New Zealand High Court Judge Helen Winkelmann ruled that the search conducted in Kim Dotcom’s home in January was illegal, as the search warrants were far too general and vague which did not describe the alleged offenses.

“The warrants did not adequately describe the offences to which they related,” Winkelmann said in her ruling. “Indeed they fell well short of that. They were general warrants, and as such, are invalid.”

The judge previously stated that the warrants’ scope of the search was far too wide and gave authorities the power to seize a huge amount of items.

“These categories of items were defined in such a way that they would inevitably capture within them both relevant and irrelevant material. The police acted on this authorisation,” Winkelmann added.  “The warrants could not authorize seizure of irrelevant material, and are therefore invalid.”

The judge also noted that transferring of the cloned hard drives to the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the US was a violation of the directives given on February 16 which stated that “the items seized were to remain in the custody and control of the Commissioner of Police.”

This is great news for Dotcom and the rest of the accused, as evidence acquired illegally or tainted evidence is not admissible in many courts, including U.S. criminal courts.  A spokesman from Dotcom’s attorney said that Dotcom and his co-defendants were pleased with the judge’s ruling.

“They are very happy with Justice Winkelmann’s decision,” wrote a representative for Simpson Grierson. “We are considering our clients’ remedies as a result of the decision that the search warrants were unlawful and that the FBI sending the clones to the USA was also unlawful.”

Megaupload was shutdown after the SOPA Blackout back in January.  After the shutdown, Dotcom and other Megaupload employees were arrested and  charged with engaging in a racketeering conspiracy, conspiring to commit copyright infringement, conspiring to commit money laundering, and two substantive counts of criminal copyright infringement.  Since the arrest, the accused were all able to post bail and are under house arrest until the trial starts on August 8.  Dotcom’s lawyer is seeking to have his client’s account unfrozen to be able to pay for legal fees.

An unlikely ally

Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple Computer and a founding member of the nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation, expressed his thoughts regarding the Megaupload case.  Wozniak believes that the case is “hokey” and would just threaten internet innovation.

“It’s just kind of ridiculous what they did to his life,” Wozniak said. “An awful lot of Kiwis support him. The U.S. government is on thin ground.”

Wozniak likened Megaupload to a highway and pirates to over speeding motorists.  He stated that when a motorist overspeeds, he gets a ticket but the highway won’t be shut down because of a few over zealous motorists.  Wozniak believes that a lot of Megaupload users were legal users and that the FBI confiscating their data was unjust.  The EFF is working on how to get the legal contents of Megaupload users.

As for Dotcom, Wozniak stated that there hasn’t been a reason to doubt his innocence as no credible evidence has surfaced.

Dotcom and his co-defenders are sticking to their story that the charges filed against them are bogus and the matter at hand is of the court’s concern as it was politically tainted.

“The more people learn about this case the more they realize that this type of copyright disagreement between Hollywood and new cloud storage technology is a political debate, not something that belongs in the criminal court and certainly not something to justify breaking down the door to my house,” Dotcom said.