Today the High Court handed a significant victory to Kim Dotcom, ruling that the warrants to search and seize his property were invalid and that the transfer of data to the FBI was unlawful. The full judgement is here [PDF]. Its not pretty reading. It shows that both the police and the District Court were incompetent in their handling of the original warrants, and that the police disobeyed a clear direction from the Solicitor-General not to transfer seized data.
I'm not sure what this will mean for the extradition case. That's really about whether a valid request was presented, not merits or evidence. I'm also not sure whether the US courts will permit the use of "evidence" unlawfully obtained overseas. If not, then the FBI's entire case could collapse due to the servile attitude of kiwi plods. But what is clear is that Dotcom has a strong case that his right to be secure against unreasonable search or seizure was violated, and is still being violated as his property has not been returned to him. And that means that the taxpayer will probably be paying him a large amount of money, again due to the servile attitudes of the police.
What's also clear is that the police owe us some answers about this. Why did they present a blatantly invalid warrant? Why didn't they act immediately to return irrelevant seized material? Why did they disobey a direction that nothing be handed over to the FBI and hand stuff over to the FBI? We deserve answers, and failing that, heads on spikes. Sadly, I expect our unaccountable, incompetent police force will refuse to give us either.
