Supreme Court Won't Review US Government Getting To Steal All Of Kim Dotcom's Stuff
from the that's-unfortunate dept
While the "main event" in the never-ending case of the US Justice Department against Kim Dotcom continues to grind its way ever so slowly through the wheels of justice, one element has basically concluded. And this was the part that should concern you even if you think that Kim Dotcom was completely guilty of criminal copyright infringement. The issue here is that as part of the arrest of Dotcom and his colleagues, the US "seized" many of his assets. Now, when the government seizes assets, it's a temporary thing. They have a certain period of time to hold onto it. Afterwards, they either need to give those assets back or file a separate case to attempt to "forfeit" those items (i.e., keep them forever). Here's where things get a little bizarre. Because Dotcom was fighting extradition in New Zealand, the "deadline" for the US to continue holding the seized assets was approaching -- so they filed the separate case against his stuff. Because it's a civil asset forfeiture case, the case is literally against his stuff, and not against Kim Dotcom (and, yes, this is as weird and nonsensical as it sounds). But there was a twist: because Dotcom was still in New Zealand, the Justice Department said that he was a "fugitive" and thus couldn't even protest the forfeiture of his stuff. Unfortunately, both the district court and the appeals court agreed.
Again, let's be totally clear here -- because sometimes people get so focused on their belief that because Megaupload enabled copyright infringement that this is somehow okay. But here we have a situation where before anyone has been found guilty of anything, the US government was given permission to take and keep all of Kim Dotcom's stuff. This should concern you even if you think Dotcom deserves to rot in prison, because there's a clear absence of due process here. If Dotcom is eventually found to be not guilty -- that won't have any impact on this. The US government still gets to keep his stuff (or, well, whatever it can get its hands on).
So the issue here is not whether or not Kim Dotcom is guilty of copyright infringement. It's whether or not the US government can just take his stuff before that other process has played out. That's a problem.
And, unfortunately, it's a problem that the Supreme Court will not be reviewing at this time. Even as some of the Justices have expressed concerns about civil asset forfeiture, apparently they didn't want to take on this particular case. And, maybe that's okay, because maybe, as with many people, they wouldn't have been able to separate out the copyright question from the civil asset forfeiture question from the fugitive disentitlement question -- all of which are separate but important.
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Filed Under: civil asset forfeiture, copyright, fugitive disentitlement, kim dotcom, scotus, supreme court
Companies: megaupload
Reader Comments
The First Word
“All that needs to be said
It is more important that innocence be protected than it is that guilt be punished, for guilt and crimes are so frequent in this world that they cannot all be punished.But if innocence itself is brought to the bar and condemned, perhaps to die, then the citizen will say, 'whether I do good or whether I do evil is immaterial, for innocence itself is no protection,' and if such an idea as that were to take hold in the mind of the citizen that would be the end of security whatsoever.
- John Adams
made the First Word by Ninja
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Exercise your rights? Oh that's going to cost you
So the DoJ steals his stuff, tries to hold it over his head by requiring him to forgo his right to fight extradition if he wants to try to get it back, the courts buy the DoJ's argument in it's entirety, and the supreme court decides that it's not interested in even considering the case.
Goodbye right to fight extradition.
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Re: Exercise your rights? Oh that's going to cost you
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Re: Re: Exercise your rights? Oh that's going to cost you
Most governments of the world will say "hey, that's a cool revenue idea, let's implement it ourselves!"
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Re: Exercise your rights? Oh that's going to cost you
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Re: Exercise your rights? Oh that's going to cost you
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The Supremes
Dotards - that is all.
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Naked Theft
Any person with even a shred of decency would be wondering to themselves how it came to pass that they are instrumental in perpetuating another authoritarian regime in a world that clearly understand the outright evilness of such regimes.
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'They had it coming.'
Are they that pervertedly amoral that they can just shrug and say "I'm just doing my job".
