New Zealand's spies admit to illegally deleting key evidence in Kim Dotcom case

Cory Doctorow 8:00 am Wed Feb 5, 2014

GCSB, New Zealand's secret police force has admitted to illegally deleting key evidence related to the raid on Kim Dotcom over his Megaupload service. The spies agree that the evidence was illegally deleted, but claim it was an honest mistake, because the data "aged off" their retention system.

Dotcom last night tweeted the claim, saying: "The GCSB spy agency seems to have deleted evidence relevant to my case against the GCSB for illegally spying on NZ residents."

He quoted Crown lawyers as saying "some communications have automatically aged off. We propose to include … those communications which are still recoverable".

Dotcom claimed lawyers acting for the GCSB told him the material had "aged off" the system, suggesting it had automatically deleted.

He also posted a video of Prime Minister John Key, who is in charge of the agency, saying: "This is a spy agency. We don't delete things. We archive them."

GCSB deleted key evidence – Dotcom [David Fisher/NZ Herald]

(via Techdirt)

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