1. Get bled until nobody will offer legal services to him because they know he can't pay. Get extradited with a public defendant (if he's lucky). Have a trial with a lawyer being provided by the DoJ (who happens to be the ones putting him on trial).
2. Get extradited with a team of really good lawyers who truly represent him.
There really aren't any options that don't end with him extradited. Why wouldn't he want to be extradited on his terms rather than the government's.
It also isn't rocket science that, regardless of whether the government is intentionally trying to get his legal team to desert him, delays are better for the government than they are for Dotcom.
As a US citizen, this case makes me sick to my stomach. It reeks of America strong-arming other countries to pursue an agenda that is in only its best interests. It is made worse by the high-level collusion between the government and Hollywood. It is topped off by a stinking pile that is a lack of respect for anybody's intellectual property except Hollywood's and a rotten cherry of government seizure that prevents somebody from defending themselves in court.
(I suppose there is a 3rd option where he goes completely underground, but, again, with no money, that's going to be a tough thing to do.)
> There really aren't any options that don't end with him extradited.
The high court of NZ has ruled the search warrants used were illegal[1]. IANAL, but I would think that's grounds enough for the case to be thrown out and for NZ to never extradite him.
I would expect if the High Court of New Zealand decides the entire case is illegal and won't extradite him, they would stand up to the US/DOJ/FBI and try to get his assets unfrozen, property returned, etc. etc. If the US/DOJ/FBI don't do so, they would be breaking NZ law.
You might say the US will just laugh in their faces, and while that might be true, it would be horrible publicity (which the US clearly doesn't need right now) and would probably just provide another reason for the rest of the world to give the US the middle finger in general.
It wouldn't be the first time little NZ has stood up to the big guys [1] (see specifically 1984)
(This was a very, very big deal when it happened)
Given how much of the world's money flows through US banks, New Zealand could give everything back it wants to and still leave Dotcom broke (especially after legal fees) and without a company.
New Zealand is awesome. It is on my list of most desirable countries to live in. But if the US doesn't release the holds they have, I question whether Dotcom will really get anything back. Remember, he is renting his house in NZ. It's not like he has a big chunk of money in a mansion that he can sell.
He's not an idiot. Maybe he has to give up his multi-million dollar house but him and his group of highly-technical colleagues have not a lot holding them back this minute from starting over, aside perhaps initial funding for hosting.
As a US citizen, this case makes me sick to my stomach. It reeks of America strong-arming other countries to pursue an agenda that is in only its best interests. It is made worse by the high-level collusion between the government and Hollywood.
Best interest of the United States? What do the US gain from this other than getting votes for those elected in office and pleasing an insignificant and corrupt industry we called hollywood?
US as an entity does not gain anything. The hollywood spends a lot of money on lobbying, so the people who run US get money for "pleasing an insignificant and corrupt industry we called hollywood"
You can blame Joe Biden and Chris Dodd. We all know who Hollywood gives the majority of their money to, and the people that receive it do their bidding. Hollywood isn't the problem any more than Google or Facebook's lobbies are the problem. Follow the money and vote the opposite. Their contributions aren't secret. We the people have access to the contribution records, yet people continue to vote for the people getting the money.
I'm sorry if my question is naive, but it's been bothering me for a while now: why doesn't anyone consider the lobbying itself to be the root problem? I'm not from the US, so I haven't grown up with that system and to me it sounds like legalized corruption.
The only reason I can come up with for allowing lobbying is the same reason why people want to legalize drugs: illegal corruption would be a lot worse than legalized corruption. Is that it? Or am I missing something?
For most people it's: "Lobbying is bad when it's for things I don't like."
The ability to petition the government was so important to the Founders that they wrote it into the First Amendment. (Madison, among others, was hostile to the Bill Of Rights because he thought those were things that were obviously not allowed to government, and that delineating them would cause people to think that the Constitution was a list of the people's rights instead of a list of the powers granted to the government.)
In the modern day, though, the government has so much power and influence over people's lives that it becomes necessary to spend a significant fraction of your attention -- or hire someone else to do it -- to government to make sure they aren't about to legislate you out of existence. See Uber as an example.
Influencing government is usually a zero-sum game that people are forced to play. It would be swell if "the other side" unilaterally disarmed so we could disarm, too, but they don't trust us any more than we trust them.
Again, I seem to be missing something. Isn't there a great deal of difference between "petitioning the government" and "paying the government"?