I imagine it's a mix between 'just doing the job', and 'if they were really innocent they would have come over, so this is just punishment', such that they either don't care, or brush it aside as a 'just' punishment for a criminal(because the legal system isn't meant to protect criminals after all).
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Re: 'They had it coming.'
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Re: 'They had it coming.'
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Re: Re: 'They had it coming.'
So the US courts now operates under a presumption of guilt rather than innocence? How in the world did they manage to get there? Whatever happened to due process?
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I mean seriously, if you follow their logic then it would be perfectly ok for the US to jail foreigners who criticize the US government, because foreigners don't have the right to free speech in the US!
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Kim's abided by his bail conditions.
I wondered if the US labelling him a fugitive regardless meant that they didn't recognise New Zealand's government and its authority to enforce laws.
In any case, apparently abiding by the law is not enough to prevent you from being treated as a fugitive.
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Re: Kim's abided by his bail conditions.
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All that needs to be said
But if innocence itself is brought to the bar and condemned, perhaps to die, then the citizen will say, 'whether I do good or whether I do evil is immaterial, for innocence itself is no protection,' and if such an idea as that were to take hold in the mind of the citizen that would be the end of security whatsoever.
- John Adams
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Re: All that needs to be said
Only the Ultra Few actually believe in liberty, the vast majority wished to foist their rule upon the rest and spend the remainder of their time conducting ad hominem attacks on those that seek to remind everyone of the costs of freedom.
When tragedy strikes there will always be actors ready and willing to use it to move hearts against liberty in vain attempts to trade liberty in for safety. Safety never comes, but we still trade on it nevertheless.
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Re: All that needs to be said
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Re: All that needs to be said
For context, John Adams said that statement in 1770, when he was speaking as the defender for a group of British soldiers.
Said soldiers had been charged with murder following the Boston Massacre incident, where they had fired their muskets whilst being threatened by a mob, killing 5 people.
With John Adam's arguments and testing of the evidence, the jury found only two soldiers guilty, of manslaughter, and that only because they were proven to have fired directly into the crowd; the other six soldiers (and their captain) were all found innocent.
This particular trial is important because it established the doctrine of reasonable doubt, and the importance of evidence; John Adams directed the jury to find guilt or innocence on the basis of the facts, testimony and evidence, rather than their own beliefs and stereotypes about the British.
Without these vital standards, the presumption of innocence and value of evidence, we would be living in a much different, far less egalitarian world, where people could use false accusations to take what they want from innocents with impunity.
We've seen it in the past with witch-hunts, where innocents were killed to take their property, and we're seeing it in the present with drone strikes, where foreign civilians are murdered on unsubstantiated accusations of terrorism, and too many courts are willing to believe claims made by police against even damning evidence.
People abroad are already being pushed to terrorism to fight back against the U.S. for murdering their friends and family; what happens when Americans at home realise that the law won't protect them?
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There's a bright side
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Re: There's a bright side
[citation(s) needed]
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Re: There's a bright side
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Have no fear - it will be reviewed...
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Again defending grifter who illegally got millions.
The business and "money", however, is within reach of DOJ. Megaupload declined to appear and contest though given notice. This process would apply to all in same circumstances.
---
(BTW: Testing. Think your "markdown" is borked as yesterday it did boldface text but deleted blank lines where were three dashes for horizontal rules. Of course, that feature may have been removed due to my liking to use.)
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Re: Again defending grifter who illegally got millions.
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130321/18271522414/leaked-mpaa-talking-points-copyright-r eform-copyright-is-awesome-everyone.shtml#c374
In chain of responses started by my comment an AC asserts: "Go ahead, find me a single person who's a millionaire because he's got several terabytes of content stored on a hard disk drive."
To which a witty AC replies: "Paging Kim Dotcom..."
To which John Fenderson asserts: "All indications are that he's not actually an example of that."
SO WHO WAS RIGHT THERE? Me and that AC mentioning Dotcom, of course.
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Re: Again defending grifter who illegally got millions.
