Dotcom news of the day

The High Court has ruled that the police raid on Kim Dotcom's home in 2011 was illegal, and the subsequent removal of hard drives was also unlawful.

Justice Helen Winkelmann found that the warrants the Police relied on to conduct the raid were too broad in scope as they were capable of including irrelevant as well as relevant material.

The Court ordered that relevant material is to be delivered to the US authorities and irrelevant material is to be returned to Dotcom immediately. A lawyer appointed by the Court will determine what falls within each category.

[nzherald]

Just wrong of the day

Richard O'Dwyer is a 24 year old student from the UK, who started a website where users could post links to other websites that hosted full US TV shows and movies online.


He now faces extradition to the US and potentially 10 years in prison for being the middle man in the war on piracy.

"There's literally no reason I can think of why it has to be heard in America … at no point was the site ever in America.

[theguardian]

Religious issue of the day

Tuni Parata, a front-of-house employee at Auckland's Sky City Casino is stunned to have been accused of miscondut and summoned to a disciplinary hearing for carrying around a Bible with her during work hours.

Her employers claim that carrying the Bible is a breach of the uniform code and, as it was not serious misconduct, was unlikely to result in Parata being sacked.

The Unite Union argues that the move is a case where "...bureaucratic rigidity rides over practical common sense."

Parata's disciplinary meeting is scheduled for this Thursday.

[source: nzherald]

Inhumanity of the day

Feng Jianmei, a 23 year old Chinese woman, was held down while officials administerd a lethal injection to her unborn baby.

Her crime? Failing to fill in the application form to have a second child.

The above photo showing Feng lying on a hospital bed next to the body of her child has gone viral and forced the Chinese Government to admit that an illegal abortion had taken place.

It is unclear at this stage why Feng's family did not fill in the proper paperwork, but it is alleged that the abortion was carried out after they were unable to pay 40,000 Yuan to the officials to smooth them over.

The Chinese Government is sending a team to investigate.

[source: smh]

Invaded personal space

The Employment Relations Authority has made a temporary reinstatement order in favour of an employee who allegedly cupped or pinched his boss' backside (it varies depending on who you talk to), leaving the man feeling "angry and disrespected."

After viewing video surveillance (!) of the incident, ERA Member Ken Anderson didn't agree with the boss' version of events, saying that if he felt angry and disrespected, his ability to hide it "...was little short of an Oscar-winning performance."

The employee denied the allegation, claiming that his hand had slid on the slippery fabric of his employer's suit when he was posing for a photo.

The article notes the timing of the incident; at an event to celebrate the employee's achievements.

The matter will head to a substantive hearing, to allow the parties to get to the bottom of the issue.

(Sorry. I'm so sorry).

You got served... or did you?

Will 'like' and 'comment' be followed by 'issue proceedings'?

A US District Judge has recently ruled that Chase Bank is unable to serve papers via Facebook, suggesting that they may want to try the local papers instead.

In New Zealand, this method of serving papers (called 'substituted service') isn't unusual where the defendant is difficult to serve personally. In Axe Market Gardens v Axe (HC Wellington, CIV 2008-485-002676, 16 March 2009) the High Court ruled that substituted service by email and facebook was permitted.

The key difference in the Chase Bank case is that there wasn't sufficient evidence that the person they wanted to serve maintained the Facebook account (posts, comments etc) or even that it was her at all (there was no evidence that she checked the email associated with the account or was even her email address.

Given the growth of fake or multiple Facebook profiles, will this be a problem down the road?