Attorney-General appeals for release of Kim Dotcom's devices to US

Thursday 9th July 2015

The Attorney-General's appeal to send Kim Dotcom's computers and other devices to the US continued in the Court of Appeal today, with the Crown arguing for cloned devices and their passwords to be released to the US.

Last December, the court ruled the search warrants executed in the high profile 2012 raid on the internet entrepreneur were valid, although Chief Justice Sian Elias issued a dissenting view. Appearing in the Court of Appeal before Justices Tony Randerson, Lynton Stevens and Douglas White today, Merran Cooke from the Crown Law Office sought to quash restrictions on sending the devices to the US.

Dotcom and his co-accused Finn Batato, Mathias Ortmann and Bram van der Kolk, tried to have the warrants ruled invalid as they attempt to head off the US Federal government's bid to extradite them to the US, where they face charges of conspiracy to operate websites used to illegally distribute copyrighted material. They are currently separately appealing the date of their extradition hearing, which is set down for September.

Appearing for Dotcom, Ron Mansfield said there was no opposition to the 2013 clones of computers and other devices being sent to the US provided they were stripped of personal and irrelevant material before leaving New Zealand shores. The Crown opposes this as it is impracticable for New Zealand authorities to do so, and under the Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters Act it can not recover costs from the US if it did so.

Earlier material sent to the US, known as the 2012 clones, is inaccessible to US authorities as New Zealand Police are not allowed to release the passwords for the encrypted material. The Crown is seeking the restrictions on the police releasing the passwords be quashed.

Mansfield argued there was no evidence before the court of how hard it would be to sift through the personal material of the cloned devices, as was done for the 2012 clones already sent over. He also opposed the release of the passwords to the US.

The justices reserved their decision.

BusinessDesk.co.nz

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