I find this whole case very interesting (maybe I am wrong but I don't see the difference between MEGA and dropbox or Google Drive), but I too found the New Zealand push back to be eye opening and refreshing as well. As a US citizen, reading about the paramilitary assault style arrest, I figured there would be the typical international outrage - that the US/FBI is pulling the strings of foreign governments.
I never once gave consideration to the notion that governments using helicopters and military style weapons in an arrest, would offend the sensibilities of ordinary citizenry. NZ's condemnation of the military style assault and the actual apologies from NZ officials was the most eye opening. This made me realize how engrained and accepted these types of operations are in the US (at least for me personally), even for non-violent crimes - a local example that comes to mind was the military style extraction of Elian Gonzalez.
There is even a phrase used among lawyers that you can beat the rap but you can't beat the ride, meaning you will be arrested guilty or not, the time to make your case is not during the arrest but in a court of law...I used to laugh about this phrase, now it disgusts me.
To be fair, it's a great ride. You seriously can't beat it as a learning tool. Lawyers and their double meanings, eh? :)
As for not being able to stop the ride, I used to agree with you, but I've since learned how to beat it. At least in North America, the trick is to counter their offers (arrest, obligation to show ID, etc) with a demand for consideration. That consideration can be in the form of payment, information, or performance on their end.
Basically, Kim Dotcom needs to have a chat with Timothy Geihtner about how he was released from the main NYPD station (less than four hours after being arrested for felonies), and he'll never spend a night in Jail again.
Kim loved to pose with automatic weapons and is a felon, the only thing NZ had to apologize for in regards to how they handled the raid was not realizing he is a clown.
Edit: No one seems to be arguing that he is not a clown, but I can't blame them as that is a hard argument to make.
This is no indication that he would violently resist arrest, which is the only reasonable justification for these types of raids. Military tactics should be confined to the cases where there is a risk of violence; intimidation should not be a part of the process of serving an arrest warrant in the average case.
I do not know enough about German law vis-a-vis NZ law and the right to carry weapons, to comment. KIM may have been convicted, but I do not know if he is a "Felon" or what that even means under German law, because it may not be the same as the US legal term felon. I do not think NZ apologized for not knowing KIM was a clown, but they apologized for the unnecessary use of force, what I am saying is the US (even me) would have justified this kind of use of force not thinking twice, but NZ has a different attitude where police do not normally carry fire arms1, much less use military assault weapons for exercising warrants, especially for non-violent crimes despite how many pictures the suspect took with automatic weapons.
"Even the police officer says there has never been a raid like this before in New Zealand."2
Kim Dotcom is one of my favorite personalities... he's basically a real life James Bond villain, except that he's kind of the good guy. It's awesome to see him stand up to this stuff and even win against systems that want to see him fail completely.
So your notion of "good guy" is someone with convictions for embezzlement, insider trading, and trafficking in stolen goods? Someone who only appears to have ever engaged in non-criminal businesses when he was on parole from prior convictions and so HAD to keep clean?
It depends on your own moral compass. I, for example, never got the idea of why white collar crime is such a big deal. I see money as a "temporary" thing which you have to manage based on your individual risk perspective. I know that this is an unpopular view, but I never understood why Madoff got such a long sentence, longer than someone murderer get. Physical integrity is irreplaceable while money comes and goes.
I disagree. I know the discussion around him since he started his "hacking" career in Germany. He certainly knows how to show off and present himself, but I don't think there is much more substance to it. Attrition.org has a nice list about his actions [0].
While I applaud the push back and the increased interest in civil rights, I'm not really happy that it pushes Mr Kimble to a "hero status" and just gives him more credibility.
So a lot of his crimes are pretty far in the past now (20 years in some cases).
So I'm thinking that "never forgive, never forget" is the motto here? Rehabilitation is not possible? I think you are forgetting that many "praiseworthy" individuals in history have dark pasts. Whitewashing your past to present the most favorable version of yourself has a long and honorable tradition. Recent examples would be Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. Older would be people like Rockafeller, JP Morgan and basically anyone having anything to do with the railroads.
