[governance] Kim Dotcom: New Zealand to investigate unlawful spying

[Riaz K Tayob]

  Kim Dotcom: New Zealand to investigate unlawful spying

PM orders inquiry into actions of government agents in lead-up to arrest 
of Megaupload founder, who is fighting US extradition


  *
    Reuters in Wellington
  * guardian.co.uk <http://www.guardian.co.uk/>, Monday 24 September
    2012 09.57 BST

Megaupload founder Dotcom at court in Wellington
Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom outside the New Zealand court of appeals 
in Wellington. Photograph: Mark Coote/Reuters

New Zealand <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/newzealand>'s prime 
minister, John Key, has launched a inquiry into "unlawful" spying by 
government agents leading to the arrest of Megaupload 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/megaupload> founder Kim Dotcom 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/kim-dotcom>, who is fighting 
extradition to the US where he faces charges of internet 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/internet> piracy and breaking 
copyright laws.

The investigation may deal another blow to the US case after a New 
Zealand court ruled in June that search warrants used in the raid on 
Dotcom's home earlier this year, requested by the FBI, were illegal.

Key has asked the government's intelligence and security division to 
investigate "circumstances of unlawful interception of communications of 
certain individuals by the government communications security bureau", 
his office said in a statement on Monday.

Key's spokesman would not comment on whether the "certain individuals" 
referred to Dotcom, his three colleagues also arrested and facing US 
charges, or all of them.

"The bureau had acquired communications in some instances without 
statutory authority," Key's statement said.

New Zealand authorities arrested Dotcom and his colleagues at his rented 
country estate near Auckland in January, confiscating computers and hard 
drives, works of art, and cars.

The FBI accuses the flamboyant Dotcom, a 38-year-old German national 
also known as Kim Schmitz, of leading a group that netted $175m (£100m) 
since 2005 by copying and distributing music, films and other 
copyrighted content without authorisation.

"I welcome the inquiry by [Key] into unlawful acts by the GCSB," Dotcom 
said on his Twitter account.

Dotcom maintains that the Megaupload site was no more than an online 
storage facility, and has accused Hollywood of lobbying the US 
government to vilify him.

The raid and evidence seizure has already been ruled illegal and a court 
has ruled that Dotcom should be allowed to see the evidence on which the 
extradition hearing will be based.

US authorities have appealed against that ruling, and a decision is pending.

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