Kim
Dotcom wants to encrypt half of the Internet to end government
surveillance
Full
interview
25
January, 2013
In
an in-depth interview, Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom discusses the
investigation against his now-defunct file-storage site, his possible
extradition to the US, the future of Internet freedoms and his latest
project Mega with RT’s Andrew Blake.
Megaupload
founder Kim Dotcom (C) launches his new file sharing site "Mega",
surrounded by dancers, in Auckland January 20, 2013. (Reuters/Nigel
Marple)
The
United States government says that Dotcom, a German millionaire
formerly known as Kim Schmitz, masterminded a vast criminal
conspiracy by operating the file-storage site Megaupload. Dotcom, on
the other hand, begs to differ. One year after the high-profile raid
of his home and the shut-down and
seizure of one of the most popular sites on the Web, Dotcom hosted
a launch
party for
his latest endeavor, simply called Mega. On the anniversary of the
end of Megaupload, Dotcom discusses the year since his arrest and
what the future holds in regards to both his court case and the
Internet alike. Speaking with RT’s Andrew Blake from his
Coatesville, New Zealand mansion, Dotcom weighs in on the US justice
system, the death of Aaron Swartz, the growing surveillance state,
his own cooperation with the feds and much more.
Megaupload
founder Kim Dotcom (2nd R) poseswith actors dessed as police after
the launch of his new website at a press conference held inside his
home in Auckland on January 20, 2013. (AFP Photo/Michael Bradley)
'Hollywood
is a very important contributor to Obama'
RT: You’ve
blamed President Obama and the Obama administration for colluding
with movie companies in order to orchestrate this giant arrest here
in New Zealand. Is this kind of give-and-take relationship between
Washington and Hollywood all that you say it is? Or are you just the
exception? Does this really exist?
Kim
Dotcom: You
have to look at the players behind this case, okay? The driving
force, of course, is Chris Dodd, the chairman of the MPAA [Motion
Picture Association of America]. And he was senator for a long time
and he is — according to [US Vice President] Joe Biden — Joe
Biden’s best friend. And the state attorney that is in charge of
this case has been Joe Biden’s personal counsel, Neil
MacBride,
and [he] also worked as an anti-piracy manager for the BSA, the
Business Software Association, which is basically like the MPAA but
for software companies.
And
also, the timing is very interesting, you know? Election time. The
fundraisers in Hollywood set for February, March [and] April. There
had to have some sort of Plan B, an alternative for SOPA [the Stop
Online Piracy Act], because the president certainly was aware — and
his team at the White House was aware — that if they don’t have
anything to give at those fundraisers, to those guys in Hollywood who
are eager to have more control over the Internet, they wouldn’t
have probably raised too much. And Hollywood is a very important
contributor to Obama’s campaign. Not just with money, but also with
media support. They control a lot of media: celebrity endorsements
and all that.
So
I’m sure the election plays an important role. The relationships of
the people that are in charge of this case play an important role
and, of course, we have facts that we want to present at our
extradition hearing that will show some more detail about this and
that this is not just some conspiracy theory but that this actually
happened.
Local
Maori arrive as Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom (unseen) launches his
new file sharing site "Mega" in Auckland January 20, 2013.
(Reuters/Nigel Marple)
'Operation
Takedown'
RT: The
US Justice Department wants to extradite you, a German citizen living
in New Zealand operating a business in Hong Kong. They want to
extradite you to the US. Is that even possible?
KD: That
is a very interesting question because the extradition law, the
extradition treaty in New Zealand, doesn’t really allow extradition
for copyright. So what they did, they threw some extra charges on top
and one of them is racketeering, where they basically say we are a
mafia organization and we set up our Internet business to basically
be an organized crime network that was set up and structured the way
it was just to do criminal copyright infringement. And anyone who has
every used Megaupload and has any idea about how that website worked
knows immediately that it was total nonsense. But they needed to chop
that on in order to have even a chance for extradition. But in our
opinion, you see, all of that was secondary. The primary goal was to
take down Megaupload and destroy it completely. That was their
mission and that’s why the whole thing in Hong Kong, for example,
they called it Operation Takedown. And I think everything that’s
happening now, they are trying on the fly to doctor it around, and
found a way to find a case. They probably came here and thought, “We
will find something; that these guys have done something wrong.” In
the indictment, if you actually read that, it’s more like a press
release. There’s nothing in there that has any merits.
