Megaupload Judge Says He Doesn't Know If There Will Ever Be a Trial (failure to serve legal papers)

Hollywood Reporter ^ | April 20, 2012 | Eriq Gardner

[PJ-Comix]

Is the U.S. government's huge criminal trial against Megaupload in trouble?

Federal judge Liam O'Grady is being quoted as saying, "I frankly don't know that we are ever going to have a trial in this matter."

The comment was reportedly made at a hearing over Megaupload's data where O'Grady expressed concern to the FBI over the issue of whether Megaupload has been served court papers. It was picked up by a local newspaper in New Zealand, where Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom awaits word of whether he'll be extradited.

[JediJones]

Bwahaha, a “storage service.” Are you shocked — shocked — to find that pirating was going on there? Just because a criminal organization has a legitimate “front” operation doesn’t mean it’s not a criminal organization. A lot of these other “storage” services have now changed their policy to only allow downloading of content by the same users who uploaded it. I’d be curious to see how much traffic has decreased on their sites since that change.

I think the U.S. has very clearly indicated they don’t have the right to go to New Zealand and arrest this man. That’s why they’re trying to get him extradited by New Zealand, who has the right to do that. If you don’t want him extradited, complain to New Zealand, not to the U.S. who certainly has the right to ask them to do it.

Bottom line, the U.S. government has the right, duty and obligation to defend its citizens against crimes committed abroad by foreign nationals. By your logic, any Russian or Chinese hacker or phisher could steal as many U.S. credit card numbers as they want and use them with impunity, and the U.S. would have no “right” to pursue legal action against them.

And, yeah, if you go to Saudi Arabia and they find you’ve broken their laws, whatever they may be, then they have a right to arrest you. It’s a sovereign country. It’s up to you to be smart enough not to go to countries where you’re in violation of their laws.

[JediJones]

No matter what company you use, they can be shut down on a whim by the government and all your data lost or pilfered by the government. Doesn’t matter how legal they are now, they can be accused of being illegal and shut down. BAM!!!

You would certainly have to be an idiot to upload your data to a cloud storage site and then delete your local copies. No one in the world who cares about protecting their data should have merely one copy of it out there under any circumstances, whether it's on your local computer or an external site. Besides being shut down for illegal activity, the cloud storage site could go out of business, be hacked or suffer technical failure.

[AnotherUnixGeek]

Bwahaha, a “storage service.” Are you shocked — shocked — to find that pirating was going on there? Just because a criminal organization has a legitimate “front” operation doesn’t mean it’s not a criminal organization.

Just because a business offers a service which can be abused by criminals doesn't mean it is a criminal organization. By the definition of "criminal organization that you're implying, airlines are "criminal organizations" because drug smugglers can purchase seats on flights with drugs packed in their bowels. Nikon and Canon are "criminal organizations" because they sell cameras which can be used to produce child porn. Telephone services are fronts for "criminal organizations" because callers can make lewd or threatening calls which violate clearly stated laws.

A lot of these other “storage” services have now changed their policy to only allow downloading of content by the same users who uploaded it. I’d be curious to see how much traffic has decreased on their sites since that change.

Well, I'd imagine traffic has gone down, since the usefulness of these sites for perfectly legitimate applications has been ruined. Yup, let's destroy any technology which might conceivably be used for nefarious purposes. Makes perfect sense for those who believe that anything that can be abused shouldn't exist at all. Oh, and screw having to prove any criminal wrong-doing in a court of law - someone who can afford powerful Congressional lobbyists said so, and that should be good enough.

[packrat35]

Cloud computing is all the rage and has been pushed hard for at least 2 years now. All kinds of advantages were touted, now people are seeing the downside.

Even here on FR, people are always talking about streaming video for movies. No thanks, I’ll keep my DVD’s cause I know I will have access again to them.

[packrat35]

Another reason the sites traffic has gone down is many people are fleeing the sites. They are downloading all their files and cancelling their service cause they don’t know if that site will be shut down next.

[AnotherUnixGeek]

Another reason the sites traffic has gone down is many people are fleeing the sites. They are downloading all their files and cancelling their service cause they don’t know if that site will be shut down next.

Agree - in addition to intimidating these businesses into crippling the collaboration and distribution features that provide at least half their value, there's the intimidation of customers, who must now reckon with the very real possibility that they'll lose their perfectly legal files forever.

We're seeing old, fading businesses use the federal government like a trained poodle to destroy a nascent business model because, among dozens of legitimate uses, it can be abused to hurt these old businesses. Bad for innovation, bad for the rule of law, and a disaster for limited, responsible government.

[tbw2]

You’re right about the risks of using cloud computing. You give up your right to control your information. Not just family photos and music files but financial records, legal records, and email.
Statists love everyone moving into cloud computing. Don’t bother with a warrant to steal your home computer, just scan the cloud for questionable content - dissenting speech, copies of politically incorrect books, etc.