Kim Dotcom - the law justifies its own illegal actions

Kim Dotcom to appeal against verdict that New Zealand raid was legal

Megaupload founder who is fighting extradition to the US on internet piracy charges says he will take case to supreme court

The Guardian

19 February, 2014

The Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom, who is fighting extradition from New Zealand to the US on internet piracy charges, has said he will appeal against a court ruling that a raid on his mansion was legal.

The New Zealand court of appeal has thrown out a 2012 decision of the high court that the warrants used were invalid because they were not specific enough and did not properly describe his offences. The warrants preceded Dotcom’s arrest and were used to seize 135 electronic items including laptops, computers, hard drives, flash sticks and servers in January 2012.

But the appeals court decided that while the warrants were defective in some respects it was not enough to declare them invalid.

On Thursday Dotcom announced on Twitter that he was not giving up the fight against extradition.

The appeals court has ruled no miscarriage of justice occurred and no more items were seized than if the warrants had been perfect. “We are satisfied that the defects in the search warrants have not caused any significant prejudice to the respondents beyond the prejudice caused inevitably by the execution of a search warrant,” the judgment said.

The raid was performed at the request of the US department of justice, which is trying to extradite Dotcom and his three co-accused, Finn Batato, Mathias Ortmann and Bram Van der Kolk, on criminal copyright violation and racketeering charges. The charges relate to the quartet’s running of now-defunct filesharing website Megaupload.

While the court of appeal overturned the decision on the validity of the warrants, it did agree with the high court that clones of Dotcom’s material should not have been taken to the United States. Forensic clones of electronic items were made and handed to the FBI, which took them to the US in March 2012. The appeals court said this should only have happened if New Zealand’s solicitor general gave permission, which he had not.

Late in 2012 the New Zealand prime minister, John Key, admitted pre-raid spying on Dotcom by the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) was illegal because Dotcom was a New Zealand resident. The government later sparked a civil rights outcry when it passed new laws allowing the GCSB to engage in such surveillance.