[Jason_Genova]

Sure, the meat of what I thought interesting was the initial email. I thought it was concerning that the NZ police were looking to get IP/email addresses of people merely conversing about the attacker.

The rest of the thread is just funny because the police respond in the best way possible to the site operator's freakout.

[doldge]

in what world is that concerning? They've been trying to discern if there was a cell of people around who harbour the same intent as this man, or if he was acting alone. New Zealand, a sovereign nation, has every right to request that information. The email was simply a case of whether the maintainer of the site would respond reasonably to a request from the NZ judicial system, or whether they would need to subpeona the information using the US judicial system. If that maintainer of that site is serving content to New Zealand, that it seems reasonable that he should be beholden to NZ laws.

As a part of there investigation into the act this man committed, they're looking at all activity around the event and the sort of people engaging with it. From a quick look at that website and the thread you linked, I expect (and at least hope), that most of the people who frequent it are now on a watch list after the events of last week.

[mnm1]

> If that maintainer of that site is serving content to New Zealand, that it seems reasonable that he should be beholden to NZ laws.

So should be also be beholden to Chinese, Saudi Arabian, Russian, North Korean, and other governments' laws for simply having a website? That's beyond absurd and by that line of reasoning, most website operators should be jailed in some country or other. This is one of the most absurd arguments I've ever read. Luckily, it has no legal basis. Hopefully it never will.

[doldge]

see my reply to the sibling comment. I would also ask you to be charitable in your reading of my words.

[Jason_Genova]

Wow I just checked the thread, most seem to be "online memesters" but there also seem to be some really bad people on there. I didn't understand the nature of the site. I'll remove my opening post - thanks for pointing this out.

However, the fact that NZ police are looking for personal information of the site members, especially since the site is hosted outside NZ and by a non-NZ citizen still doesn't sit well with me.

>If that maintainer of that site is serving content to New Zealand, that it seems reasonable that he should be beholden to NZ laws.

On what planet is this reasonable? If I set up a website accessible to the world, I should be beholden to the laws of all the lands? Am I misinterpreting?

[doldge]

depending on the scale of your operations, absolutely yes. This already exists in most nations specifically for eCommerce websites once they're earning more than a set amount from direct sales in that region.

Should Facebook, a company who profits by directly selling the data of the population, not be beholden to the laws that govern the people who's data they're selling?

Once a company is profiting from a certain number of people within in a given region, it seems reasonable for them to then be beholden to the laws that govern the people in that region. Otherwise it's too easy to skirt the legal system of a given country.

I don't know the size of the company in the original comment, so it's possible that they're not at that threshold with regards to the NZ population they serve, but companies like facebook and google are. It seems to reasonable to expect there offerings within NZ to comply with NZ law. Equally other websites should as well once they reach the given threshold (where-ever that is set).

I'm unclear on why the police, in the course on investigating a terrorist attack, asking for information about people who may be associated with the attacker (who was a non-national of the country he attacked) who are non-nationals themselves, would make you uncomfortable.