🛬 ☂️ 🤶🏽 Kim Dotcom: Caught, the most wanted person online. Part 4 🤘 😧 🧚🏽

For some, Kim Dotkom, the founder of the infamous file hosting MegaUpload, is a criminal and an Internet pirate; for others, he is an unbroken fighter for the inviolability of personal data. On March 12, 2017, the world premiere of the documentary film was held, in which interviews were given with politicians, journalists and musicians who know Kim “from all sides”. New Zealand director Annie Goldson, using a video from personal archives, talks about the essence of Dotcom's legal battles with the US government and other government agencies that have proclaimed a battle for global Internet piracy.

In his youth, Kim Dotcom considered the United States a bastion of world democracy, a country whose government selflessly fights for the triumph of justice throughout the world. After playing the roles of a hacker, a juvenile delinquent and a computer security consultant, by the age of 30, Kim decides to start a business and creates the largest file hosting service, MegaUpload, which has reached 160 million users. Almost until the closure of the site in 2012, it ranked 13th in the ranking of the most visited Internet resources. Over the 7 years of MegaUpload’s existence, Kim has earned more than hundreds of millions of dollars, but as a result of litigation has turned into bankrupt. The United States initiated the prosecution, accusing Dotcom of posting pirated content and copyright infringement, which allegedly caused damage to the copyright holders in the amount of 500 million.dollars.

So far, Kim has not been able to recover from the blow and improve financial matters, since he spends all his money on the services of lawyers and the creation of new innovative projects, such as the K.im platform, the so-called “file store”, which makes payments to based cryptocurrency.

The article tells about the plot of the film "Caught in the Net", as well as excerpts from other journalistic materials inaccessible to the Russian-speaking reader.

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Kim Dotkom: Caught, the most wanted person online. Part 3

Dotcom and politics

On January 19, 2012, Kim posted on YouTube a clip of his song “I am ready to change your life” with the following words: “I will show you that I can change your life, I can change your thinking, I will prove that I am the best for fighting ".

As the 2014 elections approached, it became clear that the Internet party alone would not succeed, so Kim began to look for allies. The MANA party agreed to cooperate with him. She was very active and belonged to the “left wing” of political forces. Dotcom said he had laid out an unheard-of amount of $ 4 million for a deal with this party. Prime Minister John Key immediately stated that Kim was financing a political party to discourage his extradition. For MANA itself, the opportunity to introduce a new political partner to its electorate was important.

Newspapers were full of headlines: “Why the Dotcom party is good for New Zealand”, “We will protect our future with the Internet party”, “Dotcom’s new trick is to shock New Zealand politicians”, “How does the Internet - MANA alliance violate the rules of the game." Both parties themselves believed in the seriousness of their election victory, and people wondered how important the alliance could play in parliament. The media reported their every move, but MANA was not able to use this popularity to their advantage. Presentations by the Internet MANA alliance included aspects that seemed to be personally aimed at John Key.

Kim’s speech to voters was broadcast on television: “Are you ready for a revolution?” Are you ready to extradite John Key? ”When the crowd, along with Kim, began to chant:“ To hell with John Key! ” During this election campaign, attacks on the prime minister reached unprecedented heights, an example of which is the online video broadcast of the burning of a huge scarecrow with a portrait of John Key instead of a head. It was probably one of the dirtiest election campaigns for many years. Kim said he would share with the public news that could sink the prime minister. His supporters dubbed the approaching exposure "the moment of truth."

Moment of truth

5 days before the election, September 15, 2014, journalist David Fisher received a letter from Kim stating that everything Dotcom had suggested about a conspiracy against him was true - New Zealand filed it with the US “on a silver platter”. The Dotcom had fragments of electronic correspondence between a member of the government and a Warner Bros company representative: “John Key told me that they will give Dotcom a residence permit despite the criminal past. We will give him a “royal welcome,” and then he will get a one way ticket to Virginia. "

On the day of the "moment of truth" in front of the building of the Auckland Town Hall, a mass rally gathered. John Key promised that he would quit his post if there was evidence of surveillance, what should he do after Kim unveils emails confirming his connection with Hollywood? The “moment of truth” was a great risk for John Key - Dotcom promised to reveal certain facts to the public, and if they turn out to be true, the prime minister will have to resign.

