Megaupload Founder Kim Dotcom To Sue New Zealand Police Over Illegal Seizure
Fortunes are changing for Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom, whose file-sharing website and servers were raided illegally in January by New Zealand police. A new ruling from New Zealand’s High Court has confirmed that the country’s spy agency illegally spied on him and must make public the details of their Dotcom surveillance.
Since the January raid, Dotcom has been fighting to recover his servers and seized equipment. In June, New Zealand courts ruled that the raid was illegal due to the use of invalid search warrants and excessive force on the part of the police.
Following that development, according to TorrentFreak, it was revealed that the Government Communications Security Bureau had spied on Dotcom, despite the fact that the agency is prohibited from keeping tabs on residents of New Zealand.
Now, according to the High Court, the GCSB must reveal all the details of their surveillance of Dotcom. The ruling also means that he is entitled to sue the GCSB and New Zealand police for damages occurring from the raid. Considering that Dotcom’s entire site was shut down for nearly a year, it seems that damages could be quite high.
Ultimately, Dotcom has big plans not just for the courtroom, but for the future of the Internet as well. In the face of the Megaupload shutdown, Dotcom announced plans to found a new file-sharing site called Mega, which he claims will revolutionize the Web in many ways.
“We'll beat them with evidence in court. We'll beat them with innovation on the Internet. In the end everything will be Mega!” Dotcom tweeted.
Dotcom said in an interview with Reuters that he had taken sufficient care not to violate the U.S. laws.
“The new Mega will not be threatened by U.S. prosecutors. The new Mega avoids any dealings with U.S. hosters, U.S. domains and U.S. backbone providers and has changed the way it operates to avoid another takedown," Dotcom said.
The site will allow the users to store photos, films, songs and other files in the cloud. It will also allow them to encrypt the files. Encryption will give a direct control to the users on their content while other users can access the content only by a decryption key.
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