Kim Dotcom to fight extradition, legal experts weighs in on latest legal stoush
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- An extradition order has been signed for Kit Dotcom after 12 years of legal stoushes.
- A barrister says Dotcom cannot appeal the decision, but can request a review.
- Dotcom has been vocal on social media about his ‘plan’ to fight the extradition.
It should surprise no one that a Government of American Stooges will hand Kim Dotcom over to the Americans.
I would not be surprised if this Government had privately contacted the Americans and assured them that this rigged prosecution started under John Key would be completed by Luxon.
The sad manner in which this Government are selling our independent foreign policy to the American Military Industrial Complex suggests handing Kim over is the icing on that cake.
David Fisher recaps the terrible level of incompetence and acquiescence to America that John Key locked us into…
When our elite anti-terrorist police stormed the Coatesville mansion to make arrests, the warrant they issued to Dotcom cited exactly the section of the Copyright Act which the court now says in not an extraditable offence.
It’s worth considering this in context with what else happened at the time.
There were also issues with the restraining order for Dotcom’s assets. It was the first major blunder in a case which would see others.
There were innumerable issues with the search warrant – it didn’t go through the right approval channels and contained dodgy intelligence which overstated the risk.
There was also the spying failure where it turned out the Government Communications Security Bureau – partner agency to the National Security Agency – was following a rulebook written on a misunderstanding of its own law.
And so how long was it known that it might not be possible to extradite Dotcom for alleged criminal violation of the Copyright Act?
The court hearings started to feature the word “fraud” some time after the arrest. It was at least six months and possibly a year. Prior to that, all the references were about “criminal copyright”.
Just how many errors have there been in the Dotcom case? The only thorough rinse-through of any of the errors seems to the review of the GCSB by then-Cabinet Secretary Rebecca Kitteridge.
The reason it matters is that we’re still a few years away from a conclusion to this case.
…I appreciate NZers have bought into the right wing narrative that Kim Dotcom is some Bond Villain who deserves to be thrown to the Americans. The unbelievable way New Zealanders and the mainstream media framed the Moment of Truth as a giant waste of time because Kim didn’t prove Key knew about him before he claimed shows the juvenile nature of our immaturity as a society.
The Moment of Truth had Assange, Greenwald and Edward Snowden prove without a shadow of a doubt that John Key had lied through his teeth about mass surveillance. It showed the NSA and CIA have staff here, it showed they planned to spike the sea cable and steal data directly from that feed and it showed that our GCSB went and met with the NSA to assure them the law Key had just pushed through allowed for mass surveillance despite Key telling the NZ public that it didn’t.
But what did NZ focus on? Kim not proving Key knew he existed before he claimed to have known.
This is us as a country…
…Kim was illegally spied upon by the GCSB, he was set up by NZ immigration services so that he would enter the country in the first place, our security apparatus slavishly followed US agencies with a live feed to the NSA during the raid, the entire event was politically motivated after Corporate Hollywood threatened to with-hold donations to Obama’s Presidential bid if they didn’t make a symbolic gesture against internet piracy, and the case against him is so weak it looks like incredible over reach by our authorities and US authorities…
The A-list conspiracy: Did Hollywood tell Obama to take down internet entrepreneur Kim Dotcom?
One of Dotcom’s lawyers, Robert Amsterdam, told The Independent that the criminal case against his client, which alleges that Dotcom used Megaupload as a front for a criminal enterprise that willingly shared and profited from millions of dollars’ worth of copyrighted material, is based on erroneous use of civil law and is rooted in the relationship between the upper reaches of the Democratic party and the film-making industry.
In particular, Amsterdam cites the friendship between Vice President Joe Biden and Chris Dodd, CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and a former Senator.
According to Amsterdam and his co-counsel, the US Department of Justice is going to great lengths to prosecute, and thus appease the Hollywood lobby, using racketeering laws to bolster a weak case built on non-existent civil theories of ‘secondary copyright infringement’.