“Today the country of the Long white cloud welcomes the whole world!” - The Moment of Truth speaker at the conference introduces American attorney and writer Glenn Greenwald, sitting at the table to the right of Keane, and Julian Assange, participating in the video communication event. Greenwald is widely known for publishing a series of articles on global surveillance based on materials from Edward Snowden in 2013.

"Welcome Edward Snowden!" - the smiling face of a former CIA and NSA officer appears on the screen, who has betrayed the mass media a lot of materials about illegal US surveillance of citizens around the world. Snowden also participates in the “Moment of Truth” via video link. “America is waging a real war for control of the Internet. They think that organizations like WikiLeaks should not be there, that state espionage should be kept secret. ”

The United States is confident that when it comes to copyright, the whole world should adopt their experience in this matter. David Fisher recalls: “What we saw there at the town hall event was called“ resistance. ”

Edward Snowden: "There are millions of spy sensors located around the world, I can see everything - which book you chose on Amazon, who you chat with, I see your friends on Facebook, messages sent by you via email or mobile."

Glenn Greenwald: "This is exactly the mass observation that Prime Minister Ki not only zealously denied, but promised to resign if it is proved that his government was involved in this."

Julian Assange: "Intelligence services, by definition, were created to conduct their activities outside the law, so they can not be trusted."

However, it did not matter what Assange and Snowden said. About Dotkom, one could say: “But the king is naked!”. He did not present a single evidence that he had promised to share for so long, and this became a big problem for Dotcom and everyone who supported him up to this point.

At a press conference after the event, Kim is asked the following question: “People were waiting for Dotcom to come to parliament and prove, as he promised, that John Key was a liar. Why didn’t you do it? ”
Kim replies: “I proved it, for sure!”!

Reporter: “No, what he knew about you before the raid is not proof of a conspiracy!”
Kim: “No, listen, let me answer! After what you learned today, you have a moral responsibility to bring the information that Glenn Greenwald and Edward Snowden shared with you to the Prime Minister and his cabinet, and call them to account! ”

“We have learned a larger lie, and it does not concern my case. It applies to every resident of New Zealand, which becomes the object of mass observation. It is on this story that you should focus, so put your priorities in order! ”

Reporter: “Well, let's bring it”
Kim:“Yes, Patrick, bring it, because in the past you have already let New Zealanders down!” I do not understand how you allow the Prime Minister to get out again and again! He lies and is cunning, but you still need to do your job, we all need to continue to do our job. "
Reporter: "So I'm doing my job, asking you: Kim Dotkom, what went wrong today, why didn’t you show your evidence?"
Kim: “I think that's enough for today. Thank you"!

Kim later told the film crew: “I knew that this letter was stolen by hackers, but you remember the famous Sony hack. The same people who hacked this company were also responsible for hacking Hollywood correspondence. They assured me that this letter would contain headers, with which it would be possible to establish all the details — what mail they used, date and time stamps, everything that could confirm the authenticity of the content. But, unfortunately, the letters were disclosed without this information, so for me they were useless. I am very sorry that I could not present them at the "moment of truth."

These words of Kim make one doubt whether he is as frank as he wants to seem. It is doubtful that the former hacker believed the veracity of the document on the basis of only screenshots or a description of the content. Kim probably had the opportunity to obtain this incriminating evidence in the form of electronic copies of the original files, at least by purchasing it from crackers. Most likely, Kim did so. No less likely is that Dotkom is well versed in politics and just tried to keep a loophole for the future, not wanting to completely destroy the prime minister and his cabinet for reasons of his own security. He considered that for the victory of his party in the elections, there would be enough hints and assurances to people that he really had such materials and they would vote for a “true lover”.

Another defeat

New Zealand parliamentary elections were held on September 20, 2014. It was a very serious, at times very dirty political campaign. Initially, people gave Kim and his party serious support because they remembered that he was a victim of US intelligence, the government and New Zealand police. Suddenly, they began to see him as a more aggressive player, and now John Key became an outsider. However, at the time of the vote count, it turned out that the Internet-MANA party was having problems, most likely due to the fact that Dotkom did not dare or was really unable to deliver the “finishing blow” to the premiere. The alliance was unable to enter parliament, and Dotcom’s millions were flushed into the toilet.

“Good evening everyone!”, Kim speaks at the party’s headquarters after announcing the preliminary results of the vote, “today we lost, and it happened because of me.” Those present shout: “No, it’s not true, it’s not!”

