NSA Unlawfully Surveilled Kim Dotcom In New Zealand, Says Report (thehill.com) 133
According to new documents from New Zealand's Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB), the NSA illegally used technology to spy on Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom. "The New Zealand Herald first reported that the GCSB told the nation's high court that it ceased all surveillance of Dotcom in early 2012, but that 'limited' amounts of communications from Dotcom were later intercepted by its technology without the bureau's knowledge," reports The Hill. From the report: Dotcom was surveilled by the NSA and the GCSB in a joint intelligence operation named Operation Debut. According to the Herald, that surveillance was scheduled to end in January 2012, but the United States continued to use New Zealand's technology. According to court documents obtained by the Herald, "Limited interception of some communications continued beyond the detasking date without the knowledge of GCSB staff." The court papers don't explain how the NSA was able to use the GCSB's spying technology without the bureau's knowledge. According to the Herald, "The GCSB documents do contain an admission of NSA involvement, although it was not made outright." Dotcom is facing charges of copyright infringement and money laundering related to Megaupload, a file-sharing website shut down in 2012. He is currently fighting U.S. attempts to extradite him from New Zealand.
Not illegal (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not illegal in the US for the NSA to spy on other countries. And it's not illegal in Russia to subvert elections in the US.
Re:Not illegal (Score:5, Informative)
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It is (was now) illegal for NZ to spy on it's own citizens and the US was using NZ to do the dirty work.
Perhaps illegal under NZ law, but that is completely irrelevant if Kim Dotcom is tried in a US court.
Re:Not illegal (Score:4, Interesting)
"Evidence on behalf of person whose surrender is sought regarding restrictions on surrender
(1) In any proceedings under this Act, a Judge or court may receive evidence tendered by or on behalf of a person whose surrender is sought that is relevant to the restrictions on surrender in sections 7 and 8 if the Judge or court considers the evidence is reliable, whether or not the evidence is otherwise admissible in a court of law.
(2) Subsection (1) does not apply to evidence gathered in New Zealand."
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It can be used in a NZ court to oppose the extradition on the grounds the request was based on illegally obtained evidence.
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Yes, it can be used to throw out any extradition request - but Kim Dotcom had better be especially careful about where he travels in future...
NZ is only the *current* jurisdiction this is being fought in, it can quite easily become dozens of other countries at the behest of the American judicial system.
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Isn't it odd that copyright violation is being taken far more seriously than raping a twelve year old girl hard enough for her to need medical treatment.
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Oh yay, the Roman Polanski example is brought up yet again.
Read up on the story, theres a *lot* of judicial misconduct in it - thats the reason for the current situation, its not as simple as Polanski is being allowed to get away with child rape.
Missed the point by a hemisphere! (Score:2)
Copyright violation charge versus a conviction, for rape of a child no less.
Moving the goalpost towards questioning the validity of the conviction is going away from the point. Would a different example of someone fleeing justice help?
My point is the response to copyright violation seems disproportionate.
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She was drugged and raped. No questions about it.
I like Polanski's movies but he should spend the rest of his life in jail. Rapist scum should be neutered and locked up - no exceptions.
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Witnesses. Fleeing prosecution. Witnesses that can tell his MO (drugging underage girls). Witnesses that can tell how he took advantage of them. Yeah, I consider him guilty and unless he have the guts to ever face legal scrutiny I will continue to hold that view. But don't take my word - you can easily find out the facts yourself.
TL;DR Fuck off you disgusting shit of a coward.
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The court papers don't explain how the NSA was able to use the GCSB's spying technology without the bureau's knowledge.
The equipment is supplied by the NSA, the software is from the NSA, the training is done by the NSA, why is the GCSB surprised that it functions without their involvement? They're just the janitors.
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It is (was now) illegal for NZ to spy on it's own citizens
This is a direct component of the Eschelon SI G-INT agreement commonly known as 5 I's. The US and NZ are signatories and have an agreement in place. I have it around somewhere from when I read it and IIRC, the way it works is as you say, NZ isn't allowed to sp y on domestic citizens, however NZ government is able to get around this by using intelligence sharing agreements. One member of the agreement spies on another member, generally with consent.
and the US was using NZ to do the dirty work.