“Here you have, if you excuse me, computer geeks, and they’re being treated as if they’re the heads of the Gambino crime family,” he says.
Expanding on a white paper recently released via Dotcom’s website, Amsterdam points out that the raid on Dotcom’s mansion came on the same day as the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), a bill designed to tackle online piracy, was shelved in US Congress after outcry from online giants such as Google and Facebook, which claimed it would curb online freedoms.
The day before, Dodd made comments implying that the MPAA would stop supporting President Obama if something was not done to tackle copyright infringement.
Dodd, a man Biden has described as one of his best friends, had told FOX News: “Those who count on quote ‘Hollywood’ for support need to understand that this industry is watching very carefully who’s going to stand up for them when their job is at stake. Don’t ask me to write a cheque for you when you think your job is at risk, and then don’t pay any attention to me when my job is at stake.”
For Hollywood, a considerable amount of money is certainly at stake. The MPAA estimates that online piracy costs the US film industry around $20.5bn per year. Though critics say the true figure is in the hundreds of millions, it is still a significant loss for an industry that is already facing other funding pressures after the 2008 financial crisis.
Amsterdam argues that shutting down Megaupload, and the raid on Dotcom, was a “Plan B” to pushing through SOPA.
“I think, when the President of the Motion Picture Association, on 19 January says that if people basically don’t help him out, he’s not writing any cheques, and then on the 20 January [authorities] attack my client… and throw him in jail, there’s at least an inference there that at least requires an explanation.”
Amsterdam also points to White House logs, which show President Obama hosted Chris Dodd for a two-and-a-half hour private lunch meeting in the Oval Office on 9 December 2011, six weeks before the raid.
Though some would call this conspiratorial, and sceptics will point to the many other issues a former Senator and Hollywood bigwig would discuss at the White House, Amsterdam argues that Megaupload and its founder are likely to have cropped up.
“Starting off from all of the legal grounds that exist and moving to the political nature of the attack [we must ask] ‘was this discussed in the White House?’ and ‘who said what to whom?’,” he says.
Hollywood’s long-standing financial support for the Democrats is no secret. Amsterdam describes the relationship thus: “The MPAA is to the Democrats what the NRA is to the Republicans.”
One glitzy, celebrity-packed dinner organised by George Clooney raised $15m for Obama’s re-election campaign last year.
…this case has been an abomination of legal process, jurisdiction and injustice. You might not like Kim Dotcom, but the manner in which his rights have been breached and 70 odd armed paramilitary cops broke into his home and terrorised him and his family is as unacceptable as the abuses of power used in court against him.
This is not what our justice system should be used for, we are not a puppet for US interests, we should be a sovereign state with our own laws and judicial system that is beyond influence by America and their corporate overlords.
Under this Government we are nothing but stooges for America.
Examples have to be made.
That’s what the Nazis said as well, you are a sick person.
Just doing my job.
I would not have thought that an NZ govt could be any more up the rear end of the US than they had already been. Boy, how wrong I was about that!
Good riddance. Kim Dotcom is completely QAnon pilled now.
Maybe they want him to run for president instead of trump
This article effectively ignores the fact that KDC has more opportunities in front of our courts than any other person – ever!
The courts at all levels have exhaustively examined all the possible arguments about extradition. They will now do so on the judicial review. This is a different set of questions, and no doubt will take years.
When you consider who are the Supreme Court Judges, it can’t be remotely argued that they are no more than American puppets.
Not a major fan of DCs, but have never met him either. I say that because I do know 99% of the then Internet Mana line up. He certainly put a spanner in the works of NZ politics for a brief period. Hilarious some of it when you recall–Banksie wanksie forgetting a helicopter flight to the mansion? “Fuck John Key!” video etc.
