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Kim Dotcom To Be Extradited From New Zealand To US (theguardian.com) 87

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
EmagGeek writes: Kim Dotcom, who is facing criminal charges relating to the defunct filesharing website Megaupload, is to be extradited to the US, the New Zealand justice minister says, which could end more than a decade of legal wrangling. German-born Dotcom has New Zealand residency and has been fighting extradition to the US since 2012 after an FBI-ordered raid on his Auckland mansion. The high court in New Zealand first approved his extradition in 2017, with an appeal court reaffirming the finding the year after. In 2020, the country's supreme court again affirmed the finding but opened the door for a fresh round of judicial review.

Now, the justice minister, Paul Goldsmith, has signed an extradition order for Dotcom, a spokesperson said on Thursday. "I considered all of the information carefully, and have decided that Mr Dotcom should be surrendered to the US to face trial," Goldsmith said. "As is common practice, I have allowed Mr Dotcom a short period of time to consider and take advice on my decision. I will not, therefore, be commenting further at this stage."
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Kim Dotcom To Be Extradited From New Zealand To US More

Kim Dotcom To Be Extradited From New Zealand To US

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  • Why target Megaupload and not GoogleDrive, 1Drive? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by UnknownSoldier ( 67820 ) on Thursday August 15, 2024 @09:59AM (#64708438)

    This seems like a fishing operation. Did Kim upload content that was infringing on copyright or did its users? Why isn't GoogleDrive or OneDrive being targeted as well? (COUGH money COUGH. ? /s)

    > Dotcom faces more serious charges, including money laundering and racketeering.

    This is new to me. I'm curious what this uncover.

    • Re:Why target Megaupload and not GoogleDrive, 1Dri (Score:4, Interesting)

      by LazarusQLong ( 5486838 ) on Thursday August 15, 2024 @10:10AM (#64708466)
      it will be interesting to hear about the trial, because there are other file sharing sites out there, as you point out, and also as you mention, the money laundering and racketeering are new also... or at least when it concerns Kim Dotcom, I have only ever heard the bit about filesharing.

      Were those two sites online and sharing files way back in 2012? I don't recall hearing of them until later...

    • Re: Why target Megaupload and not GoogleDrive, 1Dr (Score:5, Insightful)

      by williamyf ( 227051 ) on Thursday August 15, 2024 @10:11AM (#64708478)

      It was the users the ones who uploaded the illicit stuff.

      but, when you publicite your site as "the best place on earth to upload and share copywrighted material, warez, cracked sw and games and other unsavory stuff" you run the risk of being consdered "accesory"-facilitator of those crimes.

      IanaL
      Jm2C
      YMMV

      • That, and also the guy is a first-class asshole, conspiracy theorist and Russian apologist that always seems to find new reasons why autocrats like Putin are actually really awesome, and all of the worlds problems are really the evil West's fault with our bad, bad, freedom and democracy.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by sconeu ( 64226 )

          Ad hominem. Larry Flynt's maxim applies. "If the First Amendment will protect a scumbag like me, it will protect all of you."

          Yeah, Dotcom is most likely a scumbag. But that's not a reason for punishment. If the law protects him, it will protect you.

        • Wow: "people with politics I dislike should be locked up."

          KDC has some dumb takes but he's less dangerous than this.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by flink ( 18449 )

        Ok, so he has some odious opinions, but having bad takes is not illegal AFAIK. What are the specific functional differences between Megaupload and Dropbox, OneDrive, or Google Drive that make Megaupload illegal?

    • Its one rule for the little guy, its a completely different rule for corporations that are part of the capitalist** ecosystem and are making huge profits for investors. Little guy rips off some songs - god help him. Google rips off just about everything , well thats just good ole US business practices, move along please, nothing to see here.

      ** I'm not anti capitalist, but there should be limits.

    • From now ancient reports, Kim and his admins did almost nothing to remove reported copyrighted content, whereas Google and OneDrive tend to shut those down pretty fast. They also implemented filters for CSAM, but chose not to implement filters for copyrighted media, which wouldn't have been a stretch. On top of that, seized email showed Kim and his admins sifting through the file database to find media that they wanted and copying it for themselves.

      I'm skeptical about the actual damages that piracy causes.

      • > I'm skeptical about the actual damages that piracy causes.

        I am as well. There are actually TWO very good reasons to be skeptical about the "losses due to piracy":

        1. IF companies were serious about the losses due to piracy it would be itemized in the company's financial reports. The fact that it isn't means they are pulling these piracy losses out of their ass.

