More than 30 million people watched CSI and its spinoffs during the 2010-2011 season.

And while the show is entertaining to be sure, is it in any way real?

That answer, according to the experts, is a big fat no. And many of the inaccuracies in the show are pretty flagrant.

But don't let us make up your mind. Take a look and decide for yourself.

To start, some of the crimes are just totally unimaginable.

One episode of CSI featured a suspect who used a radio frequency identification reader concealed in a woman's purse to scan credit card numbers and social security numbers.

But, according to RFID Journal, that's simply not possible.

"I understand that the folks who write TV dramas don't care about facts or reality, but this kind of nonsense creates unnecessary fear among the public," Mark Roberti wrote for the journal's blog. 

DNA doesn't always save the day.

In CSI, DNA is always at the scene of the crime, and it always ensures bad guys pay for their crimes.

But, according to Perspectives magazine, that's just not the case. The equipment necessary to analyze DNA is expensive and there's a major backlog in samples that still need to be tested.

“With DNA profiles, these shows take artistic license with a kernel of truth and make it something that we’re not even close to being ready to do in actuality,” trial attorney Ted Hunt told the magazine.

Forensic work is much more fragmented than shown on TV.

In CSI, one analyst might visit a crime scene to gather evidence, process it, and come to some brilliant conclusion.

But in the real world, there are far more checks and balances and the work is divvied up among many people.

"In a big department like New York there will be a group that just does firearms," forensic scientist Roger Thompson told PoliceEmployment.com "That's all they do is shoot guns and look at the fragments under a microscope."

Separate groups will then handle the other parts of the investigation.

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A fashion publicist pleaded guilty to murdering his 23-year-old girlfriend in their Lower East Side apartment, The New York Daily News reported Monday.

Raul Barrera, 34, told authorities he stabbed Sarah Coit with a kitchen knife, nearly decapitating her.

After leaving the apartment, he fled to Penn Station and on the way, called his father, who  convinced him to turn himself in, according to the Daily News.

Coit, who studied advertising and marketing at Hunter College in Manhattan, was still alive when authorities found her but died several hours later in Beth Israel Hospital, The New York Post.

She was the only daughter of Lynde Coit, who is a Cornell-educated lawyer and senior adviser to Rod Bryden, CEO of Plasco Energy, according to The Post.

Barrera faces 25 years to life, according to the Daily News.

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Sports media veteran Ray Katz filed a $3 million lawsuit against Omnicom alleging wrongful termination and discrimination, and it's quite the page-turner. It features allegations of fraud, anti-Semitism, taunts regarding sexuality and overall bullying.

"Plaintiff is a 52 year old, unmarried, Jewish male," the lawsuit — filed against Omnicom Group, OMD, Optimum Sports, and former CFO Mark Amabile — begins. According to the suit, Katz was discriminated against for being all three — even though he once dated professional poker player Beth Shak, at right, on a reality TV show.

"Amabile repeatedly questioned Mr. Katz's status as a non-married male," the lawsuit says. "Further commenting that Plaintiff 'must be homosexual if he is not married at his age.'"

The former NFL marketing director appeared on Bravo's Millionaire Matchmaker in 2010 — as a suitor — on a date with Shak (see a clip of the setup below).

Here are the highlights of the rest of Katz's allegations:

• Katz "exceeded the revenue and profitability goals set for his department, and year six was similarly on track to beat all goals," the suit states. He alleges he was fired because there wasn't revenue to support his position.
• Revenue generated by Optimum was assigned to other units of Omnicom, and expenses from those units assigned to Optimum, in violation of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the suit alleges.
• Katz alleges he was fired for generating revenue for accounts like State Farm, Lowe's, Bank of America, and Visa as opposed to working on Amabile's pet projects. The lawsuit says Amabile "concentrated his efforts on obtaining sponsors for Diamond Nation, a local New Jersey baseball camp at which defendant AMABILE's son was a student... Upon information and belief, it was defendant Amabile's intent to curry favor with the camp and its college coaches in order to assist in obtaining extra baseball instruction, scholarship offers for his son, and admission to universities which would not admit his son without the prospect of baseball contribution."
  
