Kim Dotcom sues NZ government for $7 million for illegal spying and raid

When you ever start to believe Kim Dotcom is not in the news anymore, take a deep breath and count to 10 because he will come charging back before you’re done. After announcing his intentions of starting a political party that will contest the upcoming elections in New Zealand, Dotcom has sued the country’s government for allegedly spying against him and raiding his house.

Dotcom has announced his intentions to sue the government for NZ$ 8.55 million after a court granted him the right to do so earlier this year, a report in the New Zealand Herald says. According to filings released this week from courts, Dotcom is going to stick to his promise of suing the police and NZ’s spy agency, the Government Communications Security Bureau, for a raid conducted on him and others a year and a half earlier.

Suing the NZ government

“The Prime Minister of New Zealand declined an independent inquiry into illegal spying,” Dotcom told Ars Technica in a statement. "My court case will uncover the truth about the [Government Communications Security Bureau] using X-Keyscore, Prism, and the Five Eyes spy cloud to spy on New Zealanders. The truth will come out.” The Five Eyes spy network comprises of signals intelligence spy agencies from countries like New Zealand, Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada and enemy number one for Dotcom, the United States.

According to Dotcom’s complaint, the New Zealand spying agency started surveying him and his associates illegally from December 16, 2011. A raid was subsequently carried out where Dotcom was staying. The documents detail the raid that involved “Special Tactics Group and Armed Offenders Squad personnel” who arrived in two helicopters and vans, breaking the door of his house open. Dotcom was himself, “forced to the ground and had force applied to him in such a way that left him with bruises and abrasions. This was not precipitated by any resistance from the first plaintiff to the Police.”

That was not all. Two months later, police from the island nation sent “images/clones of 19 seized items out of New Zealand” to authorities waiting in the US. Dotcom asserts that the raid was unnecessarily violent and aggressive. "Throughout the operation the Police paid little or no effective regard to the rights or needs of the occupants of the properties, and dealt with them in a highly aggressive, oppressive and intimidatory fashion, such as to cause significant unnecessary distress and anxiety and fear," the complaint reads. Dotcom would well become a millionaire again if he wins this one.