        2. There have a few studies that show pirates tend to be the biggest buyers [vice.com]

        Gabe Newell of Valve was essentially correct when he stated:

        We think

        • Gabe Newell's comment was basically proven when streaming services like Netflix and Spotify launched and devastated the industry's previous stranglehold over people's media. They're slowly clawing that back, but for a while there it was clear that if you could stream anything you wanted for a reasonable fee, then people just wouldn't bother with piracy. Kind of obvious in retrospect...

      • I think is spot on, the basis of going after Mega vs the other services is intent and they think they can prove it. If they brought in Google or Microsoft I bet those companies would produce reams of evidence to show they always make good faith efforts to enforce copyright claims. Hell in my experience if you are just a personal user they will flag things just for getting too much traffic and if they suspect it's a link that's being shared on say social media, they really don't want you using it as a full

    • This seems like a fishing operation. Did Kim upload content that was infringing on copyright or did its users? Why isn't GoogleDrive or OneDrive being targeted as well? (COUGH money COUGH. ? /s)

      > Dotcom faces more serious charges, including money laundering and racketeering.

      This is new to me. I'm curious what this uncover.

      Theory: If they deem Dotcom guilty of distribution of $vague_legal_terminology(illegial/illicit/etc.) materials, racketeering automatically gets added, which will usually include some form of money laundering charge, regardless if it was intentional on the part of the accused or not. Our justice system is super convoluted, and when the "real" people (the owners) decide to make an example out of someone, they can get pretty egregious in charge stacking.

      Reality: Maybe there's something more going on we haven'

    • Those charges were brought back in 2012, they aren't new.
    • and so he got caught promoting users that shared copyrighted material. e.g. there were emails where he talked about boosting those users because doing so would bring in paid users who download the illegal content.

      Google & OneDrive are both smart enough not to do that. If they catch someone passing around copies of Game of Thrones or something they shut them down instead of spreading emails around about how useful they are at attracting paid downloaders...

    • > Dotcom faces more serious charges, including money laundering and racketeering.

      This is new to me.

      What do you mean this is new to you? Money laundering charges have been mentioned in literally every story about Kim Dotcom. Here's one from 2014 https://yro.slashdot.org/story... [slashdot.org] here's one from 2016 also talking about racketeering https://yro.slashdot.org/story... [slashdot.org]

      This isn't new. The charges haven't changed in over a decade.

      • > What do you mean this is new to you?

        What part of new to me do you not understand??

        I don't follow every detail of Kim Dotcom story, let alone Kim Dotcom.

        Yes, the CHARGES are old, but the INFORMATION ABOUT THE CHARGES are new to me.

        Do you understand now?

        • I understand that you seem to be new to Slashdot and be using someone else's account, given the information on the charges have been on every Slashdot story about Kim Dotcom so far. This isn't "every detail", this is literally in every Slashdot summary.

          I mean maybe it is legitimately new to you. I'm just trying to wrap my head around how someone with your low UID has missed this over and over and over again.

          • > I understand that you seem to be new to Slashdot and be using someone else's account,

            Incorrect. Don't assume. I've been on /. for ~20 years.

            > This isn't "every detail", this is literally in every Slashdot summary.

            I'm going to repeat myself since you apparently either have a) a reading problem or b) a comprehension problem, or c) both:

            I don't follow EVERY detail of Kim Dotcom story. I couldn't give two shits about the guy and usually skip stories about him.

            > I mean maybe it is legitimately new t

    • This is new to me.

      Dotcom sold a service: The USA has deemed that service to be a crime: Therefore, anything afterwards is "money laundering" and conspiracy to commit crimes (racketeering).

      It's one of the many bullshit crimes that are written into US law and a reason for everyone to fear extradition to the USA.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jonwil ( 467024 )

      Hertz rent-a-car isn't liable if their cars are used in a bank robbery. But if Hertz started promoting their cars as a good choice for bank robbers, they would be in trouble.

  • Why is he being extradited? Why doesnâ(TM)t NZ tell the US to fuck off?
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:What did he do? (Score:5, Informative)

      by necro81 ( 917438 ) on Thursday August 15, 2024 @10:32AM (#64708548) Journal

      Why is he being extradited? Why doesnâ(TM)t NZ tell the US to fuck off?

      Briefly: because the US has an extradition treaty with NZ. The US has provided NZ with an indictment against Kim DotCom. That indictment came from evidence presented to a grand jury in the US legal system. The text of the indictment specifies the alleged crimes in the US, and an overview of the evidence that supports the charges. That alone is usually enough to get the ball rolling.