Here's an excerpt from briandear's comment about lobbying:
We all know who Hollywood gives the majority of their money to, and the people that receive it do their bidding. Hollywood isn't the problem any more than Google or Facebook's lobbies are the problem.
It look pretty clear to me that there is some sort of mechanism in United States whereby people/organizations pay money to steer the government. That's what I was inquiring about.
Petitioning the government is lobbying the government. That's what lobbying is, no more or no less.
I don't speak for the other commenter and wouldn't think to explain his comment. However, when people speak about the government being bought, they generally mean one of three things, correctly or not:
1. Lobbying. Someone spends a lot of money to hire people with connections who can catch the ear of government.
2. Campaign donations. You can donate money directly to someone's campaign, or even exercise your free speech rights yourself to endorse or criticize someone's campaign.
3. Simple bribery. This is when you find a Senator with a few hundred thousand dollars of cash in his freezer.
Not really. If you like it as a comedic aside then fine but it's not a valid point in any sense beyond that.
Assange currently has the run of the Ecuadorian embassy in London (roughly the size of a large flat) but the minute he leaves that (for instance to try to get to an airport) he'll be arrested for breaching his bail terms.
Even if he's granted asylum (relatively unlikely) that won't change unless they make him an Ecuadorian diplomat with the diplomatic immunity that confers. That would however be essentially unheard of.
From what i've always understood, if he is transported in a car together with a diplomat, the UK police are still not allowed to stop them. So he himself doesn't have to be a diplomat.
The Ecuadorian embassy isn't a huge building with it's own garage, it's a flat on the first floor. If you can get a car in to a first floor flat you may have a plan.
Even if that weren't the case he's got to get out of the car to get into the plane at which point he's once again on British soil and can be arrested.
Plus really, how much effort at the Ecuadorian government going to go to to piss off the British, American and Swedish governments? What they're doing now is following procedure, what you're proposing would be far more active.
So he jumps out of the window of the embassy into an open car beside an Ecuadorian diplomat, which is then driven into the back of an Ecuadorian cargo plane which then takes off for Ecuador. Realistic? No, but I'm sure the idea fits in just fine with Julian Assange's inflated self-image.
These strong arming of other countries is something I really hate. Its underhanded and simply bad style and unworthy of democracies. A least for me. But the US aren't the only ones doing that, the EU isn't that much better.
But freezing his assets all over the place and such, even for legal fees? In this case you actually trying to exclude him from support. If one might call this unbiased trials, ok. I don't.
What I don't like about all this is that even if you go as far away from a certain legal system as you can for whatever reason you will never escape it. I'm not talking about being criminal, just about chossing the rules you want to live under. I think certain countries and people (and I'm not going after the US or anyone in particular) should learn to accept that individuals choose for themselves.
Real option 3. Get legal financing[1] so he can hire competent lawyers and get a fair trial. If Dotcom is so confident that he'll win, why doesn't be borrow the money and counter sue for business interruption? Moreover, why doesn't a top law firm work on contingency? Win, get a huge payout on the counterclaim, lose nada.
> As a US citizen, this case makes me sick to my stomach.
MU was the hub of piracy on the net. And from the figures posted, netted 400 million dollars from it.
It's not something that was going to be ignored, even with a legitimate upload service being offered, because the primary monetary driver for that company was tricking and/or getting people to sign-up when visiting a page to d/l pirated content.
All the US gov will have to show is a statistical sample of 10,000 random accounts, and correlate their signup to first entry ... a page hosting pirated content... More or less.
And when that comes back to show that 99% of paid-users d/l pirated content, it's over.
Anyone with access to the Apache or nginx access logs and the hosted files could do half of that in their sleep.
What I'm sick of is there are people who choose to ignore the facts, and idolize this man who's entire history for the last two decades revolves around criminal activities and lawsuits.
But hey, this is America and you're entitled to your opinion.
He may in reality be guilty as hell (legally of course he is not yet...) but that doesn't mean the law can take shortcuts. What is up with the illegal search warrants?
That is the sort of stuff that people should be concerned about. If they were going about this in a reasonable fashion I'm sure the vast majority of us would not be concerned. Do it properly, and if he is found guilty then so be it, and if he is innocence then so be it. Just do it properly.
Yes. The government can railroad guilty people as well as innocent people.
