
Megaupload Seizure Order “Null and Void” Says High Court - llambda
http://torrentfreak.com/megaupload-seizure-order-null-and-void-says-high-court-120318/
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mikeryan
Kim Dotcom's personal asset seizure null and void. Not the seizure of
Megaupload assets. This really has very little bearing on the Megaupload case
as a whole.

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rbanffy
Unless it may reflect an overall careless (or worse, abusive) attitude by the
various prosecution teams. This is a tough case, involving many jurisdictions
and different civil, criminal and process law and, worse of all, driven by
economic pressure by companies that are being questioned on many levels for
using law enforcement as thugs, as well as other shady business practices.

If they want to win this case, they'd better do all their homework flawlessly,
dot all i's and cross all t's. If they don't, it will set a precedent that
will frame future cases like this.

And there will be many more of them.

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chappi42
An error has been made and is now beeing admitted. A good sign for a working
jurisdiction imo.

While companies may be questioned I much more question the ethics of this kim
distributing copyrighted material without compensating the authors and then
buying ferraris instead. Not a role model I'd like to prevail.

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dstorrs
Why is this being downvoted? It's not the popular view in these parts but it's
a legitimate one and did not strike me as trolling.

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rbanffy
I believe people disagree with him and downvoting has replaced discussion in
many cases. You may downvote a comment that's plain wrong, but you shouldn't
do it if someone else already countered the argument.

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afterburner
"Rather than applying for an interim restraining order, the Police
Commissioner applied for a foreign restraining order instead, one which did
not give Dotcom a chance to mount a defense."

This makes a case for the mistake being deliberate, since it may have given
the police the element of surprise or let them move quicker on the seizures.

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Todd
This is great news. Seizure laws are terrible. The ability of a government to
destroy a business without due process should not be permitted (especially a
foreign government). It's unfortunate that the ruling is based on a
technicality.

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fl3tch
I get what you're saying, but imagine that someone stole your TV, and the
police found the guy, but they didn't get your TV back because the courts
hadn't convicted the perpetrator yet. They should at least hold the assets in
escrow until a resolution is reached, otherwise people could just spend /
destroy the assets. Many courts will require a perpetrator to pay restitution
in cases where a victim is financially harmed, but in this case there's nobody
to pay back, just millions of dollars to blow before an inevitable conviction.

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driverdan
Original story:
[http://www.nzherald.co.nz/technology/news/article.cfm?c_id=5...](http://www.nzherald.co.nz/technology/news/article.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10792862)

Let's hope it's struck down but I'm going to guess they'll hold up the proper
order under pressure from the US.

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eli
There is already a thread on this on the front page:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3718922>

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yaix
So there is a police guy who doesn't know how to do his job meeting a judge
who doesn't know how to do his job, and all on a case that gets world wide,
front page press coverage. Talk about bad luck.

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gwillen
Bad luck... or evidence of officials being systematically bad at their jobs.

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powertower
The first order is void. The validity of the second order (that corrected the
original issue) is still up for debate (if I read this correctly).

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tathagatadg
This is a totally off topic but are those legal terms or that 2012 is code
year?

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user2459
_"The blunder, which occurred because the police applied for the wrong type of
court order..."_

Blunder my ass, sounds like abuse of power that, against the police hopes,
ended up being checked.

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JeremyBanks
I'm skeptical that they could have deliberately done something wrong just
hoping it wouldn't get noticed. This is a very high-profile case; they would
be expecting a lot scrutiny.

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reitzensteinm
Plus the guy can afford the very best of legal counsel. Any holes in the case
are sure to get found and exploited.

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DanBC
All his money has been seized. He might not get it back. Some countries
separate out the mis-handling of a case form the actual case.

"Fruit of the poison tree"[1] doesn't hold in the UK, for example.

[1] (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruit_of_the_poisonous_tree>)

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joering2
Google couldnt find anything to prove this to me, but if its true then how the
country can properly function (UK) if cops can do whethever the heck they want
to as long as they get the "evidence" as a result. no idea.

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DanBC
Cops can't do whatever they like to get evidence. But evidence is not thrown
out because the police used the wrong warrant or whatnot. Maybe the officer
doing wrong would face disciplinary procedures (resulting in loss of pension
and job) or maybe they'd face criminal trial.

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joering2
there won't be nothing. Cops whether break law or not don't get in trouble, by
the rule. There is exemption but its a statistical noise just to make people
feel like there is a justice.

