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NSA Unlawfully Surveiled Kim Dotcom in New Zealand

thehill.com

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Re: NSA Unlawfully Surveiled Kim Dotcom in New Zealand

#5
post #3

Unlawful in New Zealand. I'd be surprised if what they did wasn't legal under US law.

Correct. I was wondering the entire time reading the link what exactly was illegal since it is fairly common knowledge that all nations spy on each other and in the US it is totally legal for the US government to spy on foreigners who are not on their soil.

Re: NSA Unlawfully Surveiled Kim Dotcom in New Zealand

#6
post #4
post #3

Unlawful in New Zealand. I'd be surprised if what they did wasn't legal under US law.

Short of political assassination, is anything done by the US government outside the US illegal under US law?

To quote Malory Archer: "It's the government! Even if it wasn't legal they'd enforce it."

Re: NSA Unlawfully Surveiled Kim Dotcom in New Zealand

#7
post #4
post #3

Unlawful in New Zealand. I'd be surprised if what they did wasn't legal under US law.

Short of political assassination, is anything done by the US government outside the US illegal under US law?

There's a difference between being illegal and there being a precedent of it being illegal.

The government does lots of things that are probably illegal but there's no precedent set. That gives them the opportunity to argue in court why the specific instance in question is different.

Re: NSA Unlawfully Surveiled Kim Dotcom in New Zealand

#8
post #4
post #3

Unlawful in New Zealand. I'd be surprised if what they did wasn't legal under US law.

Short of political assassination, is anything done by the US government outside the US illegal under US law?

Political assassination has been a thing for the US gov for a while https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/05/cia-long-his...

Re: NSA Unlawfully Surveiled Kim Dotcom in New Zealand

#10
post #4
post #3

Unlawful in New Zealand. I'd be surprised if what they did wasn't legal under US law.

Short of political assassination, is anything done by the US government outside the US illegal under US law?

Strictly staying within US law is not the only thing that the US intelligence apparatus tries to do. There are also agreements not to monitor the citizens of "Five-Eyes" citizens in those countries without due process; even if not illegal, it would violate the intelligence-sharing agreements we have with those nations and would be highly improper due to the damage to national security that risking those intelligence-sharing agreements would entail.

That being said, this story is incredibly thin.

>It aimed to explain why Dotcom and others charged in the FBI's Megaupload investigation were spied on for two months longer than previously admitted.

There's no reason this would even be improper, if the FBI had gone through due process in the US, which it appears they had. This story appears to be entirely Kim Dotcom's lawyer trying to politicize his case in order to fight a lawful extradition.

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