Megaupload started out being presented as a regular copyright enforcement case. However as the facts of the military-style raid surfaced, followed by details of the many serious legal irregularities, it quickly became very peculiar and atypical. Soon, when former president Barack Obama arrives in New Zealand later this month, Kim Dotcom aims to try to find out what he knew about the case through subpoena.
Kim Dotcom is claiming that an associate was able to hire a friend of the Obamas to ask about the Megaupload case. "Mistakes were made. It hasn't gone well. It's a problem. I'll see to it after the election," Barack Obama reportedly said. With Obama due to land in New Zealand next month, Dotcom says he'll have a court subpoena waiting for the former president.
One of the interesting items that might eventually come from the case is what the difference between Megaupload and its competitors was. So far, there have been no raids, big or small, against Box, Dropbox, One Drive, Google Drive, Spider Oak, and the others.
Source : Dotcom: Obama Admitted "Mistakes Were Made" in Megaupload Case
See also : past soylentnews posts on Megaupload
Related Stories
TorrenFreak has an article on the failed attempt to subpoena former president Obama in the ongoing New Zealand case regarding Kim Dotcom's role in Megaupload's alleged copyright infringement.
Kim Dotcom's bid to compel Barack Obama to give evidence in his damages lawsuit against the New Zealand government has failed. Chief High Court Judge, Justice Geoffrey Venning described Dotcom's application as premature but also noted that even if Obama had relevant information to offer, he would need time to prepare. Dotcom said that Obama's time will come.
[...] In a statement issued yesterday, Dotcom reiterated his claims that attempts to have him extradited to the United States have no basis in law, chiefly due to the fact that the online dissemination of copyright-protected works by Megaupload's users is not an extradition offense in New Zealand.
From : Dotcom's Bid to Compel Obama to Give Evidence Rejected By High Court
Earlier on SN : Kim Dotcom: Obama Admitted "Mistakes Were Made" in Megaupload Case
and many more Megaupload
stories.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Thursday March 01 2018, @04:29PM (16 children)
Kim Dotcom wasn't convicted and severely punished, ergo: mistakes were made. They should have left him alone until they had enough of a case to convict and severely punish him. This is the government we're talking about, they could have written new laws and waited for Dotcom to violate them, then convicted him.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 01 2018, @04:40PM (8 children)
There were three babies and a man. What happened to the first baby? The man placed it into a file cabinet drawer such that part of its head stuck out, and then began closing it. Pressure. More pressure. Screaming. As the amount of force used by the man increased, so too did the volume of the baby's screams. At last, the baby's head was smashed and it became one with the file cabinet.
There were two babies and a man. What happened to the second baby? Its wretched life was extinguished much in the same way as the first baby, but this time much more quickly. The baby's soft head was smashed into oblivion by the file cabinet drawer. A grand experiment indeed.
There was one baby and a man. What happened to the final baby? No one knows. What is known for certain, however, is that the baby's screams continued for hours on end before being enveloped by an impenetrable wall of silence...
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 01 2018, @04:52PM (7 children)
Dead baby jokes now? Looks like the current resident troll just is regressing, how long till we get down to poopy jokes?
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Thursday March 01 2018, @05:03PM (3 children)
Troll? This isn't trolling. This is just a weirdo masturbating onto his keyboard. Either that or it's placed here as a way of anonymously passing coded messages.
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 01 2018, @05:27PM (2 children)
While I am amused by your analysis I still believe it is a troll, trying to irritate the "over sensitive ess jay double ooos" so that we'll leave and let this place turn into another hell hole a'la voat / gab. I haven't checked gab, but I did check out voat a few times over the last year and it was inevitably too cringey to keep browsing.
Maybe it is the series of contracts guy just spewing filth cause his ideas just receive mockery here for their naivety. While the person is obviously mentally disturbed to put forth such an amount of nasty shit I do think the motivation is trolling.
Per wikipedia: "In Internet slang, a troll (/troʊl, trɒl/) is a person who sows discord on the Internet by starting quarrels or upsetting people, by posting inflammatory,[1] extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community (such as a newsgroup, forum, chat room, or blog) with the intent of provoking readers into an emotional response[2] or of otherwise disrupting normal, on-topic discussion,[3] often for the troll's amusement."
(Score: 3, Insightful) by requerdanos on Thursday March 01 2018, @05:42PM (1 child)
Why you guys feeding the trolls?
(Score: 0, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 01 2018, @06:01PM
Because pontificating on what makes a looney tick is a bit more interesting than whether Obama said mistakes were made in the Kim Dotcom case. Besides I don't consider the discussion as really feeding the troll except it in the troll's thread. If the person is laughing maniacally at this thread then they probably need the attention more than the article.
I don't like trolls but they don't deserve to die! Feeeed theemmmm :P
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by Revek on Thursday March 01 2018, @05:56PM (1 child)
This weak soyboy bait couldn't catch a cold.