• Katz didn't have a happy birthday. "Mr. Katz was given a book 'Golf over 50,' a disparaging greeting card calling attention to Mr. Katz's advancing age, and a candle with the numbers 6 and 1, signifying 61 years old, and further mocking Mr. Katz's age was displayed on the birthday cake," the suit states.
• On top of allegedly being told that he must be gay if he was still single, "Plaintiff, on numerous occasions was told that single people need to make less money than married people and Plaintiff was witness to occurrences of this practice being enforced."
• Katz says he saw defendants allegedly discriminate against Jewish vendors, for being "untrustworthy." He doesn't offer any evidence of that in the lawsuit.

Katz joined Leverage Agency as president of sports properties and media in October, 2009. He's currently managing partner at Source1 Sports.

Omnicom and Katz did not respond for comment.

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A man who has made a career in Biglaw is facing legal troubles of his own after he alleged slashed a man with a broken champagne flute.

Bryan Brooks, 36, was spending the night at the Thom Bar at the Thompson Hotel when he confronted Chaka Smith, 28, because he thought Smith was laughing at him, the New York Post reported Monday.

Smith, who says a doctor needed to use 50 stitches and 15 staples to close his wound, testified in court Monday that he told Brooks they didn't know each other before Brooks threw a champagne flute at him.

Brooks, a former Skadden Arps lawyer who worked with the firm for four years and went on to American Express, is no stranger to legal troubles, Above The Law reported Tuesday. He was arrested on suspicion of drunk driving in April 2011, according to ATL.

If convicted of the current charge against him, Brooks could spend up to 25 years behind bars.

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A group of women, including one named Santa, is suing makeup giant Maybelline for advertising that its lipstick lasts longer than it actually does.

The women, who are seeking class-action status, claim Maybelline's Super Stay 10HR Stain Gloss and Super Stay 14HR Lipstick "wear off and fade after only a few hours of wear" — a direct contradiction of the company's ads, The Wall Street Journal's Law Blog reported Tuesday.

The women are also seeking damages for violations of consumer protection laws.

But Maybelline isn't buying it.

“Maybelline strongly believes that this lawsuit has no merit and stands proudly behind our products,” L'Oreal USA spokeswoman Rebecca Caruso told Law Blog. “We will strenuously contest these allegations in court."

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Yahoo! News handed out some invaluable advice to a politics-hopeful considering law school.

Kaitlyn, 22, graduated from the University of Oregon and majored in political science. She dreams of working in politics and saw law school as the best option for her career.

But finance expert Farnoosh Torabi all but shot down those aspirations when she hit Kaitlyn with just how much money she'll be spending on her education — on top of the $40,000 in loans she already has from her undergraduate education.

Law school can cost anywhere from $100,000 to $120,000. So make sure that when you graduate, you can cover that cost. Torabi advised only taking out about one-third to one-half of your first-year salary in loans.

"Hearing these numbers it makes me feel like I'm about to walk myself into my own grave," Kaitlyn said after receiving the bad news.

Legal industry blog Above The Law slammed Kaitlyn's naiveté, calling Torabi's advice "brilliant."

Watch Torabi explain to Kaitlyn why a very expensive education with no guarantees of success might not be the best option:

Paul Campos, author of "Insider the Law School Scam" told Business Insider the law school bubble is worse than the mortgage crisis, saying unemployed law school grads don't stand a chance of discharging their debt.

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Mona Eltahawy, the prominent Egyptian-American writer and activist, has been arrested in New York after spraying paint over a controversial poster on the subway that has been condemned for equating Muslims with "savages".

The posters were put up in the city by the anti-Muslim American Freedom Defense Initiative, led by Pam Geller. They were approved by a US court, which ruled that they were "political" statements and protected by the first amendment, which guarantees free speech.

The poster states: "In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man." Between two Stars of David, it adds: "Support Israel. Defeat Jihad."

Eltahawy was arrested after a supporter of Geller's initiative attempted to prevent her defacing the sign with a purple aerosol.

The posters are now displayed in 10 New York stations – including Grand Central and Times Square – after a court ruled that the local transport authority could not refuse the ads.

In a video posted online of the incident by the New York Post, Mona Eltahawy can be seen attempting to paint over the poster before she is tackled by a woman with a camera, who is identified as Pamela Hall.

