in the same way that it was
disrespectful for people to call Muhammed Ali "Cassius" after he changed his
name

Possibly, but since I don't respect Kimmy, it's appropriate that I should call
him by his (sensible) birth name rather than the (ridiculous and embarrassing)
name he chose for himself.

I don't respect Cassius Clay much either. Seriously, all that bragging is
_gauche_. Saying you're "the greatest" just because you're pretty good at
punching people? Get back to me when you've won a Fields Medal, dude.

~~~
awj
> Saying you're "the greatest" just because you're pretty good at punching
> people? Get back to me when you've won a Fields Medal, dude.

If there were such a thing as a Fields Medal for boxing, Ali would have won
it. He wasn't just "good at punching people", he brought in techniques that
changed the sport.

It's fine that you are comfortable being as ignorant about boxing as most
people are about math. That's your prerogative. That said, dismissing
someone's accomplishments based on your ignorance is a shitty thing to do.

~~~
planetguy
No, what I'm saying is that punching people isn't a worthwhile endeavour.

~~~
neotek
You are not the grand arbiter of worthwhile endeavours.

------
ChuckMcM
Interesting comment stream.

In one view you have 'America, World Police' being handed a defeat. That is a
good thing because I believe that both the precedents the USA is trying to set
on the world scene are wrong, they will also come back to roost in unpleasant
ways.

In one view you have a victory for the Libertarian Internet which gives us a
stronger 'nation independent' view of the Internet, but this is part of a
wider set of events which are trying to figure out the role of the
'information-state' if such a thing could exist. This is stuff SF writers have
chewed on considerably and to see it in 'real life' is fascinating.

In the third view we have someone who has many of the characteristics of
'nerds' which seem to have taken on some of the aspects of a counter culture.

The interesting things is that this fiasco has neatly tied together three on-
going 'conversations' [1] about the autonomy of the Internet, the role of
nation states in world government, and the rise of 'nerd culture'.

As we enter the 'post-American' century the discussion of world government
will be be, by far, the most influential on our day to day lives, but the
autonomy of the Internet will also become a central theme, much as human
rights is a central theme in our interactions. The story of Kim Dotcom will
then fade to being the tag line for one of the things that shaped how we feel
about the first two.

[1] The term 'conversations' here is used to indicate that its a topic of
discussion at all levels of our society with various competing views fighting
for dominance as the 'group consensus'. This is also the name of the process
by which a community arrives at a common understanding much like two people
conversing about the topic might come to a consensus.

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zaphar
I'm curious now. Does the warrant being invalid open the US up to a class
action suite from people who lost data? I know nothing about the law regarding
this sort of thing but its what immediately leaped to my mind when I saw this
article.

[Edit: spelling]

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pdeuchler
Does Dotcom have any legal recourse to sue the FBI/US Gov't if he is found not
guilty/the case is thrown out?

People need to realize that this kind of action is not O.K., and those
responsible should be brought to justice.

~~~
rhizome
Nobody can sue the US Government without the US Government's permission.

~~~
mkaltenecker
US citizens most certainly can.

~~~
nnnnnnnn
No, they cannot. Sovereign immunity is absolute. US citizens can only sue when
granted permission.

As 30thElement noted, the Federal Tort Claims Act grants this permission to
sue. But there is no such right, and it is within the Federal government's
power to change its mind and repeal the statute.

~~~
mkaltenecker
You mean civil lawsuits? That’s not what I was talking about.

~~~
rhizome
What were you talking about then? "Suing" is always a civil action. Taking
someone to court for a criminal act is called prosecution and can't be done by
just anybody.

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PerryCox
Previous discussion: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4170398>

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res0nat0r
I asked this in the other thread but no one responded so I'll try here again:
This appears related to Dotcoms house raid and seizure. Is the raid on all of
the servers in VA still valid? I'd assume that is where the majority of all of
the evidence in this case lies, and if that is still valid there is still a
huge case to be had. Does anyone know?

~~~
redthrowaway
The raid in VA is "valid" until a US court says otherwise. The NZ court only
has jurisdiction over those parts of the case that pertain to NZ, although it
_has_ ordered the US to turn over any evidence they have on K.C to his
defense. Again, though, that's only as it relates to the extradition process.

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drivingmenuts
Cold comfort, since the FBI will keep his servers tied up in knots until the
end of time and most likely, refuse to pay for the loss of business.

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flyinRyan
Wonderful! Kim Dotcom doesn't seem like the cleanest of individuals but the US
government is even worse. I hope that people in NZ law enforcement suffer
enough career damage that other countries think twice before simply bending
over for US exceptionalism.

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adamsmith
If the 150 TB's slowed down local law enforcement enough to make them
mishandle the warrant, any bets on how many petabytes he'll have waiting for
them next time? : )

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wissler
The US government has successfully destroyed the world's largest storage
medium that they couldn't just walk in and spy on without detection (US-based
companies are subject to The Patriot Act and other "laws" that stand in
defiance of The US Constitution).

I don't see how this counts as a "victory." It is probably all part of the
game plan.

~~~
flyinRyan
But on the good side, it should be harder to get other countries to simply
play the bitch and do whatever the US says in future.

~~~
njharman
That's not how these things work. Governments don't give up. Next time they
will not make same mistake or get laws passed so this is no longer
mistake/illegal or just do it again the same and gamble they get a more
cooperative judge.

~~~
flyinRyan
Every country is not the US. There are still a lot of countries where the
people have some say in what goes on and fight against such laws getting
created in the first place.

~~~
beagle3
Care to name them? I've been looking for them, and can't find any.

~~~
flyinRyan
Well I can think of at least two direct democracies: Switzerland and Iceland.

~~~
beagle3
Switzerland is better than the US when it comes to corruption, but it's a far
cry from people really having a say.

Iceland HAS recently changed from a politician's country to the people's
country, but it took going broke to do so. (If it wasn't for people literally
in the streets with pitchforks, the Icelandic prime minister would have signed
the country away to European interests).

But I'll accept the premise. So, we've got 2 countries out of a couple of
hundreds. That's not "a lot" by any meaning of the word. That's one country
(Switzerland) that has recently demonstrated it will do the US' bidding about
bank secrecy, despite hundreds of years of tradition (with no asking the
people if they like it or not), and Iceland - a country of <400,000 people.
That's slightly larger than Rochester, NY. It's comparable to the number of
people who lose their job in the US every week.

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maeon3
Kim will get his servers and hardware back.... Pulverized to pieces by the
might of a legion of pissed off FBI data workers who had their power checked
and found lacking. You gotta set an example that even when you win a battle
against organized crime, they make you pay dearly for every inch.

~~~
danielweber
I thought he had leased them all.

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Squazic
His wife is hot.

~~~
vecinu
She's only there for his money.

Kim isn't a hero, nice or generous person. He's just a geek with money who is
now 'abusing' his new found wealth.

I don't look up to him, personally.

~~~
J3L2404
Well you are one of the few on HN. Although a lot of it is probably more of a
hate America thing, which is always popular.

~~~
kaonashi
Right, because disagreeing with U.S. government policy is equivalent to hating
the entirety of America.

~~~
J3L2404
I meant a sympathetic view towards dingleberry was partly due to a dislike of
America( government, corporations, certain people) and not because they think
he is a swell chap.

