{"id":23110,"date":"2012-09-27T08:23:20","date_gmt":"2012-09-27T06:23:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=23110"},"modified":"2012-09-27T15:50:59","modified_gmt":"2012-09-27T13:50:59","slug":"megaupload-investigation-nz-spies-acted-illegally","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/internet\/23110\/megaupload-investigation-nz-spies-acted-illegally\/","title":{"rendered":"Megaupload investigation: NZ spies acted illegally"},"content":{"rendered":"

New Zealand’s spy agency illegally carried out surveillance on Megaupload<\/a> founder Kim Dotcom<\/a>, an official report showed on Thursday, prompting an apology from the prime minister and dealing a possible blow to a U.S. bid to extradite him.<\/p>\n

Washington wants the 38-year-old German national, also known as Kim Schmitz, to be sent to the United States to face charges of internet piracy and breaking copyright laws.<\/p>\n

Thursday’s report by the Inspector-General of Intelligence, the official watchdog for New Zealand spy agencies, found the Government Communications and Security Bureau (GCSB) had spied on Dotcom, despite a law prohibiting it from spying on New Zealand citizens and residents.<\/p>\n

The flamboyant Dotcom attained New Zealand permanent residency status in 2010.<\/p>\n

“It is the GCSB’s responsibility to act within the law, and it is hugely disappointing that in this case its actions fell outside the law,” Prime Minister John Key said in a statement, adding the blunder was the result of “basic errors”.<\/p>\n

Key apologized to Dotcom and all New Zealanders, saying they were entitled to be protected by the law and that it had failed them.<\/p>\n

New Zealand police asked the GCSB to keep track of Dotcom and his colleagues before a raid in late January on his rented country estate near Auckland, which saw computers and hard drives, works of art, and cars confiscated.<\/p>\n

The illegal surveillance may deal another blow to the U.S. extradition case after a New Zealand court ruled in June that search warrants used in the raid on Dotcom’s home were illegal.<\/p>\n

The raid followed a request by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for the arrest of Dotcom for leading a group that netted $175 million since 2005 by allegedly copying and distributing music, films and other copyrighted content without authorization.<\/p>\n

Dotcom maintains that the Megaupload site was no more than an online storage facility, and has accused Hollywood of lobbying the U.S. government to prosecute him.<\/p>\n

U.S. authorities are currently appealing a New Zealand court decision that Dotcom should be allowed to see the evidence on which the extradition hearing will be based.<\/p>\n

The extradition hearing has been delayed until March 2013.<\/p>\n

Related articles<\/strong><\/p>\n

Megaupload user data could be gone within a week<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Megaupload founder refused bail in New Zealand<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Megaupload shutdown unlikely to deter piracy: Analysis<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Megaupload kingpin proclaims innocence in NZ<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New Zealand’s spy agency illegally carried out surveillance on Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom, an official report showed on Thursday, prompting an apology from the prime minister and dealing a possible blow to a U.S. bid to extradite him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":3605,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9882],"tags":[25,1065,929],"class_list":["post-23110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-internet","tag-active","tag-kim-dotcom","tag-megaupload"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23110"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23110\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23170,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23110\/revisions\/23170"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}