Dotcom search warrants ruled illegal - Polidicks

[QUOTE] A High Court judge has ruled that police search warrants used to seize property from Kim Dotcom were illegal. Justice Helen Winkelmann found that the warrants used did not properly describe the offences to which they were related. The FBI agents had been accused of underhanded behaviour by Dotcom's lawyers in the High Court after they secretly copied data from his computers and took it overseas. [HR][/HR] Justice Winkelmann has also ruled it was unlawful for copies of Dotcom's computer data to be taken offshore. Police said they were considering the judgment and were in discussions with Crown Law "to determine what further action might be required". Police would not make any further comment on the judgement until then. Dotcom spoke at a meeting at his local Coatesville Settlers' Hall tonight, but entered through a back door and would not speak to reporters. A spokesman for Dotcom said the internet millionaire was "pleased" with the ruling, but he would not be making any further comment on the decision as appeals are likely, [URL="http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/kim-dotcom-pleased-police-search-ruled-illegal-4950160"]TVNZ reported[/URL]. Justice Winkelmann ordered that no more items taken in the raids could be removed from New Zealand, and instructed the attorney-general to return clones of the hard drives held by New Zealand police. She said the search warrants were invalid because they were general warrants which lacked specificity about the offence and the scope of the items to be searched for. Without a valid warrant, police were trespassing and exceeded what they were lawfully authorised to do. Justice Winkelmann said no one had addressed whether police conduct also amounted to unreasonable search and seizure, but her preliminary view was that it did. Detective Inspector Grant Wormald said that although police were able to decide what documents and digital storage devices should be seized, they had no request from the Central Authority to proceed on that basis. His understanding was that the attorney-general would direct that the items seized would immediately be sent to the US to be examined there. The judge said the domestic courts were the best place to determine compliance with domestic laws. There were deficiencies in the description of the offences in the case. The warrants did not stipulate that the offences of breach of copyright and money laundering were offences under the law of the United States. They do not refer to any law that would allow the subject of the warrant to understand the offences. This "would no doubt cause confusion to the subjects of the searches...they would likely read the warrants as authorising a search for evidence of offences as defined by New Zealand law". The Megaupload founder's lawyer, Paul Davison QC, said the warrant provided inadequate definition of the offence. This meant that there was an inadequate definition of what was being searched for. "Copyright can exist in many things," Justice Winkelmann said. Police had said they had no intention of sorting items seized in the raid from the "relevant" to the "irrelevant" and would leave that to the FBI. However, the judge said that approach was not available to them. The law stated that only applicable items in the investigation could be sent to a foreign authority. Dotcom had earlier questioned the legality of the search warrants police used to raid his mansion in January. Davison told the High Court at Auckland last month that police carried out a sweep of electronic equipment. He alleged 135 data storage devices were taken during the police raid. Dotcom, 38, is on bail awaiting an extradition hearing. US authorities say he and his three co-accused - Mathias Ortmann, Fin Batato and Bram van der Kolk - used Megaupload and its affiliated sites to knowingly make money from pirated movies and games. Dotcom is charged with multiple copyright offences. Megaupload's lawyer, Willie Akel, last month told Auckland High Court that two FBI analysts flew to New Zealand on March 20 and reviewed seven hard drives of information. The analysts cloned the computers in Manukau. [/QUOTE] [URL]http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/digital-living/7188234/Dotcom-search-warrants-ruled-illegal[/URL] The day they took all his stuff I wondered how it was legal, turns out it wasn't.

good maybe we will get all our shit back.

Stupid FBI.

Like the US is going to respect a ruling by New Zealand's courts. It doesn't even matter, destroying his business and making an example to others was the real goal here.

Wont change anything

Am I the only one that doesn't understand all the love for Kim Dotcom? He knowingly ran and profited off of one of the biggest sources of pirated products on the internet. Piracy is not a good thing.

[QUOTE=TheCloak;36533986]Am I the only one that doesn't understand all the love for Kim Dotcom? He knowingly ran and profited off of one of the biggest sources of pirated products on the internet. Piracy is not a good thing.[/QUOTE] They were pretty vigilant in nuking copy righted material. That's like saying every gun company CEO should be tried for every murder their product commits.

[QUOTE=TheCloak;36533986]Am I the only one that doesn't understand all the love for Kim Dotcom? He knowingly ran and profited off of one of the biggest sources of pirated products on the internet. Piracy is not a good thing.[/QUOTE] It's not love as much as just outrage against the way the whole thing was conducted. He is a shady character, but the way he was treated and the way FBI acted made people side with Dotcom.

[QUOTE=TheCloak;36533986]Am I the only one that doesn't understand all the love for Kim Dotcom? He knowingly ran and profited off of one of the biggest sources of pirated products on the internet. Piracy is not a good thing.[/QUOTE] It's not a love for Dotcom, it's a hate for having every other legitimate thing on a decent file-sharing website destroyed

[QUOTE=-nesto-;36534117]They were pretty vigilant in nuking copy righted material. That's like saying every gun company CEO should be tried for every murder their product commits.[/QUOTE] It was alleged that he was promoting and paying people for pirated content. This isnt a case of him being prosecuted because pirated content was present but because it was being promoted.