Not so funny was DCs unnecessary upfront role in Internet Mana which had a pretty damn good left wing ticket of candidates or a strategy relying on one event–MoT. Hone and Laila in Parliament would have seen a different trajectory for NZ politics at that time, but…NZ Labour queered the pitch by putting big resources into the West Auckland end of the Tai Tokerau electorate, a close friend was on a West Auck general electorate Labour LEC and described struggling for support from head office. Hone lost by 900 votes, he had an unfortunate car crash right in the middle of it all too, and national tours with KDC when he should just have stayed in the North to win TTT.
But none the less, the defence certainly rests on the actions of the various state snoops, police, NSA and American vested interests. The most obvious sucking up to US Imperialism and corporate interests in NZ history occurred during sirkey’s time in office–The union busting “Hobbit Law”, unmarked CIA planes at Wellington airport, the over the top raid on Kim Dotcom’s property as described by Martyn, and the offshore Trusts debacle. Extradition is usually not about justice but international power plays–long may he appeal.
Putting aside the action of our NZ politicians and clandestine services I recall the young people (possibly a son of mine but unconfirmed of course) at the time all thought Mr Dotcom was an idiot given he made himself a big target being open about what he was doing while plenty of other “players” in that field keep a lower and more agile profile.
Dotcom’s alleged ‘crimes’ damaged the profitiability of the spread of hegemonic American cultural filth, just like the Pirate Bay. As such, he’s a hero. It’s best to not watch Hollyweird trash, but if you won’t do that, it’s best not to pay for it.
Glad to see that the tough on crime govt, is finally extraditing KDC for breaking USA copyright laws. Don’t forget that current Deputy PM Winston, was himself a frequenter of Coatsville a decade ago, and this got discussed in the debating chamber. And Deputy PM in waiting Seymour, who’s Act party once received generous donations from KDC, even asking KDC to split the cheque into smaller amounts so it wouldn;t need to be declared – those were the days. Should CoC stand for coalition of the corrupt?
Perhaps all those migrating to NZ should be warned that USA law now applies here, and any one of us could be extradited at the whim of Goldsmith. Most of us without the connections and deep pockets of KDC, wouldn’t be able to put up any fight. Extradited to a country complicit in war crimes highlighted by Assange, and the ongoing provision of bombs killing children in Gaza. Lets hope the USA and its allies including NZ, take in a morally proportional number of Gazan refugees, after the bombs stop falling.
Sheriff Goldsmith will of course ensure that the full force of the law is exacted against all those known shown or suspected of wrongdoing, in the abuse in care inquiry, and the setting up of the redress system. Because we’re talking copyright crime in regard to KDC, which is basically a civil offence in this country, that should never get anyone extradited. This compared with the electrocuting and sodomising of children, and the subsequent covering up by the very authorities entrusted to give proper oversight, including medical authorities and Police, as described in the inquiry. The authorities even including members of the Law Society, who should have been leading by example, and be seen to be setting the standard for the rest of society, unless the standard is still “abuse children if you think you can get away with it” which is what it was historically.
Of course Goldsmith has no conflict of interest in the matter, because he has absolutely no links at all to the former MP Mr Banks, and has never written a biography about the man, who’s political demise and subsequent court case was a direct result of the KDC saga. Pigs may fly, and interislander ferries may crash, and brown paper bags of cash may change hands, but no conflict at all, nothing whatsoever, not a hint of a whiff of a sniff of anything not being above board.
Even though the NZ secret service was forced to apologise to KDC for itself acting illegally, in this world of disinformation and alternative facts, is KDC really the bad guy, and all the rest of the public service and govt pure as the riven snow, or is it the other way around, I wish I could be sure..
If Goldsmith has so expeditiously rapidly signed the KDC extradition, he must be well into righting the wrongs of those abused in care, and bringing wrongdoers to justice, including retired public servants, there can be no doubt. Truly Goldsmith,,,cometh the hour, cometh the man,,,we hold our breaths awaiting the wisdom of his impending thunderous pronouncments of justice. But there is one person Goldsmith could actually protect from the real and present threat of abuse at the hands of a foreign politico legal system in the near future, simply by doing nothing – woops too late, he’s signed the papers..
Dotcom fucked around and found out as far as I’m concerned
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