Dotkom interrupts them: “No, I should have said that! Forgive me! I take full responsibility for our defeat today, because the Kim Dotkom brand was “poisonous” for what we were trying to achieve. I have not seen this before, but in the last couple of weeks it has become obvious to me. I say to all of you who have worked with me these days, many thanks! ” Kim leaves, and many of those present cannot hold back their tears. Yes, and Kim himself, speaking, seemed about to cry. Apparently, the media did manage to strike at him, creating him during the election campaign not the best image. John Key and his government remain for another 3 years.

The day after the election, Dotcom's lawyers were contacted by the New Zealand Solicitor General and asked if the accused was ready to leave the country. In this case, the case against Kim would be closed, there would be no extradition and everything would be in the past.

Kim tells the crew: “You can’t make such a raid, destroy a person’s family and business, cause him so much pain and get out of the water dry with some piece of paper that says:“ Yes, I did wrong, but you forgive me, thanks to you for that! ” Yes they went! ”

2015: megaproject and megasud

At the end of 2014, Kim Dotkom put forward the idea of extending a fiber optic cable along the bottom of the Pacific Ocean that would connect New Zealand and the United States. The project cost was estimated at $ 400 million, which neither Dotcom nor potential investors had. In February 2015, this idea was replaced by an even more ambitious project to create the MegaNet anti-censorship network. Kim wrote on his Twitter: “How would you like a new Internet that cannot be controlled, censored and destroyed by governments and corporations? I'm working on it. ”

In mid-June, Dotcom reports to TorrnetFreak that the network will be completely decentralized and anonymous. It is known that mobile phone users should play a key role in the network structure, although MegaNet will also be available from other devices. “MegaNet is a unique protocol for crystallizing and reconstructing files using blockchains.
This technology will be able to support entire sites, making them completely immune to hacker attacks and DDoS. At first, MegaNet will use the existing Internet as a crutch, but in 10 years it will work by itself, exclusively on smartphones. Let's hope that at least 500 million users will be able to support the network. It will be a network created by people for people. Uncontrolled by governments and corporations, MegaNet will be a powerful tool that can protect our privacy and freedom, and it will become my legacy. ”

Dotcom sets a date for the start of fundraising for the implementation of its project on the basis of crowdfunding - January 20, 2016, on the day of the fourth anniversary of the New Zealand raid. Then Kim promises to unveil all the details of the new megaproject.

In September, the media reported that after the postponement for 3 and a half years, in December in Auckland the hearing on the extradition of Kim Dotcom and his team to the United States begins again. The judge must decide whether these people will remain in New Zealand or sent to places where they face ten-year prison sentences.

Dotcom's lead attorney, Ron Mansfield, believes the case is the largest copyright lawsuit the world has ever seen. Kim tells reporters accompanying him to the court session that he is confident in his lawyers: “All our documents are just perfect! Any impartial lawyer will understand what’s the matter. ”
The judge says the Dotcom case is crucial because it addresses extradition matters in the context of New Zealand's existing law. Therefore, it is first necessary to prove that the activities of the Dotcom were indeed criminal.

Kim’s lawyer states that the Dotcom’s activities are not a crime on the grounds that there is a specific copyright law that protects Internet providers as well. Providing technology to Internet users does not impose civil or criminal liability on companies. Lawyers constantly pointed to the same circumstances of the case and existing international by-laws. The United States and New Zealand legal cooperation agreement does not contain a word about copyright, and based on this fact, lawyers expected to win the process.

In response to the lawyer's speech, the judge calls the Crown Attorney Christine Gordon, who says the following: “The dishonesty underlying MegaUpload’s activities can be expressed in simple terms. Evidence points to a simple fraud scheme. This is not just an innocent Internet service provider, but a voluminous cloud service with illegal content. ”

Greg Sandoval says: “Christina Gordon represents America’s interests, and I’m sure that she received the instructions from the US Department of Justice, and gave her best to this mission.”

Christina Gordon continues: “We have evidence of how defendants thought (!) And behaved in private. We have access to their “frank communication." According to a private statement by Matius Ortmann, copyright holders will understand, quote: "we are not just empty pipes for downloading content that we pretend to be." Another person involved in the case, Bram van der Kolk, said: “If the copyright holder knew the scale of our business, then of course they tried to stop it. They do not suspect that every month we earn millions. Ortmann said to van der Kolk, I quote: "we did the right thing, we contributed to fraud for a long time and thereby increased our growth."

