Kim Dotcom releases new video of police raid

Kim Dotcom has released a new video of the raid on his home from early last year, made up of footage from police cameras and CCTV on his property, showing much more detailed imagery of heavily armed officers with dog teams and assault rifles

The video begins with a breakdown of events leading up to the raid, including the public's humiliation of media lobbyists, by their rejection of the SOPA and PIPA bills. As the video's text describes it, with the failure of those bills, the MPAA threatened to cut off funding to president Obama's re-election campaign. The video then claims that in a response to that potential loss of funds, Obama shut down Megaupload to try and appease media industry supporters. [yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmObwguVmEI'] Warning: There is some NSFW language in the background music. 

From there we see police rolling up to the Dotcom mansion, with heavy armament, but little in the way of body armour (one officer is even wearing a baseball cap), suggesting not much resistance was expected. After handcuffing seemingly cooperative security staff and other members of Dotcom's residential team – followed by audio that Dotcom had been found and understood the warrant for his arrest – we see the police begin seizing all of the internet mogul's cars.

As this footage concludes, we're shown news footage explaining how the warrants used for Dotcom's arrest and the seizure of his personal property, were illegal under New Zealand law. We then hear about physical punishment given to Dotcom during his arrest, followed by Prime Minister John Key, apologising for illegal surveillance of the Megaupload founder.

Jeans? Check. Baseball cap? Check. Trainers? Check. Assault rifle? Check. 

Then there's a movie edited ending, using Dotcom's usual humorous style – though it does take away from the video's message a little.

Dotcom's twitter has also been very active in the past few hours, following the release of the video, explaining why such force was used.

“The FBI told NZ police that I had a doomsday device to delete all Megaupload servers (total nonsense). That's why they used helicopters.” This was followed by, “They used a pic of me clay shooting at a holiday resort to justify the raid. I was considered a threat to the lives of police officers.”

KitGuru Says: While we can't validate any of these tweeted claims by Dotcom, it does seem a little over the top considering the mass of force used in the raid on his home. Dogs were used, despite this being an arrest of a tech nerd – there was no chance of explosives on the property, though perhaps they were hoping for drugs to be found to compound the charges against Dotcom. We also saw multiple police vans, with heavily armed, but low armoured police officers, suggesting that it was more a show of force than a response to a legitimate threat. 

What do you guys think of the raid? We know it was conducted using illegal warrants, but do you think the police went in too hard? 

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