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Re: Again defending grifter who illegally got millions.
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Re: Again defending grifter who illegally got millions.
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Well...
Can people who had stored information that the government has now sue to get it back from them?
If only his stuff could counter-sue.
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The actual question in the air, and it isn't how much of a smuck Kim Dotcom is or isn't
I think this is a fair point, which leaves the question what other cases that will address civil asset forfeiture appropriately are in the pipeline?
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Fuck him, he isn't a citizen of the US. Don't do the crime if you can't do the time.
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Fuck him, he isn't a citizen of the US. Don't do the crime if you can't do the time.
Can you point out which "crime" he's been convicted of?
I'll wait.
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Damn right! U-S-A, U-S-A, U-S-A!
/s
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I'm assuming you mean the right to fight the extradition. That wouldn't be in the Constitution, that would be in the international treaties. Not that the US ever cared for those...
Neither am I, fuck you very much.
Sadly, your military won't really help you once you finish pissing off the ~7.2 billion people who are not US citizens. World without friends is a scary place.
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how is this hard
And, maybe that's okay, because maybe, as with many people, they wouldn't have been able to separate out the copyright question from the civil asset forfeiture question from the fugitive disentitlement question -- all of which are separate but important.
What is the problem? Anyone can see that these things are separate. I think you are giving too much leeway to the Supreme Court
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Who's got the best pirates now?
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Resist extradition...
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I'd love to hear the legal justification for keeping the assets of a person who is found to be not guilty. Isn't the whole premise of forfeiture that the government gets to take the proceeds of criminal activity? If the person is later found not guilty, it means there was no criminal activity in the first place, so therefore the seized assets have been proven not to be the proceeds of a crime. So the whole justification for taking them in the first place goes up in smoke. What then becomes the legal argument for keeping private property that is NOT related to criminal activity?
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'Well now, just because the person is found innocent it doesn't mean that the property is innocent. Those cars and bank accounts look mighty guilty to me, and since they were found guilty in a court of law, with absolutely no-one interested in contesting their guilt, it's only fair that the property face the consequences for it's criminal actions.'
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"Because we can."
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I would also say the courts are likely to take a very dim view of a guy who isn't willing to appear in court to face charges against him but can quickly whip up a couple of lawyers to appear to try to get his money. It actually looks pretty bad.
There also isn't much in the way of conflict between jurisdictions to resolve either. There isn't a series of opposing judgments in the different districts that needs addressing.
Further, and let's make it clear: "The issue here is that as part of the arrest of Dotcom and his colleagues, the US "seized" many of his assets. Now, when the government seizes assets, it's a temporary thing." The problem here is that Kim has been dragging out the extradition process as long as possible (and really way longer than is merited, New Zealand has one of the most patient legal systems in the world), in no small part to try to run the clock out on the asset seizure.
My feeling is if Kim had gotten the money back, he would have hopped the first transport he could get on to move to a neutral third country that wouldn't extradite him - with or without a passport. He pretty much knows if he ever gets into the US, his goose will be cooked.
There was little here for SCOTUS to deal with: An endless extradition, outstanding criminal charges, a defendant who appears mostly interested in the money and not in clearing his name, and a total lack of controversy at the federal court level. Why would they want to review the case?
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The last thing the DOJ wants at this point is a trial since its own wrongdoing would be held up to scrutiny, which is why they are letting this case die quietly.
That Barack Obama could let this happen on his watch is a damning indictment of his presidency — as a constitutional lawyer he knew better. That Trump lets it continue is a damning indictment of his since he had the opportunity to clean up the DOJ and pt that twerp Sessions in charge instead. A very poor show by all concerned.
I'm not a mad fan of Dotcom but in essence if he doesn't have the right to a fair trial, neither do any of us.
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"...from the that's-unfortunate dept..."?
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Re: "...from the that's-unfortunate dept..."?
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You wouldn't steal a car ...
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Re: You wouldn't steal a car ...
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