[QUOTE=BusterBluth;36534184]It was alleged that he was promoting and paying people for pirated content. This isnt a case of him being prosecuted because pirated content was present but because it was being promoted.[/QUOTE] Ah, I never knew that side of it. I only heard his defense of "I provide a service and can't control what people do with it"

[QUOTE=-nesto-;36534252]Ah, I never knew that side of it. I only heard his defense of "I provide a service and can't control what people do with it"[/QUOTE] Well every time anything about this case comes up that's what everyone seems to think. There was actually a whole lot a serious criminal charges including money laundering. Every video interview Dotcom does he ignores the actual charges and promotes the idea that he is being victimized.

That means that any evidence collected from his stuff is now void. Good job there FBI.

[QUOTE=-nesto-;36534252]Ah, I never knew that side of it. I only heard his defense of "I provide a service and can't control what people do with it"[/QUOTE] They did comply with takedown requests from copyright holders. The copyright holders just didn't fill out as much paperwork as they should have.

[QUOTE=BusterBluth;36534526]Well every time anything about this case comes up that's what everyone seems to think. There was actually a whole lot a serious criminal charges including money laundering. Every video interview Dotcom does he ignores the actual charges and promotes the idea that he is being victimized.[/QUOTE] It's not a matter of whether or not Kim Dotcom is a bad guy, maybe he is, but he's also innocent until proven guilty not declared guilty and dragged off by the Fed. The problem here is the way the FBI chose to go after him was wrong and extremely underhanded. I for one don't believe the FBI for a second, I think they're full of shit and were just looking for a villain to put on display even if they had to make one. Sound familiar? They do it all the time.

[QUOTE=RR_Raptor65;36537192] I for one don't believe the FBI for a second, I think they're full of shit and were just looking for a villain to put on display even if they had to make one. Sound familiar? They do it all the time.[/QUOTE] Kim has been arrested in the past involving embezzlement and insider trading so I wouldn't put these charges past him. And I have heard nothing of this case outside of Facepunch so I doubt the FBI is doing this for publicity.

[QUOTE=-nesto-;36534117]They were pretty vigilant in nuking copy righted material. That's like saying every gun company CEO should be tried for every murder their product commits.[/QUOTE] They destroyed the links, not the actual content. [editline]28th June 2012[/editline] [QUOTE=BusterBluth;36537575]Kim has been arrested in the past involving embezzlement and insider trading so I wouldn't put these charges past him. And I have heard nothing of this case outside of Facepunch so I doubt the FBI is doing this for publicity.[/QUOTE] Hell, we don't know which warrants these go to. He kept everything in separate places.

[QUOTE=VengfulSoldier;36537983]They destroyed the links, not the actual content.[/QUOTE] Oh shit that's true, the server company that's hosting all of the MU content has to foot the bill because no one will and they can't simply delete it all. This is something else the FBI fucked up.

[QUOTE=TheCloak;36533986]Am I the only one that doesn't understand all the love for Kim Dotcom? He knowingly ran and profited off of one of the biggest sources of pirated products on the internet. Piracy is not a good thing.[/QUOTE] This, don't get me wrong I'm as upset they shut down all of megaupload as anyone, but something did have to be done about him. And also, I honestly hope this "ruling" doesn't affect anything, they invented a new type of technicality just for the purpose of letting him off the hook. That ain't right.

[QUOTE=asteroidrules;36546069]This, don't get me wrong I'm as upset they shut down all of megaupload as anyone, but something did have to be done about him. And also, I honestly hope this "ruling" doesn't affect anything, they invented a new type of technicality just for the purpose of letting him off the hook. That ain't right.[/QUOTE] It's not a [I]new[/I] type of 'technicality', there's no technicality here at all. The court has found what the police/fbi did was [B]illegal. [/B] That's not a techicality, it's the law. What exactly do you think Kim has actually done?

[QUOTE=Fedalkyn;36562704] What exactly do you think Kim has actually done?[/QUOTE] Racketeering, money laundering, copyright infringement, all that good stuff.

[QUOTE=BusterBluth;36566934]Racketeering, money laundering, copyright infringement, all that good stuff.[/QUOTE] That's what the FBI believe he has done, they have no actual evidence otherwise. Any evidence they did have that might have proved this is now null and void due to the warrants being ruled illegal.

[QUOTE=Teddi Orange;36567212]That's what the FBI believe he has done, they have no actual evidence otherwise. Any evidence they did have that might have proved this is now null and void due to the warrants being ruled illegal.[/QUOTE] They issued the indictment several weeks before the actual raid took place, so Im willing to bet they do have significant evidence against Dotcom.

[QUOTE=BusterBluth;36567364]They issued the indictment several weeks before the actual raid took place, so Im willing to bet they do have significant evidence against Dotcom.[/QUOTE] The raid was about megaupload, the point of all this is megaupload. Megaupload did nothing illegal in itself. It's just selling hard drive space on a server, and it's not their business, and there's no real way of keeping track of exactly what people upload. There's nothing in the law to say this is illegal. It seems certain people WANT it to be illegal, and Kim would make a perfect ogre to sway ignorant public opinion to their own ends. As far as raiding his house, it WAS illegal, and seemed very strongly to be an attempt to dig up some dirt on him to shut down his website and set some kind of an example, in my opinion. It's bad when a private citizen does something illegal, it's far, far worse when government and law enforcement acts illegally, which is why I'd worry about that rather than Kim himself. And so far, only the forces investigating Kim have actually been found doing anything illegal. I don't like him as a person, he seems a pretty arrogant and loathsome individual, but that doesn't mean he's done anything wrong, that's not what the law is for.