"Mona, do you think you have the right to do this?" Eltahawy is asked. "I do actually," Eltahawy replies, adding: "I think this is freedom of expression, just as [the ad] is freedom of expression."

As the scuffle continues two police officers appear to then arrest Eltahawy, who says: "This is what happens in America when you non-violently protest."

Eltahawy, who has written for this paper, was later charged with "criminal mischief" and "graffiti".

During the Arab spring, Eltahawy was arrested in Cairo and suffered an assault by riot police which left her with two broken arms.

The Metropolitan Transport Authority (MTA) had originally ruled it would not permit the posters because they were demeaning, but was compelled to take the $6,000 (£3,700) ad after Geller's group went to court.

Last month US district court judge Paul Engelmayer ruled that it is protected speech under the first amendment.

"Our hands are tied," New York subway spokesman Aaron Donovan said. "Under our existing ad standards as modified by the injunction, the MTA is required to run the ad."

The posters have attracted widespread condemnation including from Jewish figures. Among those who have spoken out against them is Rabbi Rachel Kahn-Troster, of Rabbis for Human Rights — North America, who wrote for CNN online: "As a rabbi, I find the ads deeply misguided and disturbing … The coded message makes clear who the savages are: those who support jihad, which in Geller's mind includes all Muslims. She has called Islam 'an extreme ideology, the most radical and extreme ideology on the face of the Earth'.

"As a Jew, I know the extreme to which baseless hatred can lead. And the Jewish community has been in the past a target of hatred in the United States. Geller's message ignores the positive contributions that our Muslim friends, neighbours and colleagues make to our country every single day.

"It is also unfortunate that Geller chooses to frame her message of hatred as one of support for Israel."

As head of a group called Stop Islamization of America, Geller, a rightwing blogger, helped spur a long campaign two years ago to remove a planned Islamic community centre near the World Trade Centre site, which she called the "Ground Zero Mosque".

Geller's group has also placed posters in other stations north of New York City that read: "It's not Islamophobia, it's Islamorealism."

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A conservative group bankrolled by billionaires Charles and David Koch began running an online ad on Tuesday, attacking the Florida Supreme Court for refusing to invalidate the Affordable Care Act, Reuters reported.

Americans for Prosperity released the ad days after the Republican party began an effort to oust three justices who voted against overturning the health care law in 2010, according to Reuters.

"All three justices are too extreme not just for Florida, but for America, too," said the Republican committee in a statement, according to Reuters.

The effort is part of AFP's $9 million campaign against President Barack Obama's health care law and will also target Colorado, Iowa, Minnesota, New Mexico, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin, according to The Hill.

While the ad does not attack the three Florida justices by name, it states that the healthcare act has been unpopular and expensive, according to Reuters.

"Most oppose the health care law," the ad claims. "It will cost trillions. ... Our own Supreme Court denied our right to choose for ourselves. Shouldn't our courts protect our rights to choose?"

See for yourselves:

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The American Lawyer's summer associate survey found anxiety over their controversial decision to become lawyers reached a four-year high.

But those highly paid law students might have been freaked out for no reason, the AM Law Daily reports.

For the second year in a row, nearly all of the law students who landed highly coveted – and highly paid – summer associate positions were offered full-time work by the end of the summer.

Twenty-one law firms responded to the American Lawyer's survey about their summer associates, revealing 96.5 percent of their "summers" had been offered full-time jobs.

So, the summer associates may have worked themselves up into a frenzy over nothing.

In addition to being freaked out about their job prospects, the summers complained they didn't get to work enough because of all the forced socializing of BigLaw.

That partying might pay off, though.

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A man who claims he was defamed when the New York Daily News used his picture to illustrate a story about a scheming dentist is suing the popular newspaper, Courthouse News Service reported Tuesday. 

In its article "Crooked Brooklyn Dentist Lawrence Bruckner Pleads Guilty to Bilking Medicaid," the Daily News allegedly featured a picture of Leon Farhi at the top of the page and then reiterated the charges against Bruckner in a caption beneath Farhi's photo.

The Daily News published the article Aug. 13 and reportedly didn't remove Farhi's picture until Aug. 24.

Currently, the article has no picture. In a bolded correction at the top of the page, the Daily News admits its error.