In fact, it can be worse when they railroad guilty people, because the next time the government cuts corners, people will just think "oh, it's okay, the government wouldn't bring a case unless they had proof. Remember the last guy who claimed that? He was guilty, too."
Dotcom is completely guilty AFAIC, but the state still has the burden to prove that guilt beyond a reasonable doubt to a jury of his peers.
Exactly right. Railroading obviously guilty people concerns me greatly. That's how mob justice works, and it is the reason mob justice is generally seen as unappealing.
I'd like a source for that. I believe TPB is and was in that position. I also believe that rapidshare and all those other sites had a similar amount of pirated content. In general you'd have a mirror of a given file across 3 or so sites which would indicate MU wasn't that far different from those commonly used as mirrors.
>statistical sample of 10,000 random accounts, and correlate ... pirated content
Why? That shows that people downloaded pirated content (which makes the downloaders guilty, not MU). I don't see how that makes MU guilty.
>Anyone with access to the Apache or nginx access logs and the hosted files could do that in their sleep.
uhhhhhh no. Not at all. How the heck to you figure out if a file is actually legal or not? How do you tell if a downloader of a file legitimately owned that file or not? An artist once distributed his album to me via MU after I paid (I wanted it in a different format than was avaliable via automatic download). I was a legal downloader, but if I gave the link to my friend he/she would have downloaded it illegally. To do such a thing they would have to first catagorize all the content, determine the copyright holder, ask the holder if it was a legal download, wait on the copyright holder to look through his/her probably nonexistant logs, and so on. This is not easy.
> idolize this man who's entire history for the last two decades revolves around criminal activities and lawsuits.
His past doesn't matter in this regard. I don't actually see how any of what you posted matters. Sure, there's piracy on MU. That doesn't mean it was illegal since they apparently obeyed the DMCA.
>It's not something that was going to be ignored
Indeed, it looks like the US government isn't ignoring it even though it was likely legal and are using underhanded methods in order to destroy the business, probably due to the lobbying money from the entertainment industry. If the government not following the law to persecute someone who's not breaking the law, and isn't even a citizan of the united states, doesn't make you sick to your stomach then I'm not sure what our government could do to do such a thing.
You really want a source for the fact that his site was a piracy haven? Are you that naïve? The man has a history of criminality, including embezzlement plus the people that are defending him are the same people who complain about Hollywood and the RIAA. If he wasn't facilitating global piracy then Hollywood and the RiAA are irrelevant in any arguments about this case. If he's innocent, he'll have his day in court.
Are you really that naive? I don't want to be dramatic, but take current events into account (Julian Assange, the NDAA, Guantanamo). There is plenty of abuse.
The question is not whether people used Mega Upload for piracy, its whether or not their service complied with the law (DMCA). For example: if I mail narcotics, is the Post Office breaking the law? If I Drop Box a pirated movie to a friend, is Drop Box breaking the law? Plenty of people email files around, do you think Google checks for/blocks any pirated attachments? Youtube? Come on, what song can't you find on youtube uploaded by some random person who added the lyrics. I'd be willing to bet that much more "pirated content" is streamed through youtube than ever was through MU.
What would you think if China extradited Sergey because people are uploading Chinese artists' music to youtube?
The fact that so many used it for pirated content is only a testament to how easy and scalable his file sharing/transferring service was and their effort to protect their user's privacy.
Privacy means a lot to quite a bit of people, me included.
You obviously haven't read the indictment. They weren't totally ignoring the takedown requests yes, but they were knowingly assisting and profiting off content they knew was copyrighted.
If you are saying the government has not yet proved it in a court of law -- as it is required to do -- you are correct.
If you are saying that Dotcom wasn't explicitly aware of copyrighted materials being uploaded, didn't know people were uploading copyright materials, and didn't set up reward programs for people who uploaded the most pirated materials, then you are very naive.
>> You really want a source for the fact that his site was a piracy haven? Are you that naïve?
IANAL but I figure that for the law to be upheld in an unbiased manner it must be considered naive for all intents and purposes. Simply because that's really not an argument at all, no part in the process can just come up and say "you are being naive not to believe my allegations".
Naivete, common sense, good judgment... those are really just "recourse to infinity" type arguments that only serve the speaker and have no objective meaning whatsoever. They must have no place in applying the law.
What I'm sick of is there are people who choose to ignore the facts, and idolize this man who's entire history for the last two decades revolves around criminal activities and lawsuits.
