NZ authorities are used to being flipped the bird by erstwhile allies. Mossad agents using forged NZ passports, French agents assassinating Greenpeace activists in NZ, French nuclear testing in the south Pacific...
And we caught and shamed them all. It's a small country and we have a strong sense of fairness. This has backfired on the MPAA and other corporate-owner-rights advocates.
This ham-fisted affair bought shame to the police, politicians and judiciary, and, now squarely in the public eye, they are endeavouring to do the right thing.
There were, I would argue, a few bad calls by a few people who should have followed the normal processes, but they likely made them under pressure from within and from the USA, who in turn were pressured by the MPAA. There was not, I surmise, a lot of decision making happening that was informed by the likes Hacker News readers.
That is getting fixed. We have some very smart judges, who are getting across all of this - Judge Harvey springs to mind as someone who got his head around a lot of the online issues. The politicians read the newspapers - and are on twitter, and they are watching the wind and get it too. The Police do not like to be seen to over react and conduct swat raids at the behest of a foreign entity (the MPAA) - I can't see that happening again.
Meanwhile @kimdotcom is fantastic on twitter - open, disarmingly candid and sympathetic.
