Busted piracy website says Senators, White House officials are clients
AVNews previously reported on MegaUpload.com, the website busted by the feds for allegedly “racketeering, money laundering and presiding over ‘massive’ online piracy.” Now the website’s owner reveals that his clientele includes “a large number” of members from the Federal government. . . and he’s ready to name names.
The Register (UK) reports,
The boss of the recently shut-down Megaupload file-sharing site claims that his records show plenty of US government users, including members of the Senate and the Department of Justice.
“Guess what – we found a large number of Mega accounts from US Government officials including the Department of Justice and the US Senate,” Kim Dotcom (formerly Schmitz), the portly potentate of Megaupload, told the Torrentfreak blog. “I hope we will soon have permission to give them and the rest of our users access to their files.”
No doubt government officials will claim that these accounts are for “research processes”, or owned by a few “bad apples”, but it does seem that Dotcom is willing to name names when his case comes the trial. Megaupload was one of the largest sites of its type, and the fallout could be very interesting if lists of users are made public.
In an extended interview with Channel 3 News New Zealand, Mr. Dotcom vowed to fight and win:
The company that was worth probably a billion dollars plus has been given a death sentence without trial, you know, what point is there for me to run away? The only thing, and the only thing that makes sense and is logical here is to fight this and that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to fight this all the way and I promise you, and everybody who’s watching this right now, I’m going to win because I’m no criminal and I’ve done nothing illegal.