This page was generated by a Swarm of Roaming Elephants
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 01 2018, @06:15PM
Yet here you are
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 01 2018, @08:06PM
IIRC we already had those.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by DeathMonkey on Thursday March 01 2018, @04:57PM (5 children)
Kim Dotcom wasn't convicted and severely punished, ergo: mistakes were made.
Agreed 100%
I just struggle to see how third-hand gossip is newsworthy. Well I heard a friend of a friend of Obama's third cousin's nephew asked him something too!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by canopic jug on Thursday March 01 2018, @05:02PM (4 children)
The bit that was newsworthy is the part about the subpoena. It will be very interesting to see if he can actually do it or how and why it gets dodged instead.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday March 01 2018, @05:20PM (3 children)
Oh, OK, I get that.
I don't think hearsay is admissible, though.
(Score: 3, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Thursday March 01 2018, @07:59PM
This is the same New Zealand that let the US come and raid Dotcom's compound prematurely... the interesting question is indeed how they're going to dodge the request for the subpoena.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 01 2018, @08:54PM (1 child)
I don't think hearsay is admissible, though.
It sure is when it comes to Russia these days. Our country is dying because we let stupid people vote, making a military coup look like a viable alternative... Sad!
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday March 01 2018, @09:27PM
We should care more about making sure smart people *do* vote than trying to disenfranchise people whose opinions we don't like, er I mean, stupid people.
And educating the "stupids" before they vote. Although that effort will only get you so far.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 02 2018, @08:56AM
They tried that with the Russian AllOfMP3. Representatives from the US pro copyright lobby helped the Russians write a new copyright law that would finally make AllOfMP3 illegal.
Then AllOfMP3 tricked all of them and started following the new law.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Thursday March 01 2018, @05:25PM (10 children)
Kim Dotcom's case has a lot of similarity to the 1980s raid on Steve Jackson Games that began the EFF. The main difference is that Steve Jackson had a game about hacking, and the idiot law enforcers didn't understand it was only a game and went nuts. Raided their business, and seized their equipment, though Steve Jackson Games had clearly done absolutely nothing wrong. Kim Dotcom on the other hand is accused of piracy, or enabling piracy, which may be in violation of others' property rights or the law, it's not clear.
Whether whatever exactly Kim Dotcom has allegedly done should be illegal is the question. And it's not going to be answered with strongman bullying tactics on the part of law enforcement. That often backfires, and it sure has in this case. Got to keep a tight leash on law enforcers to stop them from being idiots. Judges too can really screw up, and are a little too ready to sanction raids in cases where no physical harm has occurred. Busting down doors, waving firearms around, seizing equipment and cuffing suspects is dramatic and makes great copy, but should not be done in civil cases. Can you imagine any of the perps in the 2008 market crash and the Great Recession being treated that way, however much we wished for that? I'm not sure even Bernie Madoff was cuffed when he was arrested. He was cuffed after the trial in which he was found guilty, but it was for dramatic appearance and punishment rather than any serious thought that he could escape or physically hurt anyone. But before that? Posted bail and got house arrest! No, those guys get all kinds of gentlemanly treatment. The rest of those superrich dirt bags weren't even convicted of anything, just given a wrist slap of a plea bargain in which they pay fines that aren't big to them, and they don't have to admit to any wrongdoing.
Tough to find people who don't let shiny law enforcement badges pinned to their chests go to their heads and cut loose on the accused that they perceive to be the little people, rough them up a bit.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 01 2018, @05:58PM
No, Mr. Dotcom is not being accused of piracy. As far as we can tell he never forcefully took control of a ship belonging to someone else, nor did he take part in the killing, mauling, raping and other uncouth behaviour usually associated with such an event.
What he is accused of is violations of copyright. Which (perhaps!) cost someone some money, but nothing more.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by sjames on Thursday March 01 2018, @06:13PM (4 children)
It doesn't matter if what he did SHOULD be illegal, it matters if it WAS illegal. I note that there has been no prosecution. If "the authorities" thought it SHOULD be illegal, the correct action is to pass a law, not tear the business apart and then just sit on it.
At this point, they should be selling their shiny badges to the scrap dealer to pay for the damages to Dotcom AND the many injured 3rd parties who are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
That includes paying for all those colo servers that the completely innocent colo companies could neither rent out or get rid of for all that time.
(Score: 2) by stretch611 on Thursday March 01 2018, @07:41PM (3 children)
While I am on Kim Dotcom's side in this... The reason why there has been no prosecution is that so far, Kim Dotcom has not been extradited despite continuing attempts.
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 2) by sjames on Thursday March 01 2018, @08:58PM
But, of course, that is because the U.S. cannot come up with enough evidence to even convince the NZ courts that a trial is warranted. They've had YEARS now. If not for extra-legal coercion and perjury, they wouldn't have been able to carry out the raid at all.
