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Further evidence of overeager and illegal police work emerged Thursday in New Zealand as Inspector General of Security and Intelligence Paul Neazor released a report on the illegal bugging of Kim Dotcom and Megaupload programmer Bram van der Kolk. Two GCSB officers were present at a police station nearby Dotcom’s mansion as the raid took place.

Police weighed several options for the raid named “Operation Debut,” undertaken at the behest of US authorities, and sought to take Dotcom and associates with the “greatest element of surprise” and to minimise any delays the in executing the search and seizure operation should the German file sharing tycoon’s staff be uncooperative or even resist officers on arrival.

The police planners also noted that “Dotcom will use violence against person’s [sic] and that he has several staff members who are willing to use violence at Dotcom’s bidding” after a U.S. cameraman, Jess Bushyhead, reported the Megaupload founder for assaulting him with his stomach after a dispute. Based on Dotcom’s license plates such as MAFIA, POLICE, STONED, GUILTY, and HACKER, police said this indicates the German “likes to think of himself as a gangster” and is “described as arrogant, flamboyant and having disregard for law enforcement.” However, the documents show that Dotcom had only been caught violating the speed limit in New Zealand. The request for assistance from the STG notes that the US investigation against Mega Media Group and Dotcom was started in March 2010 by prosecutors and the FBI. According to the documents, US prosecutors and FBI “discovered that the Mega Media Group had engaged in and facilitated criminal copyright infringement and money laundering on a massive scale around the world.” FBI in turn contacted NZ Police in “early 2011," requesting assistance with the Mega Media Group investigation as Dotcom had moved to New Zealand at the time.

Wallace took cellphone pictures and video after the shooting stopped, but he said Mesquite police confiscated the phone and deleted the video and pictures. The phone was returned four days later, he said.

The law states that police need a court order to confiscate a camera unless it was used in a commission of a crime. The only exception is if there are exigent circumstances, such as a strong belief that the witness will destroy the photos, therefore destroying evidence. Under no circumstances do police have the right to delete footage.

CNET has learned a constellation of law enforcement groups has asked the U.S. Senate to require that wireless companies retain that information, warning that the lack of a current federal requirement "can hinder law enforcement investigations." They want an SMS retention requirement to be "considered" during congressional discussions over updating a 1986 privacy law for the cloud computing era -- a move that could complicate debate over the measure and erode support for it among civil libertarians. As the popularity of text messages has exploded in recent years, so has their use in criminal investigations and civil lawsuits. They have been introduced as evidence in armed robbery, cocaine distribution, and wire fraud prosecutions. In one 2009 case in Michigan, wireless provider SkyTel turned over the contents of 626,638 SMS messages, a figure described by a federal judge as "staggering."

On Monday, Prime Minister John Key announced that he had requested an inquiry by the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security after it was revealed that the Government Communications Security Bureau (GSCB) illegally intercepted the communications of individuals in the Megaupload case.

GCSB is an intelligence agency of the New Zealand government responsible for spying on external entities. It is forbidden by law from conducting surveillance on its own citizens or permanent residents in the country. Now it has been revealed that incorrect information supplied by the police’s Organized and Financial Crime Agency (OFCANZ) led the GCSB to spy on Kim Dotcom and Bram van der Kolk.

During an earlier hearing, Detective Inspector Grant Wormald of OFCANZ said that apart from surveillance carried out by the police, no other surveillance had been carried out against Dotcom. But with the revelation that GCSB had indeed been monitoring the Megaupload founder at the behest of OFCANZ, questions are now being raised about this apparent inconsistency, not least since Wormald previously acknowledged that a secret government unit had been involved in a pre-raid planning meeting in January.

Court documents have revealed how information supplied by New Zealand’s Organised and Financial Crime Agency led to Kim Dotcom and his associates being illegally monitored by GCSB, the Kiwi spy agency comparable to the United States’ CIA. Today a High Court judge expressed concern at the situation, with Dotcom’ legal team calling for an independent inquiry into the fiasco. Meanwhile, pressure continues to mount on Prime Minister John Key as it’s revealed the government issued an information suppression order.