Megaupload
founder Kim Dotcom speaks during the launch of his new website at a
press conference at his mansion in Auckland on January 20, 2013. (AFP
Photo/Michael Bradley)
RT: When
the raid happened one year ago today, it got a lot of people talking
both about the Internet and about this character, Kim Dotcom. But it
was a lot of talking and not so much action, because here it is one
year later and this case is still happening. Back up earlier this
month, and we saw Aaron Swartz — an online information activist —
pass away, and only in his mid-20s. And it got a lot of people
talking, so much so that members of Congress have actually asked for
changes to federal computer laws so that this doesn’t happen again.
What is it actually going to take to get people to stop just talking
and to actually start acting?
KD: Our
case is going to be the one that will have much more attention down
the road because it is a crucial case for Internet freedom. And I
think more and more people realize that and the government is quite
exposed here because they really went in with completely
prosecutorial abuse and overreach and ignoring due process, ignoring
our rights,spying
on us, illegal
search warrants,
illegal restraining orders, illegal
spying.
The whole picture, when you look at it, shows that this was an urgent
mission, done on a rush. “Take them down, I want them to go.” And
it was a political decision to do that. And the execution was
extremely poor, and the case is extremely poor, because that is
something they thought that they could worry about later. It was all
about the takedown. “Let’s send a strong message to Hollywood
that we are on their side.”
RT:And
now it’s been a year and nothing has progressed. At least for them.
It seems like the case is falling
apart day
by day.
KD: Let
me give you one example of how crazy this is. We have a judge here
who said, “Please show us your evidence about your racketeering
allegations. Show us that these guys were setting up some sort of
organized crime network,” because that’s what the extradition
will focus on primarily. They are using the organized crime treaty to
get us extradited. So the US appealed that and said,
“We don’t
want to show you what we have.” And then they appealed to the high
court and the high court then said, “We want to see it.” And they
just keep appealing it, all the way to the court of appeals and to
the Supreme Court. And what does that tell you? If you don’t even
want to show us your cards — show us what you have! If you have
such a strong case and are seriously interested about getting someone
extradited, why waste all this time? Just show your hand. And they
don’t have anything because we haven’t done anything wrong. We
were law abiding. We were a good corporate citizen. And they knew
that the time they came here to do this. They just wanted to take us
down.
Megaupload
founder Kim Dotcom (C) launches his new file sharing site "Mega",
with dancers, in Auckland January 20, 2013. (Reuters/Nigel Marple)
'I
want to reestablish a balance between a person and the state'
RT
:The
new program, Mega, is fully encrypted, and you’re touting it as an
encrypted program so that people will want to use it. Do you think
this is even necessary, right now, that people need encryption on the
Internet?
KD: I
think it’s important for the Internet that there is more
encryption. Because what I have learned since I got dragged into this
case is a lot about privacy abuses, about the government spying on
people. You know, the US government invests a lot of money in spy
clouds: massive data centers with hundreds of thousands of hard
drives storing data. And what they are storing is basically any
communication that traverses through US networks. And what that means
they are not spying on individuals based on a warrant anymore. They
just spy on everybody, permanently, all the time. And what that means
for you and for anybody is that if you are ever a target of any kind
of investigation, or someone has a political agenda against you, or a
prosecutor doesn’t like you, or the police wants to interpret
something in a way to get you in trouble — they can use all that
data, go through it with a comb and find things even though we think
we have nothing to hide and have done nothing wrong. They will find
something that they can nail you with and that’s why it’s wrong
to have these kinds of privacy abuses, and I decided to create a
solution that overtime will encrypt more and more of the internet. So
we start with files, we will then move to emails, and then move to
Voice-Over-IP communication. And our API [Application Programming
Interface] is available to any third-party developer to also create
their own tools. And my goal is, within the next five years, I want
to encrypt half of the Internet. Just reestablish a balance between a
person — an individual — and the state. Because right now, we are
living very close to this vision of George Orwell and I think it’s
not the right way. It’s the wrong path that the government is on,
thinking that they can spy on everybody.