(Score: 2) by dry on Thursday March 01 2018, @09:28PM
Extradition treaties usually have clauses where the crime and punishment has to be roughly equal in both jurisdictions.
Something like murder is usually pretty simple though even then a country might insist on roughly equal punishment such as how Canada won't extradite a murderer to America without a promise of no death penalty.
In this case, it sounds like the crimes that Kim is accused of aren't particularity serious crimes in New Zealand compared to the USA, so no extradition.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 02 2018, @08:50AM
If you can't extradite someone, you take them to court in their country of residence.
Except of course in the case where the reason you can't extradite them is that no law was broken in their country of residence, in which case the police raiding the premises is a gross violation of everything from human rights to laws governing what the police is allowed to do - outside of dictatorships like Syria and North Korea, of course.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday March 01 2018, @08:15PM (2 children)
As a New Zealander I am unhappy with the prosecution of Kim dotcom for the following reasons:
The New Zealand Police arrested a legal resident of New Zealand for something which is not a crime here.
They carried out the raid while armed, which is highly unusual for this country. The police do not routinely carry guns here.
The police leaked the footage of the raid to TV news for broadcast the same night of the raid.
The whole case was conducted on the orders of US authorities, and the New Zealand police did as they were asked without checking if what they were doing was even legal.
If I thought about it longer I could probably come up with a bunch more reasons to be unhappy, but fortunately the Judiciary of New Zealand are fiercely independent, and resent political interference, so I trust the judge as much as anyone involved.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Fluffeh on Thursday March 01 2018, @09:47PM (1 child)
How about the big one where a New Zealand citizen was spied upon using the tech that was there only for "the terrorists!!" and instead was illegally used to help the American entertainment industry protect profits?
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday March 01 2018, @11:44PM
To be fair, he wasn't actually a citizen, but a permanent resident. Not that that makes your point invalid. The police still acted illegally.
(Score: 2) by epitaxial on Thursday March 01 2018, @11:03PM
I read the article about Steve Jackson Games. He wasn't raided over a hacking game. He was raided over some proprietary BellSouth 911 document.
(Score: 3, Troll) by frojack on Thursday March 01 2018, @06:14PM (3 children)
Look, it was Obama. When the dust is settled the Obama administrations will go down as some of the most corrupt presidencies in history, weaponizing entire branches of government on a scale that embarrasses even his supporters. (yeah, I can hear the troll mods arriving in 3, 2, 1).
Dotcom should have just contributed to the Obama campaign, and this all would have gone away. That's what all those other companies did.
I'm guessing its too late for Dotcom to get any help from his government. Too much embarrassment about their involvement. They were the ones conducting armed assaults on server farms, on the word of the US government. An honest government, if lied to that badly, would have an arrest warrant waiting for Obama. I doubt Dotcom's minions get close enough to server that subpoena.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 01 2018, @06:22PM (1 child)
I don't think you're gonna get downmodded for that one, just shows your limited understanding of your peers. There was no amount of contributions that could save Dotcom from the wrath of the dreaded American Associations!
You want to throw Obama in jail? I could probably get behind that, but we should go in order and lock up a dozen presidents before him along with Mush, Weney, Killfinger, Rumblefeldstein, and god knows how many others. Oh, and half the financial institution CEOs.
I think the world is finally waking up thanks to the internet. The average person now has a much better understanding of how they're being screwed, and how things don't actually HAVE to be that way.
But here I am hoping for reason from Frojack. We should be fighting together not against one another, but you're a conservative that operates from fear; exemplified by your predictions of downmods. Not everything you say comes from lying propaganda, there are some truths occasionally.
(Score: 2) by vux984 on Thursday March 01 2018, @09:50PM
"I think the world is finally waking up thanks to the internet. The average person now has a much better understanding of how they're being screwed"
I half agree. The world is waking up thanks to the internet, but I'm not sure they are more well informed than they were before.
For example, If some idiot is sitting there on the beach snoozing, and I come and tell them Trump and Clinton formed an alliance to dissolve puppies in radioactive waste they might be awake and pissed and ready to protest (or at least retweet their support for someone else protesting; while they stay at the beach sipping their mojito...) but they aren't any more well informed than they were before.
The internet is so full of nonsense and propaganda and so much of it is designed around putting people into echo chambers they already agree with... that I'm not sure the average person is more informed.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Thursday March 01 2018, @07:00PM
Really? I mean, he has so much competition for the "most corrupt": Warren Harding, Bill Clinton, Andrew Jackson, Ulysses Grant, George W Bush, Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford, Richard Nixon, the current guy, John F Kennedy? I could keep going, the point is corruption has been part of the territory for a long time. Even guys with an anti-corruption reputation like Teddy Roosevelt designed their foreign policy around pleasing rich people.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 01 2018, @06:25PM (2 children)
I can't find any links, but I remember that the US cracked-down on Dotcom right after he announced his intention to form a record label with the goal of disrupting the current artist-hostile and fan-hostile policies and pricing structure of the music industry.