The whole hall fell silent, mulling over the words of the prosecutor. Kristina Gordon continues: “On August 16, 2010, Dotkom told Skype to Ortmann in German:“ At some point, the judge will understand how bad we are and then the problems will begin. ”

Kim’s lawyer amends: “An objective translation of this phrase should be as follows:“ Because at some stage the judge will be assured of how bad they are, and then the mess will begin. ”

America understood very well what “weighty" evidence should be presented to the court, and Dotcom's lawyers practiced each. The prosecution was biased, choosing certain evidence and presenting them to the court at the most opportune moment. Kim conducted most of the conversations with the members of his team in German, and the United States relied on translations, without disclosing who performed them.

The lawyers managed to prove the unreliability and fallacy of most of the translations of the accused’s conversations, while each correct translation was made by a specific professional translator.

Christina Gordon: “Your Honor, you should have received the folder this morning ...”, and the next volume of the prosecution is placed on the judge’s table. The judge was literally overwhelmed with papers combined in a hundred separate volumes. Thousands of pages of documents drawn up by American legalists, they actually drowned him in the case file.

Kim Dotkom recalls: “I realized that the judge can’t figure it out at all. He had no idea about the Internet or copyright. At some point in the proceedings, he asked if MegaUpload was “cow storage,” confusing “cloud service” and “cow service”.

It was an exhausting process, and Kim’s lawyers prepared for each meeting for many, many hours. They invested a tremendous amount of time and human resources in what, in their opinion, served as reliable protection against extradition. However, most of the defense arguments were either ignored or not considered at all by the court.

The verdict in the case of Kim Dotcom was announced on December 25, 2015. The court decision reads as follows: “The overwhelming amount of evidence filed by the applicant in the case file and his annexes establishes the existence of sufficient data indicating signs of crimes for all the accused on each item. In this regard, it is recognized that all four defendants are subject to extradition. ”

Epilogue

Co-defendants in the MegaUpload case appealed the decision of the district court. In 2017, the Supreme Court ruled that defendants could be extradited for alleged fraud, but copyright infringement is not a criminal offense under New Zealand law. This fact raises the question of the legality of the 2012 raid and arrests. The Internet archive shows that MegaUpload did not offer bonuses for files larger than 100MB, too small for most movies and TV shows, and thus did not incite users to download this kind of content. The user agreement of the file hosting service indicated that the user is required to make a request for copyright to make sure that the content posted does not violate them.

At the end of the film, the phrase sounds that the MegaUpload time has irretrievably passed, and that pirated sites will lose their popularity. Piracy is in decline, but it taught Internet users an important lesson: if you can put something on the Internet and then download it conveniently and for a small price, then this is not a crime at all.

Greg Sandoval says: “What's the use of trying to put Dotcom in jail right now?” Find out what he knows, you already got his money, so make a deal with him, behave with him like you behave with hackers “in white hats” - try to benefit from his experience in this matter. It would be a very smart move, like in The Godfather - keep your friends close and your enemies even closer! ”

Sean Gallagher, editor of the Ars Technica portal: “Although we have a good reason to prevent piracy in order to protect artists who live by selling products of their creativity, the mechanisms used to combat the spread of illegal content are both mechanisms of censorship and oppression of freedom of thought. This is a very slippery path, a dangerous thing. ”

In the final of the film, Kim says: “The point is not that it is right, now the point is to win at any cost! All that matters to them is to crush me, to break me. But they ran into the wrong guy, I still win this fight! ”

The final credits of the movie "Caught in the Net" report that currently (March 2017) Kim is working on MegaUpload 2.0 and hinted that he could return to politics. If he is extradited, then Mona with children can also be sent from New Zealand.

Prime Minister John Key suddenly resigned in December 2016. Like representatives of the police and the English crown, he refused to give an interview to the creators of the Dotcom film. The trial of MegaUpload is ongoing.

"Our song is good, start over!"

On January 20, 2017, the New Zealand Court of Appeal upheld the 2015 lower court ruling that Kim Dotcom and his “accomplices” should be extradited to the United States for criminal charges related to the Megaupload website.

Murray Gilbert, a Hight Court trial judge, ruled that while he agrees with one of Dotcom’s main arguments that the free use of copyrighted content on the Internet is not a criminal offense in New Zealand, defendants can still be extradited on the basis of other charges brought by the plaintiff.