Actors
in police costume mock-arrest Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom (C), as
he launches his new file sharing site "Mega" in Auckland
January 20, 2013. (Reuters/Nigel Marple)
RT: Long
before Megaupload was ever taken down, the Justice Department was
looking into Ninja Video and you actually
cooperated with them.
People want to know: how is Kim Dotcom, this guy who is incredibly
against Washington and hates everything that they’ve done to him,
how is this same guy also helping out the Justice Department?
KD: Let
me explain to you how this worked, okay? I was a good corporate
citizen. My company was abiding to the laws. If we get a search
warrant or we get a request by the government to assist in an
investigation, we will comply and we have always complied. And that
is the right thing to do, because if someone uploads child
pornography or someone uploads terrorist stuff or anything that is a
serious crime, of course we are there to help. This is our
obligation. And I am not for copyright infringement. People need to
understand that. I’m against copyright infringement. But I’m also
against copyright extremism. And I’m against a business model: the
one from Hollywood that encourages piracy. Megaupload is not
responsible for the piracy problem, you see? It’s the Hollywood
studios that release a movie in the US, and then six months later in
other parts of the world.
And everyone knows that the movie is out
there and fans of a particular actress want to have it right now, but
they are not giving them any opportunity to get access to that
content even though they are willing to pay. And they are looking for
alternatives on the Internet, and then they find them. They are
trying to make me responsible for their lack of ability to adapt to a
new reality, which is the Internet, where everything happens now. It
doesn’t happen three months later. Imagine you go to Wikipedia. You
want to find something, research an article, and they tell you to
come back in three months, ‘We’ll give it to you then.’ If you
find another site where you can get it right now, that’s where you
go, right? So it’s really their business model that is responsible
for this issue. And if they don’t adopt, they will be left behind
on this side of the road of history like many others
who haven’t
adopted in the past.
Photo
by Andrew Blake
'I’m
not Aaron Swartz. Aaron Swartz is my hero. He was selfless'
RT: What
about your skeptics who point out this big playboy lifestyle and this
giant, elaborate house and say ‘He’s not worried about Internet
freedoms, he’s just worried about protecting his profits’?
KD: Let
me be clear: I am a businessman, okay? I started Megaupload as a
business to make money. I wanted to list the company. I am an
entrepreneur, alright? I’m not Aaron Swartz. Aaron Swartz is my
hero. He was selfless. He is completely the opposite of me, but I’m
a businessman. I’m driven by the success of achieving something in
the business world. That’s not a crime. There is nothing wrong with
that. And if you create something that is popular and that people
want to use, you automatically make money. And I’ve always been an
innovator. I’ve always created products that people like. And
that’s why I’m successful. I’m not successful because people
have used Megaupload for copyright infringement. And what everyone
needs to understand [is] there have been massive amounts
of legitimate
users on Megaupload.
We don’t believe that 50 million users a day are all just
transferring piracy. That’s wrong. A lot of people have used it to
back up their data, to send a file quickly to a friend. Young artists
have used it to get traction, to get downloads, to get known. There
was a lot of legitimate use on Megaupload. It’s a dual-use
technology, just like the Internet. You can go to any ISP right now,
anyone who connects customers to the Internet. And if they are honest
to you and you ask them the question ‘How much of your traffic is
peer-to-peer piracy?’ anyone who will tell you less than 50 percent
is lying to your face. This is a problem of the Internet and not
Megaupload.
RT: If
you weren’t doing Mega, or Megaupload, what would you be doing?
Here’s this businessman who strives to accomplish success. What
would you be doing?
KD: I
would probably build spaceships and we would probably already be on
Mars.
Photo
by Andrew Blake
KD: The
content industry is still very emotional about us.We bought radio ads
with one of the major networks here for eight radio stations. Very
funny, very cool ads, promoting our service as a privacy service. And
the labels called up the radio station, and one advertiser who is in
the movie business called up the radio station, and demanded those
adds to be taken down or else they will not buy ads from them
anymore. And they were forced because they rely, of course, on that
advertisement. My campaign was comparably small to the amount that
they are sending. So they used their power to interfere in our right
to have a media campaign, an ad campaign. And that just shows you
that attitude. It’s against the law. They can’t do that. That’s
interfering in our business and they have done that many times in the
past. Calling payment processors, calling advertisers, telling them,
‘I don’t want you to work with these guys.’ That’s just
wrong. If you have an issue with us, go hire a lawyer, sue us, take
us to court and then see if you have anything that will give you a
judgment against us. But instead, they use that power and their money
to get new laws made for them, to lobby politicians, to get the White
House to come here and destroy our lives. Destroy 220 jobs.