      In the case where the extradition is contested (by Kim DotCom, or NZ itself) then there is a mini trial in the NZ courts, where the US gets to present its case, largely based on the same evidence. The US doesn't have to prove the case like it would in a US court - they don't have to find Kim DotCom guilty in an NZ court. Rather, the US has to satisfy to the NZ court that the indictment is valid, has substantial evidence behind it, and that the alleged crime is not totally bogus within NZ jurisprudence.

      NZ has copyright laws. NZ has anti-piracy laws. Those laws need not agree word-for-word with US law. But NZ can look at the indictment, evaluate it against both US and NZ law, and say "ya know, they kinda have a point here." On what grounds would NZ tell the US to fuck off?

      They're extraditing him so that he can stand trial in the US. They're not sending him to prison based solely on an accusation. He'll have the opportunity to defend himself in court. If you think the case against him is bullshit, then rest assured that he'll prevail in court and head on back to NZ.

      • Everything you said supports Islamic countries sending Americans who dont cover their face in an online video over to be tried against Sharia law.

        America has rules about decency, Islamic countries have rules about decency. A video produced here and available to see there is pretty much the same thing no?

        This is entirely that we dont like the guy and will break any rule we can to try to get him.

        • Re: What did he do? (Score:5, Informative)

          by Martin Blank ( 154261 ) on Thursday August 15, 2024 @11:18AM (#64708718) Homepage Journal

          Extradition treaties require that the crime for which the accused is to be extradited be a crime in both countries, or have a close enough analogue. (The "close enough" part is why most of the litigation happens.) There is no law in the US that requires someone to cover their face in an online video, so there's no basis for extradition on such a charge.

          Extradition treaties also usually require that prosecutors not add on charges after the suspect arrives in the requesting country. This happened when the Bahamas extradited Sam Bankman-Fried. After he arrived, he was hit with additional charges that were not in the original extradition request. The Bahamas protested, and prosecutors severed those charges into a separate indictment to be hashed out later. AFAICT, prosecutors eventually dropped the charges after he was sentenced.

          Finally, extradition treaties often have some limitations on punishments. Many countries will not extradite murder suspects to the US unless they are guaranteed that the suspect will not face the death penalty. Most countries have provisions prohibiting torture of extradited suspects. The requesting country could technically ignore the promises, but that would make it much, much more difficult for future extradition to occur, not just from the arresting country but from every other country with an extradition treaty as well, as they would have much less basis on which to trust the requesting country.

      • Why NZ doesn't prosecute him directly? It's extremely unlikely that his actions with laser precision affected US but not NZ.

        • That's up to whatever the NZ equivalent of a DA or US Attorney is. Everyone quick to say the American big tech companies have things in their pocket, the same could be assumed with Kim DotCom and the NZ government. I mean the guys name is Kim Dotcom. This is the name we all have to use, this guys reputation as a shady fuckin' character is earned.

          But it could be as simple as they don't really care unless he's commiting some type of "actual" crime. On the other hand I imagine there very could be after th

      • Re:What did he do? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by NewtonsLaw ( 409638 ) on Thursday August 15, 2024 @11:04AM (#64708666)

        " If you think the case against him is bullshit, then rest assured that he'll prevail in court and head on back to NZ"

        My goodness, you seem to have an awful lot of faith in the US justice system yet there are a lot of well documented miscarriages of justice within that system (example [nbcnews.com]).

        Also, let's not forget that the USA has already conspired with NZ police to illegally surveil him and associates [rnz.co.nz] then illegally raid his house [theguardian.com].

        It seems that when it comes to the authorities and Kim Dotcom "laws are for thee but not for me".

        Given the way that the FBI and New Zealand Police seem to think nothing of abusing the laws to achieve their goals in this case do you really think he has a chance of a fair trial inside the US justice system?

        • But it's not "The US Justice System" so much as it's "The State of Missouri Justice system". The AG is appointed by the governor who Missouri elected and then I assume confimered legislatively, who the people also elect, same as it was in 1980

          The fact this State AG was so personally invested in keeping this woman detained is pretty weird and I would say on that alone he should be removed, but looking at his history this what Missouri wants I guess? This is what "tough on crime" looks like when you're more

        • Also, let's not forget that the USA has already conspired with NZ police to illegally surveil him and associates [rnz.co.nz] then illegally raid his house [theguardian.com].

          That doesn't sound like a US problem. The US is not responsible for how NZ laws are executed. It sounds like an NZ police problem.

          • Both the spying and the raid were done at the request of US justice authorities. NZ's police/GCSB were just puppets in this case. Yes, they have a lot to answer for by not following NZ law but then again, surely if "conspiracy" is a thing then those US authorities have to also be held accountable for conspiring to break these laws.