Personally though, I am attracted to people like Kim and Jobs not because of their "good image" but because they have a dark side.
To use a super-hero analogy... I find Iron Man a much more compelling hero than superman. Why is this? Superman is basically the perfect person, he has few real moral dilemmas, nor does he have any lengthly struggles. Superman never has depression, dark thoughts, a dark legacy to overcome, and so on.
Compared to the way Iron Man is portrayed in the recent movies, Iron Man/Stark is very human, has tons of flaws, but still manages to do good all in all. Stark has a dark legacy, both in his family and personally. He suffers from depression, anxiety, obsessive behavior, grandiose and offensive behavior. The interesting part comes from the struggle between the dark and the light.
Only by embracing the light and dark sides of ourselves, can we truly grow past the dark parts and do good out there. Given the way our brains work, its practically a given that we are going to screw up in our younger years.
This makes me proud to be a New Zealand citizen and to be considering moving there permanently after many years around the world. A hearty congratulations to fellow global internet-using (or not) citizens, and to Kim: you all deserved this win.
Or as kiwi youth would nominally mumble: 'wicked cher bro'.
Your government is exporting corruption. The best place to fight it would be at home, and it needs more attention (you know what's wrong, do something!).
I'm curious as to who you work for. Your post history seems to show that you respond to specific types of posts, and you're regularly downvoted to oblivion here.
Forgive me for the Ad Hominem.
As to your comment, a proper court was convened, and the process was correct. An excessive show of force was used, not for Dotcom particularly, but as a message/deterrent done in good faith to show others interested in going down this same path (of running an encrypted file locker, I guess). This is fully in accordance with all Commonwealth law systems, NZ included. I don't think anyone is making the argument that the NZ police were doing anything more than marching to the orders given to them (and ultimately supervised) by the US. None of the police on the scene were ever charged or reprimanded for any wrongdoing in the Dotcom Case. Why? Because they were just doing their job on a special day. They've all had terrorism training, and they were about to assist in the apprehension of an international terrorist (you know, like Assange, and Neij).
Now, with this in mind, why did a public official resign due to this fully lawful raid? because the people demanded that he did. The people were unhappy, and wanted someone to take responsibility for this massive screw-up. When that happened, someone resigned. This means that NZ's government still listens to (and fears) its people, and that might hold true for the rest of the Commonwealth as well. Could you imagine if the US government actually listened to its people? Could you imagine if the US citizens actually cared?
So how long have you been working for the movie industry? I hear it's nice work. Hopefully, you're being paid for it. They tend to use a lot of "Useful Idiots" to spread their message free of charge, but I'm sure that's not you.
I take it you're in agreement with everything else I said, as well?
I quite liked Kim. But lately he's been nothing else than a guy that's in media so much he becomes incredibly annoying (to hear news about him/her/them).
Something similar to Lana del Rey in music business, Julian Assange in politics, Messi in football and Ryan Gosling in film.
This is why it's so difficult to motivate the public about important issues outside the typical emotional hotbuttons: people get bored before the issue is resolved, the media can overload an issue with coverage to induce this boredom, or the issue is buried by overloading something completely irrelevant to societal wellbeing.
I'm sure the New Zealand Supreme Court is awesome, but I wonder how much traction this would've gotten if it was not publicized all around the world...
I'm not sure what you're trying to say? That NZ has a corrupt judiciary? It may be incestuous, but I think that's a (very big) stretch to call it corrupt and imply that, were it not for the media attention, it would be for sale.
Not at all. When this story first made headlines, I thought: Why did the NZ government allow the US to do this on their land in the first place? I just noticed that in the states, sometimes you don't necessarily get treated fairly in edge cases until you make a lot of noise (blogs, videos, etc.).
Of course, IANAL and I have no idea how the legal system works...