Hardworking innocent people and they don’t give a damn about that.
They had an agenda that is about more control over the Internet. And
they made a strategic decision to say ‘Who are we going to take out
to send a strong message?’ And I was the one.
Photo
by Andrew Blake
"If
they come to attack us, it’s just going to backfire"
RT: But
what happens if Mega is shut down? You are only on day one right now.
How long is it going to take before the government steps up again and
what are you going to do if that happens? Are you prepared to just
start all over again? It’s been one year and here you are, doing
this over again, what happens when Uncle Sam puts his foot down and
grinds you into the dirt again? Do you get back up?
KD: Here
is the thing. This startup is probably the most scrutinized when it
comes to legal advice. Every single aspect of it has been under the
looking glass by our legal team. So we are confident that it’s
fully compliant with the law, and if they come to attack us it’s
just going to backfire. Exactly like the Megaupload case did. The
shutdown of our site backfired already, massively. And it’s just
going to get worse for them. If they think they can pursue this and
get away with this, they are dead wrong. Because the society is not
on their side. Everyone who uses the Internet knows what’s going on
here. They don’t like what’s going on here. They saw it with SOPA
and you will see it with our case. People will come together and
fight this kind of aggression against innovation and Internet
freedom.
Photo
by Andrew Blake
"We
are all the little puppets that they think they can kick around"
RT: After
Megaupload was shut down by the FBI last year, hacktivist with the
movement Anonymous retaliated,
so to speak. In response, they went and took
down the websites for
the FBI, the Motion Picture Association of America, the Department of
Justice, the Recording Industry Association of America. All of these
organizations were shut down by Anonymous in response to what they
did to you. These were people who you never met but were so moved by
what happened that they had to stand up and do something. Did you
ever thank them, and how did you take it? How did you respond to
their reaction?
KD: It’s
a kind of virtual protest, you know? I think it’s not a good idea
to shut down websites. I’ve been a hacker myself. I understand why
they are doing it and how they are doing it, but I think there are
better ways to protest. Where you organize yourself in a group and do
petitions and actually email congressmen, email your local
politicians, let them know about what you don’t like. Organize your
movement rather than attacking. I had a sense of understanding for
them because everyone had stored so much data on Megaupload, and then
all of a sudden a site like that disappears and billions of files are
taken offline, the majority of them perfectly legitimate. You need to
understand one thing: 50 percent of all files that were ever uploaded
to Megaupload have not even been downloaded once. That clearly shows
the non-infringing use. People just wanted to store their stuff on
our site. And of course they were outraged when that disappeared and
the government said, ‘We don’t give a care and we don’t give a
damn about you people. We don’t care that you have your personal
documents there because we have our agenda and we are going to take
over the Internet.’
And you know the White House was supporting
SOPA, and only when the masses came together — and Aaron Swartz: he
stopped SOPA. With
his efforts, he stopped SOPA.
And he became a target. A political target, okay? And that’s why
all these things happened to him. There is no reasonable cause behind
going after a young genius like that in the fashion they did. It’s
political. Because the White House wanted SOPA. They promised it to
Hollywood and they failed and they couldn’t go ahead because the
White House was afraid if they keep pushing hard and they keep
pushing it forward, that the people who oppose it are not going to
vote for Obama in the reelection campaign. So it’s all a game to
them really and we are all the little puppets that they think they
can kick around. So we need to organize. There needs to be a movement
that identifies these things and fights that. Not with shutting down
websites but with real protests. Going out on the streets, writing to
politicians and especially, most importantly, don’t vote for the
guys that are against Internet freedom. Anyone who voted for SOPA,
you should have a close look at that guy. Do I want to give him my
vote next time around? Because that’s the only language politicians
understand is your vote. And if you can bring all these votes
together, somehow pooled for Internet freedom, you will see all these
efforts disappear. Because at the end of the day, they represent the
public. Politicians represent the public. And when they have enough
pressure they can’t move forward. And SOPA was the best example for
that.
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