This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Business News Digital Legal MegaUpload Timeline Top Stories
Kim Dotcom sues New Zealand spies
By Chris Cooke | Published on Monday 16 September 2013
As expected, MegaUpload founder Kim Dotcom has sued New Zealand’s Government Communications Security Bureau in a NZ$6 million lawsuit.
The spy agency broke the law in the way it spied on Dotcom and his Mega colleagues ahead of the raid and shutdown of the file-transfer company in January 2012 in a joint initiative by the American and New Zealand governments.
As much previously reported, New Zealand Prime Minister John Key admitted just under a year ago that the GCSB “acted unlawfully” in the way it gathered communications between former MegaUpload execs.
The PM ordered an investigation, while New Zealand’s Green Party reported the GCSB to the police. Earlier this month said police confirmed that their investigation had indeed uncovered illegal activity on the part of the GCSB, but added that no prosecutions would be made because it couldn’t be shown the rule-breaking was deliberate.
Dotcom, needless to say, was not impressed with that announcement, though he said the police’s decision didn’t surprise him because it was “the police investigating the police”. Civil action against the GCSB was already underway though, with the action getting court approval back in March.
It remains to be seen what course the NZ$6 million lawsuit now takes, and whether the spy agency looks to do a deal. Meanwhile America’s legal efforts to extradite Dotcom to face charges of money laundering, racketeering and copyright infringement rumble on.
