If provincial newspaper editorials are anything to go by, there is growing anger about the authorities’ handling of Kim Dotcom. The Waikato Times’ editorial entitled, NZ: 51st state of the US, is particularly worth reading. It says that the announcement of the illegal spying has ‘heightened suspicions that this country’s relationship with the United States has become one of servility rather than friendship’. The editorial’s conclusion is worth quoting at length: ‘Dotcom is wanted in the US to face nothing more threatening than breaches of copyright laws.

via Bryce Edwards: Political round-up: Growing anger over Dotcom fiasco – Politics – NZ Herald News.

She says ‘If the authorities are so supine in their relationship with their US counterparts and so eager to corral an alleged copyright criminal – allegations which Dotcom is strongly contesting – that they don’t check the basics before mounting their interception, what guarantees do other businesses have that this is a one-off affair?’