What has happened to Kim Dotcom should be a national shame
Fourteen years on, the case against Kim Dotcom remains one of the most controversial legal and political sagas in modern New Zealand history — raising questions about sovereignty, illegal spying and how far governments will go to appease powerful allies.
Kim Dotcom extradition: Lawyer attacks ‘grossly disproportionate’ treatment over Megaupload
The lawyer for Kim Dotcom says the internet mogul’s treatment, compared with that of his co-accused, was grossly disproportionate and would “shock the consciousness of properly informed New Zealanders”.
It has been 14 years since Crown Law began working on the Megaupload extradition case, ahead of the FBI’s global operation to shut down the file-sharing site in raids in seven countries in January 2012.
Since then, there’s been plenty of legal twists and turns, which Dotcom’s lawyer Ron Mansfield, KC, acknowledged in his opening comments to the Court of Appeal this morning.
“The Dotcom extradition proceedings can be seen to keep on giving to New Zealand jurisprudence.
NZ Herald
Fourteen years of legal limbo
The deplorable manner in which the Key Government set Dotcom up by giving him residency only to serve him up to the Americans as a blood bounty using evidence obtained through illegal spying will forever be a blot on our reputation.
It was a shameful quisling cowardice to America and amounted to entrapment.
When New Zealand bent the knee to America
After Corporate Hollywood threatened to pull donations from the Democrats if they didn’t embark upon some symbolic gesture on internet piracy, Obama announced Megaupload as public enemy number 1 and the case against Dotcom was manufactured.
NZ became a willing participant in this treachery and granted Kim permanent residency to set him up for the Americans using illegal means.
The whole shabby, dirty mess is a legal disgrace and one that has come at terrible cost to Dotcom.
For one shining moment there we threatened the elites.
But the elites won.
Extradition should never been on the table, the NZ justice system was perfectly fit to handle any case against KDC, the film studios operate in NZ if they wanted to bring a case against him they should have done it here.
It’s despicable that this is happening to an NZ citizen, even if he only got citizenship cos he’s rich.
On the other hand, KDC long ago became an alt right cooker who loves Trump, Elon and Maga, if he loves Trump so much, he should be happy to be going to Trump’s America.
Hell at this rate they’ll probably make him a cabinet member.