This is the point of difference in the agreement. NZ can't
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Said a whiny AC...
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It's not illegal in the US for the NSA to spy on other countries. And it's not illegal in Russia to subvert elections in the US.
That's correct. Nobody in the US is going to arrest Russia, and nobody in New Zealand is going to arrest the NSA.
However, citizens in each country who assisted in these activities may not find themselves so lucky...
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It is, however, illegal in New Zealand to tell the court that you are not doing something that you continue to do. It's also illegal in the USA. It's called 'perpetrating a fraud upon the court' and is one of the nastier felonies that are only prosecuted against little people.
AC
Re: Not illegal (Score:3)
It wasn't theft. They retained their files!
It works for the pirates. Might as well use it here.
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You're right, it's not theft. It's unauthorized access to and abuse of confidential information. That's still reasonably unlawful, making the point moot.
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2016: Russia illegally hacked DNC and offered information to Trump campaign because they wanted to get Trump elected because they thought Trump would serve their interests and reduce the economic sanctions that they justly deserved from their thu
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And it's not illegal in Russia to subvert elections in the US.
The unlawfully spied one would question the relevance of that statement. [twitter.com]
The real questions.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Why were the NSA spying on someone who was possibly involved in copyright infringement?
Why was the GCSB assisting the NSA in spying on someone who was possibly involved in copyright infringement?
Remember, back then the 'crime' that DotCom was supposed to have committed was not actually a crime in NZ (they later played a lot of political games to shuffle things over the other supposed crimes that were, so they could not get laughed out of extradition hearings). It was certainly nothing that should come under NSA jurisdiction.
What we are really seeing here is the truth of the government spying - and that is it is a tool to use against citizens whenever the government feels they have 'crossed the line' of what they are allowed to do. It is not a particularly useful tool against terrorism - because you need to know your targets, and you usually dont know a terrorism target until AFTER they have done whatever they were planning.
It is however a very VERY effective political tool for repressing alternative views - you only have to point out to someone some 'embarrassing' details that have been trawled up, and quietly suggest they play along, or such things could get leaked by accident..
Re: The real questions.. (Score:1)
I pretty much consider Kim Dotcom to be the internet Jesus.
The US gov. really seems to want him crucified for helping people share. That's a good enough analogy for me.
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Um, Obviously you haven't been paying attention. KimDotCom had been attempting to inject himself into the Presidential election. As in "I been hacking the election...."
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Why were the NSA spying on someone who was possibly involved in copyright infringement?
That's the key issue. Why is copyright infringement in the remit of the National Security Agency? What is the national security threat from pirating movies?
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Why were the NSA spying on someone who was possibly involved in copyright infringement?
Economic espionage. NSA has been doing it for decades, despite it not being part of their charter. The most well-known example, and one of few that have become public, is from the 90s. NSA gathered SIGINT for (American) McDonnell-Douglas that allowed them to snatch a $6B Saudi aircraft order away from (European) Airbus. You can bet this sort of thing happens all the time when those sorts of dollar amounts are in play. MPAA claims piracy costs them billions, ergo, call in the NSA and let the laws be damned.
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My guess would be, that the entertainment industry plays a major role in keeping the balance of trade up.
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Why were the NSA spying on someone who was possibly involved in copyright infringement?
Why was the GCSB assisting the NSA in spying on someone who was possibly involved in copyright infringement?
The NSA spies on American citizens and forwards the information to the DEA and other law enforcement agencies for drug and other crimes. Why wouldn't they get involved in copyright infringement?
Re: Him and everyone else (Score:1)
When it comes to anything on foreign soil, the NSA isn't under their jurisdiction. Until they get caught, at which point it becomes a political and diplomatic issue. Same for any government agency of any country, in any other country.
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I know this isn't really an answer, but the answer is that they play dirty. Makes me think more and more that at some point at my life I'll scream the words "You'll never take me alive!"
