The case of Megaupload’s founder Kim Dotcom gets odder by the day, with the latest official documents revealing that the police simply didn’t know, or didn’t bother checking, if Kim Dotcom was a New Zealand citizen or not.
The newest twist reveals that the Government Communications Security Bureau, New Zealand’s monitoring/spying department, asked the Organized and Financial Crime Agency (the cops) whether Dotcom was a legal resident of New Zealand. The cops said he wasn’t. But he was.
It’s a key mistake because, rather oddly, the NZ intelligence services are allowed to intercept and monitor communications of non-residents, but can’t monitor its own people. And Dotcom is legally a Kiwi, so the whole basis of the case seems to be built upon technically illegally obtained data.
As if it wasn’t bad enough that the Kiwi PM has had to get involved, Dotcom’s legal team is now asking for an inquiry to be launched into the utter mess of a situation. [The Register]