According to court documents, GCSB checked with OFCANZ that both Dotcom and der Kolk were indeed foreign nationals. OFCANZ said they were, but in fact neither should have been spied on by GCSB. The monitoring went ahead anyway. In the High Court today, Justice Helen Winkelmann asked lawyers how it could be possible that GCSB hadn’t known about Dotcom’s New Zealand residency.

During an earlier hearing, Detective Inspector Grant Wormald of OFCANZ said that apart from surveillance carried out by the police, no other surveillance had been carried out against Dotcom. But with the revelation that GCSB had indeed been monitoring the Megaupload founder at the behest of OFCANZ, questions are now being raised about this apparent inconsistency, not least since Wormald previously acknowledged that a secret government unit had been involved in a pre-raid planning meeting in January.

You may remember a high-profile, landmark ruling last year in Massachusetts, where charges against Simon Glik -- arrested for violating a state law that said it's "wiretapping" to record a police officer in public without his permission -- weren't just dropped, but the arrest was found to be both a First and Fourth Amendment violation. In the end, Boston was forced to pay Glik $170,000 for violating his civil rights. You would think that story would spread across Massachusetts pretty quickly and law enforcement officials and local district attorneys would recognize that filing similar charges would be a certified bad idea. Not so, apparently, in the town of Shrewsbury. Irving J. Espinosa-Rodrigue was apparently arrested and charged under the very same statute after having a passenger in his car videotape a traffic stop for speeding, and then posting the video on YouTube. Once again, the "issue" is that Massachusetts is a "two-party consent" state, whereby an audio recording can't be done without first notifying the person being recorded, or its deemed a "wiretap." This interpretation, especially when dealing with cops in public, is flat-out ridiculous and unconstitutional, as the Glik ruling showed.

Garren denied the accusation back in May, telling police they, "didn't have any evidence against him," according to a report filed in Cowlitz County Superior Court.

Ultimately, taking several thousand photos with dozens of surveillance cameras is no greater a violation of privacy than a single photographer taking shots of crowd members. The problem here is the cover-up and the carelessness with which the gathered data was (and is) handled.

law enforcement automatically assumes a maximum of secrecy in order to "protect" its investigative techniques

The city claims it's not interested in pursuing this sort of surveillance at the moment, finding it to be lacking in "practical value." But it definitely is interested in all the aspects listed above, just not this particular iteration. It also claims it has no policies on hand governing the use of "situational awareness software," but only because it's not currently using any. Anyone want to take bets that the eventual roll out of situational awareness software will be far in advance of any guidance or policies?

Early Monday morning, Foxconn released a statement indicating that the riot started as a personal disagreement between factory workers in a dormitory and was eventually brought under control by police, but this clashes with reports trickling in from users of China's version of Twitter, Sina Weibo. Much like with the situations in Egypt and other Arab Spring countries earlier this year, microbloggers are painting a different picture than the one presented by official sources; numerous Weibo posts indicate that the riots were started not by a fight between workers in off-campus housing, but instead by security guards beating one or more workers nearly to death. Regardless of the cause, pictures leaking out from the scene show some destruction, including broken windows and a toppled guard post building.

Documents provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden show that the government worked in secret to exploit a new internet surveillance law enacted in the wake of revelations of illegal domestic spying to initiate a new metadata collection program that appeared designed to collect information about the communications of New Zealanders.

Snowden explained that “at the NSA, I routinely came across the communications of New Zealanders in my work with a mass surveillance tool we share with GCSB, called ‘X KEYSCORE.”" He further detailed that “the GCSB provides mass surveillance data into XKEYSCORE. They also provide access to the communications of millions of New Zealanders to the NSA at facilities such as the GCSB facility in Waihopai, and the Prime Minister is personally aware of this fact.”

A search warrant obtained by TheDC indicates that the August raid allowed law enforcement to search for firearms inside her home.

The document notes that her husband, Paul Flanagan, was found guilty in 1986 to resisting arrest in Prince George’s County. The warrant called for police to search the residence they share and seize all weapons and ammunition because he is prohibited under the law from possessing firearms. But without Hudson’s knowledge, the agents also confiscated a batch of documents that contained information about sources inside the Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration, she said.