“Deliberate copyright infringement can be qualified as an unfair act, it deprives the copyright owner of what he may be entitled to. Consequently, the conduct of the accused in terms of Art. II.16 constitutes a criminal conspiracy to commit fraud, ”concluded the judge, referring to a specific section of the extradition treaty between New Zealand and the United States, which stipulated what formal criminal charges it could be used for.

However, it is likely that years will pass before the case is fully resolved. In a statement published shortly after the ruling was issued, Dotcom lawyer Ron Mansfield indicated that the case would be appealed to another, New Zealand Court of Appeals. Potentially, it will be possible to appeal to a higher court - the Supreme Court of New Zealand.

After the announcement of this decision, Dotcom wrote on his Twitter that the extradition rules are utter nonsense because “although we won, we still lost. This is a political affair. This is a politicized justice. I said that according to the copyright law, I could not be extradited, and I was right. What will they try now? Sharia court? ”
Answering Ars Tachnica's questions on Twitter, Dotcom commented on Murray Gilbert’s decision: “We won by presenting the main argument that copyright infringement on the Internet is not a crime in New Zealand and therefore cannot be considered as a reason for extradition. The judge had to agree with him, and he had no room left for maneuver. Then he decided to use the fallback option, allowing our extradition to the US authorities on the basis of the fraud law, despite the fact that copyright is not fraud, as the US Supreme Court ruled.

Now I am more than ever sure that we will win. We won the biggest legal dispute in my case, and the “pulling” of a fraud charge will not go before the five judges of the court of appeal. If they agree to this, it will mean that there is no copyright law in New Zealand and all safe havens for ISPs are illusory. "

Dotcom was not extradited to the United States even 3 years after the arrest, simply because with the terms of the 1970 Extradition Treaty between New Zealand and the United States, none of the countries “is required to send their citizens abroad to bring criminal charges against them, but the executive branch of each country has the right to extradite them if it sees fit at its discretion appropriate. ”

At the end of 2016, after the resignation of John Key, Kim Dotcom applied for New Zealand citizenship, with the aim of running for parliament. “I am applying for citizenship in order to personally participate in the political life of New Zealand,” he wrote on Twitter. "The New Zealand government is corrupt to the core, and I would like to educate people about this and provide an alternative to corrupt officials."

At the same time, Kim argued that regardless of whether he received citizenship or not, this still would not affect his criminal prosecution, "because it is a political matter."

MegaUpload team after the first trial of 2012 (from left to right): Bram van der Kolk, Kim Dotkom, Matias Ortmann and Finn Batato

The case of Kim Dotcom is still not finished. In January 2020, it celebrated 8 years since the unfortunate assault, which broke the careers and lifestyle of many people. The fact that Dotcom is still not in the United States is an evidence of an important fact: even alone you can fight against the state machine, although with sufficient finances. It is hard to say what would happen to Kim if he hadn’t had the opportunity to pay for the work of the best lawyers. Many are outraged that the United States, when considering a case in court, does not hesitate to refer to materials of a confidential nature - telephone conversations, emails, Skype communications obtained illegally. As it turned out, the special services have been closely monitoring the Dotcom since at least 2009, and this does not bother anyone. Attempts by Dotcom lawyers to claim that the evidence was obtained by the FBI in a completely illegal way,noted by the courts of all instances due to the fact that "the FBI's activities, by definition, are not always legal, especially in other countries."

In addition, the life of Kim was seriously spoiled by Andrus Nomme, a former employee of MegaUpload. He concluded a plea bargain in the United States, which included testifying against other Megaupload employees. The US authorities like to mention his testimony: “when I told Finn Batato that most of our content was stolen, he answered me:“ I know about it! ”

However, the New Zealand authorities do not want to look like US vassals, if only because the opposition in the country’s parliament is strong enough. The Dotcom case is a kind of indicator of the level of freedom in this country. We can only follow the further development of events and continue to expect from Mr. Dotcom new technological miracles, for example, in the field of cryptocurrency.

Dotcom's second wife is officially part of the team of lawyers, led by Ron Mansfield, and participates in all court hearings.

Topic: Ivan Lilekvist and Kim Dotkom, a large interview: the story of Megaupload, extradition to the United States, freedom, bitcoin. Part 1

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Kim Dotcom: Caught, the most wanted person online. Part 4