Providing paid access to pirated content is bad? Maybe hollywood should have taken that business model to heart.
When I saw that the extradition was postponed to March 2013 I figured it was another move by the US to draw this saga out as long as possible.
It makes sense for Kim and his team to respond "screw that we're coming over now and you hurry this shit up so we can win our case and start our business back up." His lawyers must believe without a doubt that they have this case in the bag.
It seems fairly obvious that from the beginning this case was designed to take a long time in court, in order to keep megaupload down as long as possible. By keeping their assets frozen and postponing court dates the US is continuing to "win" this battle.
I'm curious to know if he waived his right to speedy trial? If he hasn't, his US legal team is ready, and the prosecutor isn't this will be over in 30 days.
It's a cheap challenge, because he knows it will never be answered.
He'll be lucky if the DOJ gives some generic statement about the quality of justice in the US, but most likely it will be ignored completely. Even acknowledging this challenge would be stepping into a minefield, and the DOJ is not that stupid.
There's something I don't quite understand. If you're accused of a crime in the US how can all your assets be frozen by the government and your website taken offline? Aren't you innocent until proved guilty?
If the answer is that it's suspected that all the money comes from illegal activity and therefore frozen until a judge rules on whether this is the case or not what would stop the US government from prosecuting, for example, Larry Page, take all his money and shut down Google until he has been to court? Which he can't pay for because he doesn't have any money.
Can you really just indite someone and convince a judge to freeze all his accounts before there has even been a trial?
The Comprehensive Forfeiture Act of 1984 allows it and US v. Monsanto upheld it. Since this is being prosecuted under RICO, it's lawful and Constitutional. Let's not forget that the US is only one of at least five countries involved in this case. No one has accused or has evidence that Larry Page has done anything illegal. But if there was evidence that page is violating RICO, then try can take his stuff until trial as well. As far as innocent until proven guilty, that actually isn't in the Constitution, it's based in English Common Law -- Dotcom's right aren't being violated as he is getting due process. Of course, te current situation of extradition requires a much lower standard of proof, the standard here is whether or not there is evidence that warrants a trial; effectively like a grand jury deliberation.
If his Biden assertions have any merit, then this is coming straight from the top. It makes perfect sense to delay the case until after elections. (Not to mention all the other legal tactics mentioned here.)
If the funds are subject to asset seizure the DOJ would never release them in a situation like this. If they got a conviction there'd be nothing left - all paid to his surprisingly expensive legal team based in the caymans. Even the dumbest feds ever would see that coming a mile away.
So lets not give the man a chance to a fair trial with his own attorneys paid with his own money, because by the law we are innocent until proven guilty, and we know he is a slimeball who will screw us.
Yeah. That sounds reasonable. The US is fucking this one up.
Not a single move so far has followed due process. Every move has been corrupt or illegal, ruled so by a judge. Not a single statement issued so far reassures that they will start following the rules.
I think we can safely say which side of this story is the dishonest and convicted one and it's not Dotcom.
His accounts were frozen by the FBI, so he has no accessible money right now. He's not asking the government for a handout, but for them to unfreeze the money he already owns.
To quote the tweet the story is based around, “Hey DOJ, we will go to the US. No need for extradition. We want bail, funds unfrozen for lawyers & living expenses,”
The FBI had all his bank accounts frozen so he has limited access to cash to pay for his legal defence.
Now they have started to delay the extradition hearing and case from moving forward. This is, unfortunately, a common tactic of Federal prosecutors - they throw the book at defendants and if they realize they may actually lose the case, they keep delaying any trial as long as possible so the accused does not have a chance to get their money back or clear their name. Defendants are left defending themselves against charges the government won't allow to be brought to trial. See the case of Gibson Guitars as another example. They had their factory raided and property seized 3 years ago and has still not had their day in court and have not had their property returned.
Well, to be fair, he's not asking the government to cover his costs, but to unfreeze assets so that he can pay them. It's a shrewd move. The US can skip an extradition hearing if he can pay his legal team.
So the US's Government's tactic is to delay the extradition trial until he's left with no money to defend himself...and then win by default. Is that what they call "justice"?
Does anyone on HN actually read about this case from credible sources or just parrot the biased reporting from Torrentfreak that Dotcom is a hero because he gave you free movies?
Dotcoms laywers agreed to delaying his extradition hearing until next year because it is not possible for it to take place next month due to all of the still outstanding issues related to his mansion raid possibly being illegal. It has nothing at all to do with the DOJ trying to screw him by delaying the trial.
