Kim Dot Com Loses Case In Govt Appeal

[GhostShip]

An abrupt about turn has given the US fresh hope in their extradition proceedings in the case of Kim Dot Com.

http://gigaom.com/2014/02/19/kim-dotcom-is-likely-to-face-us-justice-after-new-zealand-court-upholds-warrants/

This week, the New Zealand Court of Appeals ruled that search warrants used to seize evidence — including 135 hard drives, laptops and flash drives — from Dotcom’s mansion were valid, which will strengthen prosecutors’ hand in upcoming extradition hearings.

The decision overturns a lower court ruling last year that declared the warrants illegal because they were too broad and failed to specify a criminal act that justified the search. Dotcom had objected that law enforcement had grabbed nearly everything they could lay their hands on during a raid involving guns and helicopters.

The appeals court acknowledged that the scope of the search was broad, and noted that New Zealand doesn’t have a crime of “breach of copyright,” but said the warrant defects were technical and not enough to strike the warrants altogether.

A strange title for this gigacom article when its already clear "justice" has nothing to do with what is a politically motivated economic attack on this guy, he will of course be appealing this decision.

It does seem a tad wrong to act in this way when the offence that  was claimed does not even exist on the NZ statute books, that is in my opinion a lot more than a "technical oversight", its the underpinning of the rule of law that you can only be lawfully charged with a valid offence ratified in national law,such  laws are however open to a lot of reinterpretation in some countries that are moving away from democracy and into police states.

[Trestor]

I remember listening to a radio show sometime in the 1980s in which there was a discussion about the newly emerging collecting of citizen's information into government computer databases.

I recall that one fellow said that the fears about such information being in the hands of totalitarian states would be a matter of great concern, but the western democracies were "moderately benign", as he put it, but who knows what might happen in the future if different governments came to power.

Fast track to the present. Anyone who has a pulse on alternative media sources (as opposed the main stream media) will be aware that "moderately benign" does not describe the sort of western nations we have now. The hands of governments across the world are increasingly against the people, especially those who are battling to maintain the rule of law, their constitutions and personal rights. We can see that even in New Zealand the rule of law is brushed aside if it doesn't support what the tyrants want.

This is definitely not the world I was born into.

[..Ñøßߥ..]

The manner in which "the case" against Dot Com has been handled is an utter disgrace, the whole things stinks. Helicopters, dogs, special forces armed with automatic weapons, just to arrest one internet geek (albeit a large chap) on suspicion of some kind of copyright charge? I think more men and resources on the ground  were used againt this poor guy and his terrified family than they used to get Bin Laden, madness. I have followed this case with interest and whilst I am not a Dot Com fan especially, you can't help but warm to the way this guy is fighting this.