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He directly profited from the piracy of Hollywood content, that alone is enough to make the US government (after some prodding from their masters in the media industry) interested in the guy.
Ok, I'll explain it for you : (Score:2, Informative)
Sure, Kim Dotcom is a dirtbag, but I don't understand why he's a target of the NSA.
1)
In the US, people who have lots of money can get the government to do their bidding. This is the basis of the lobbying industry, but it is certainly not limited to lobbying.
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The people behind the media industry have lots of money. They have for some time been freaking out that they are not getting more money as fast as they think they should be getting more money and they blame sharing, such as Kim Dotcom facilitated, for a great portion of their cash stream slowing.
3) The people behind the media industr
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The real reason is probably something benign, like one of his servers has some version of a game that can't be found anywhere else, and the uploader decided to PGP encrypt it, and now 3 levels of the NSA are committed to quietly breaking the encryption on these files, because it's a game that some of their top programmers / mathematicians / etc. played in college but could never finish (and now that they have a job, money, and some free time, they intend to complete it, come hell or high-water).
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They did a lot of work on Japan, France, the Philippines, South African military, Laos. Some issues with NSA in 1985 and France.
NZ had one thing the NSA wanted. Locations for NSA satellite receiving stations.
A long history of politics, hardware and total support for the NSA.
US constitution does not protect overseas (Score:2)
I am not surprised that the NSA spied on him, I would just be surprised if any of that information could or would make its way into civilian law enforcement hands. I suspect the NSA was spying because any storage could be used to st
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I'm not aware of a geographical limitation on the Constitution anywhere. Other than a few things like being the President or voting, it isn't confined to Citizens either.
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While you're correct, the federal government interferes with the so-called rights of citizens every day. Whether it's the USA PATRIOT act, the NDAA, or other similar legislation, you in fact have zero of the rights enumerated in the constitution left to you.
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Rampant violation of the Constitution is another matter. I agree that the violations are rampant. I just refuse to let claims that the Constitution doesn't apply go unchallenged. Let it be known when authorities de-legitimize themselves.
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I doubt the US constitution offers any protection from unreasonable search and seizure to foreign people in a foreign land
The US constitution is supposed to apply to US authority, not any geopolitical boundaries.
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For those of you from New Zealand (Score:5, Informative)
Unlawfully? (Score:1)
I'm sorry, is that supposed to mean something to the NSA, or any of the other agencies that are designed to operate outside the 'law'?
Languauge (Score:2, Informative)
What report?
No report in the Herald or other NZ publication would use the word "surveilled". They still speak English there.
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Except the Herald [nzherald.co.nz], Stuff [stuff.co.nz], and Scoop [scoop.co.nz]. And those were the first three I tried. RNZ [radionz.co.nz] does too.
Your first link is a reprint of a Washington Post story. Second one starts with a middle-endian date format - must be a foreigner.
Third one is a press-release by an illiterate wanker with numerous spelling/punctuation/grammar errors including the humourous "bold-face liar". He prints lies in a heavy font?
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Oh, it's perfectly cromulent in North American English. I just never heard it from a Kiwi.
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Why is the NSA wasting resources and time on someone like DotCom ?
Last I checked the man wasn't exactly a threat to National Security.
If you believe the news these days ( hahahahaha ) there are so many terrorists out there to " get us ", that the NSA should have plenty to do instead of spying on someone like DotCom.
The NSA's main task for the past few decades has been mass domestic surveillance for political/ideological purposes to stifle dissent, to silence whistle-blowers, and to protect the criminally-corrupt holding power.
"National security" is simply the keycode to unlocking more extra-Constitutional powers and funding.
The USA *used to be* a nation of laws. Now, it's just another (though large) corrupt & authoritarian banana-republic.
Strat
wish I had the NSA's resources (Score:5, Interesting)
Someone stole my bike. But since I'm not a billion dollar corporation I don't get to have several government agencies at my disposal for pursuing what amount to a civil case.
I assure you the I am hurt more for not having a bicycle than a movie studio is when someone pirates a film.
Misread that title as NASA (Score:2)
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Why would they spy on him? He's a pirate, not a (Score:2)
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