I don't know if that had any impact on the specific targeting of megaupload (compared to its competitors) or if the US just wanted to make an example of an easy target (Dotcom's infamous reputation).
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 01 2018, @09:39PM (1 child)
I did some digging, here's about the label https://torrentfreak.com/kim-dotcom-teases-megabox-reveals-exclusive-artists-120926/ [torrentfreak.com]
Not something the MAFIAA would appreciate.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 02 2018, @12:33AM
Thanks for the digging.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by pTamok on Thursday March 01 2018, @06:34PM (2 children)
It could get interesting, as Mr Obama no longer has potential 'Head of State Immunity', unlike Robert Mugabe who has successfully evaded arrest on the grounds of human rights violations several times (See Peter Tatchell's website [petertatchell.net] for details). General Pinochet, as an ex-Head of State was successfully detained [wikipedia.org], as was Slobodan Milošević [wikipedia.org].
A successfully served subpoena could be embarassing, so there could well be some 'interesting' antics to avoid it.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday March 01 2018, @06:53PM (1 child)
Armed intervention will be used I suspect. Carried out by secret service under the guise of protection.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 01 2018, @08:46PM
Keep masturbating furiously over the thought of the Obama being arrested.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by PinkyGigglebrain on Thursday March 01 2018, @06:43PM (2 children)
Makes me wonder if there might have been something on Mega's servers that the US government thought was REALLY important to keep from getting out. Somebody uploaded some huge data dump of super classified stuff, like a report on aliens, designs of a working zero point energy unit, proof of a secret world shadow government that actually rules the world, or maybe just videos of orgies at the white house involving various world leaders and hookers.
But whatever it was the US government wanted to prevent it from getting out, but the person who uploaded died before they could get the account and decryption password so they went after the servers to ensure that the data would NEVER get out.
Grazy, yeah. But it does fit what happened, servers being confiscated and never returned, the US DoJ refusing to release even images of the servers to anyone, the complete overkill at just about every step of this incident.
And Kim Dot doesn't know anything about the data, he's just caught up in the whole mess because he ran the outfit. Kind of like how Julian Assange has been on the wrong end of things for pissing off the USA.
I could totally see this as a plot of a "B" spy movie.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 2) by edIII on Thursday March 01 2018, @09:09PM (1 child)
Uh huh. I would say scary thought, but we all know the high likelihood that the companies above have been compromised already by government. Specifically, the intelligence side of government that won't bust you, because that would affect a valuable channel of information. Box, Dropbox, and Google Anything are already most likely backdoor'd for the government already.
Spider Oak doesn't count because that is a zero knowledge service. I don't see government going after those outfits.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 02 2018, @02:59AM
> Spider Oak doesn't count because that is a zero knowledge service. I don't see government going after those outfits.
Maybe. Unless I am wrong, it seems to at least depend on TLS over HTTP. That is completely broken.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by FuzzyTheBear on Thursday March 01 2018, @06:44PM (2 children)
He was the only one not to contribute to the electoral campaigns financially enough so's the elected officials left him alone.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 02 2018, @12:22AM (1 child)
Yea.. that kiwi probably forgot NZD was 1 third the value to USD. That's kiwis for ya
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 06 2018, @12:48PM
Dotcom is West German by birth, and German-Finnish by heritage. He isn't now, nor never has been, a citizen of New Zealand. Certainly more of a kraut than a kiwi. As to what the USD has to do with anything is beyond me; he's never lived in the US.
(Score: 5, Informative) by bradley13 on Thursday March 01 2018, @06:59PM (1 child)
IIRC, the difference between Mega and the rest is that Mega specifically encouraged copyright infringement. "Oh noes, don't upload copyrighted films here, or we might pay you based on how many downloads you get". Technically, they said "no", but in practice they said "please do, more is better".
Of course, that doesn't change the fact that the whole matter was handled disastrously. Extralegal (or outright illegal) behavior is business as usual for the FBI in the US. Asset forfeiture, changing interview transcripts so they can accuse people of lying, whatever it takes. In the US, they mostly get away with it - I mean, who's going to protest, when they might you after you next? Going outside the US and doing the same thing, they got caught, and it's not so easy to sweep under the rug.
Dotcom is a scumbag, there's no much doubt about it. However, that is no excuse for the way he's been treated. Anyone with fewer resources would be rotting in jail. If we don't stand up for his legal rights, who's next?
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 05 2018, @08:13AM
> Technically, they said "no", but in practice they said "please do, more is better".
It says this but it totally means THAT, sir. Is it thoughtcrime yet?