            But no... those who enforce the laws appear to be above the law :-(

      • NZ has copyright laws. NZ has anti-piracy laws. Those laws need not agree word-for-word with US law. But NZ can look at the indictment, evaluate it against both US and NZ law, and say "ya know, they kinda have a point here." On what grounds would NZ tell the US to fuck off?

        where I live the statute of limitations for something like that would be 2 years.

        • Re: (Score:1, Flamebait)

          by necro81 ( 917438 )

          where I live the statute of limitations for something like that would be 2 years.

          Kim DotCom hasn't been charged today, in 2024, for crimes alleged over a decade ago. The original indictment, from 2012, essentially freezes the clock. The 2012 charges cover activities right up to the point where the FBI seized the MegaUpload comain. Neither Kim DotCom nor any other defendant gets to run out the clock just by taking forever-and-a-day on appeals.

          (Unless, of course, you're Donald Trump.)

      • > NZ has copyright laws. NZ has anti-piracy laws.

        Yes. And if Kim Dotcom broke those laws, it would be appropriate for the authorities in New Zealand to indict, arrest, prosecute, and punish him. Unless New Zealand ALSO has a law saying that a resident must not just obey New Zealand's laws, but also those of every other nation everywhere, the US should have been told to go pound sand.

        > On what grounds would NZ tell the US to fuck off?

        Sovereignty and jurisdiction. As a New Zealand resident and, IIRC,

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by necro81 ( 917438 )

          I've broken China's laws wrt/ advocating democracy, condemning Tiananmen Square, and mocking Pooh Bear on many occasions too. Do they get to have me extradited and imprisoned, even though I'm not a Chinese citizen or resident and, indeed, have never even set foot in the country?

          The simple answer is no, because the US and China do not have an extradition treaty. The two legal systems are vastly different - some might say incompatible - so it'd be hard to come to any sort of agreement on such things.

          Lis [wikipedia.org]

        • As a New Zealand resident and, IIRC, a German citizen; he should be subject to the laws of New Zealand and maybe Germany. No one else in the world should have a say in his conduct and he should not be obligated to know, obey, or care about the laws anywhere else in the world.

          He placed himself under jurisdiction of USA by operating servers there. MegaUpload had servers in Ashburn, Virginia (USA) and Kim Dotcom is being prosecuted by U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr... [justice.gov]

      • If you think the case against him is bullshit, then rest assured that he'll prevail in court and head on back to NZ.

        Absolutely, just as we have seen time and time again. The judicially flavored executive branch is totally prepared and capable in dealing justice with anything even remotely related to computer technology. Oh ya, totally ..no doubt in my mind.

    • He was running his secure file transfer service that was mostly for pirated content and was dumb enough to operate a server in the USA.

    • Because then NZ criminals could flee to the USA with no fear of extradition, the problem is with what is considered a crime in the USA.

  • immediately imagined a chat between minor diplomatic staff at the US Embassy in NZ where this decision was made as follows:
    USA: "...okay how about this; our corporate partners have Senator Finkleton breathing down our necks on this media piracy thing. It's peak election-funding season, and--"
    NZ: "Oh is it? Is it ever not election-funding season in the States?"
    USA: "Hmm, yes. Point taken. Well in any case, we need you to make it publicly clear the Dotcom extradition is going to happen."
    NZ: "We may be prepa

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by c-A-d ( 77980 )

      This is both funny and very plausible. I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if this was how it really happened.

  • It seems only terrorists and copyright infringers are chased over the decades by the US authorities. Is ripping of some songs by artists that are probably all free on youtube by now REALLY in the same category as the people who organised 9/11? Really?

  • Titanically iffy jurisdiction aside: If they shut down his alleged illegal activities 12 years ago, hasn't the statute of limitations expired? Or are we adding "rebroadcasting a game without the express written consent of Major League Baseball" to the list of crimes where the statute of limitations never expires?
  • What is his birth name? This made up name just looks, well, smartphone emoji-ish.
  • The guy is a serial criminal who left his home country after doing time in prison there. After Thailand and Hong Kong failed to protect him from stock fraud prosecution, New Zealand became his new base of international criminal operations because he thought he could manipulate the local government to protect him from international prosecution. He sees a James Bond villain when he looks in the mirror, but the rest of the world's prosecutors see a con artist when they look at his mugshots.
  • Meanwhile this insanely corrupt former FIFA executive has managed to delay his extradition to the US for 8+ years and counting.. https://newsday.co.tt/2024/03/... [newsday.co.tt]
  • Right up there with Australia holding David McBride in prison and giving Pine Gap to America.

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