> Dotcom complained about the delay in postings on Twitter today.
“Dirty delay tactics by the U.S.,” he wrote on the social media site. “They destroyed my business. Took all my assets. Time does the rest.”
The NZ prosecutor and DOJ screwed this so badly they'll need at least a year to get the same response. In the meantime, the business is still shut and no one is getting paid.
I guess that's technically true in terms of absolute numbers, but it's fairly meaningless. What did unlimited amounts of printed money do for Zimbabwe?
Snake house. If they (US gov) cannot win, they will delay as much as possible just to warn others: even if we are completely wrong and fucked up, we still can messed up your life for X months or years!!
While I support his fight, I believe this simply adds to a long tradition in politics of offering "tempting" concessions the other side can never accept, for publicity and other purposes.
An earlier story quoted his lawyers saying that a delay was pretty much inevitable, they totally saw it coming and expected it. Kim then went whining to twitter about how the US is using "delay tactics".
IANAL: If he wants a speedy trial, and is concerned about legal fees, he should just go the U.S. on his own. Any delay at this point only helps the prosecution, giving them more time to research the case.
He is willing to face trial if they give him money first? That's not how Justice works in any modern country. His lawyers presumably told him as much, so this is just another bizarre plea for attention.
And? Lots of people get their assets frozen. They don't get to make demands as a precondition of submitting to justice.
Asking for special conditions that are never granted can only mean one of two things: either he is utterly ignorant of how law works or he is just trolling for more attention.
I choose to view him as non-ignorant, but since my view is not fawning, apparently I get a massive karma downgrade. I'll live.
Also, how else do you get to have funds released other than through petition? And he has already submitted to the justice system, otherwise he wouldn't be turning up in court.
I don't disagree with what you said. But the topic was in regard to someone refusing to submit to justice unless their conditions were met. The point is, he must submit to the court before the court can grant his petition.
He hasn't refused, he is fighting extradition in court. How can he have refused to submit to justice if he is taking part in court proceedings? Submitting to justice is not the same as doing whatever you are told, at least not since the establishment of habeas corpus as a standard.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the funds are frozen by the US, not NZ. "Submitting to Justice" does not mean "Submit to Prosecutor." It means making yourself available to the Court for the purpose of defending yourself at risk of being found guilty and punished.
US Courts are not going to consider the petitions of someone who won't show up to Court. For example, Roman Polanski wishes to petition the US Courts regarding his Criminal Case. The US Courts correctly refuse to hear those petitions so long as Polanski is hiding from the Court.
The funds are seized and frozen by Hong Kong and New Zealand at the request of the US authorities, which is how he has already managed to get some of it back from the New Zealand authorites.
The FBI wanted him extradited. He didn't want to be extradited. So there was going to be a hearing about whether the FBI got what they wanted, or Dotcom got what he wanted (or some court-mediated compromise, but that seems unlikely in this case). Kim negotiated with the FBI so they no longer disagree about whether he will be extradited, so the hearing is no longer required.
He is going to the US to stand under US law and this was an FBI initiated and led operation, with the other organisations giving what the FBI terms "substantial and critical assistance", so as far as I can tell this means that outside the US, only the NZ police have assisted in any operational role. "Critical assistance" could even just mean other organisations advising them that it was an appallingly bad idea, depending on how cynically you judge the content of government documentation.
1. Get bled until nobody will offer legal services to him because they know he can't pay. Get extradited with a public defendant (if he's lucky). Have a trial with a lawyer being provided by the DoJ (who happens to be the ones putting him on trial).
2. Get extradited with a team of really good lawyers who truly represent him.
There really aren't any options that don't end with him extradited. Why wouldn't he want to be extradited on his terms rather than the government's.
It also isn't rocket science that, regardless of whether the government is intentionally trying to get his legal team to desert him, delays are better for the government than they are for Dotcom.
As a US citizen, this case makes me sick to my stomach. It reeks of America strong-arming other countries to pursue an agenda that is in only its best interests. It is made worse by the high-level collusion between the government and Hollywood. It is topped off by a stinking pile that is a lack of respect for anybody's intellectual property except Hollywood's and a rotten cherry of government seizure that prevents somebody from defending themselves in court.
(I suppose there is a 3rd option where he goes completely underground, but, again, with no money, that's going to be a tough thing to do.)