"In fact, the person in that photograph was not Dr. Bruckner and has no connection either to Dr. Bruckner or to any of the matters reported on in the article," the Daily News admits. "The Daily News regrets the error."

Farhi claims he has suffered from "public scorn, hatred, contempt and ridicule," caused by the article and the Daily News should have done enough research to realize he wasn't the rogue dentist.

Farhi is suing for injuries, according to CNS.

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The U.S. government says it has tacit consent to carry out drone strikes in Pakistan despite the Pakistani government not acknowledging planned bombings, the Wall Street Journal reports. 

U.S. officials told WSJ that the CIA—which is fighting in court to keep the drone program secret—sends a monthly fax to Pakistani intelligence that outlines areas where drones will strike.

But the Pakistanis—who publicly oppose the strikes—stopped responding after the May 2011 bin Laden raid.

Consequently, the legal basis for U.S. drone strikes within its sovereign ally's borders are based on sending those faxes and the fact that Pakistan continues to clear airspace to avoid mid-air collisions.

One senior Obama administration official called the approach "cowboy behavior" while a group of administration lawyers is actively trying to develop a legal framework for how governments should deploy unmanned aerial vehicle (UAVs).

Securing consent is considered critical, some legal experts say.

The current strategy is "at the margins of what can reasonably be construed as consent," Benjamin Wittes, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, told WSJ.

U.S. officials are also concerned that its classified drone war is setting a dangerous precedent for other countries such as Iran, which just unveiled its first armed drone.

The legality of strikes in general have been questioned: the U.N. special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings said in June that U.S. drone strikes are an attack on "international law itself" and that the practice of the double tap, in which a targeted strike site is hit multiple times by hellfire missiles in relatively quick succession, is "a war crime."

A recent report from NYU and Stanford lawyers detailed the use of the double tap in Pakistan and also described it as a potential war crime. 

SEE ALSO: More Evidence That Drones Are Targeting Civilian Rescuers In Afghanistan >

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Tom Privitere and Brian Edwards' engagement photos in front of the Brooklyn Bridge were supposed to mark a happy moment in their lives.

But that memory was spoiled in early 2012, when the couple found out that a "family values" nonprofit  had been using their photo to bash same-sex marriage, according to NBC.

Now the gay couple, who married in a civil ceremony in Connecticut in 2010, and the photographer are suing Public Advocate of the United States for using the image, according to NBC.

The couple claimed that Public Advocate was using their photo to spread a "message of hate" by writing the words, "State Senator Jean White’s Idea of ‘Family Values?" on it.

They are asking for a court order saying the nonprofit broke the law and are seeking damages, costs, and attorney fees for the copyrighted photo, according to NBC.

"We want to take back the beautiful moment in our lives that was reflected in our engagement photo before it was hijacked,” Edwards told NBC on Monday.

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Administrators at the University of California have agreed to pay out roughly $1 million to end a lawsuit brought by UC Davis students who were pepper sprayed by police at protest last November, the Sacramento Bee reports. 

On Nov. 18 students gathered to protest against rising tuition costs and reduced services. 

Each of the 21 students and former students will receive $30,000 and a personal written apology from Chancellor Linda Katehi.

There will be a pool of $100,000 to pay others who come forward.

The settlement, which will be paid out of UC Davis's self-insurance fund, also calls for the payment of $250,000 in legal fees and costs to the lawyers who filed the suit.

The deal was agreed to in mediation sessions after the 21 students sued last February and still must be approved by a federal judge.

Lt. John Pike, one of two officers who deployed the pepper spray, was fired by UC Davis.

The settlement brings the total payout for the pepper spray incident to more than $2 million, the Bee reports.

Here's the video of the incident:

SEE ALSO: Police Pepper-Spray Seated Protesters At UC Davis [PHOTOS] >

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The Street is buzzing today about the news that a fund manager from SAC Capital has been named as an "unindicted co-conspirator" in the sweeping insider trading probe by Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara's office and the FBI.  

Michael Steinberg, a 40-year-old tech-fund manager at SAC's Capital New York division, Sigma Capital Management, was first identified as an "unindicted co-conspirator" by Bloomberg News in a revised indictment for the securities fraud case of Jon Horvath.  (Steinberg's name was redacted, but Bloomberg was able to figure it out.) 

It's important to remember that Steinberg has not been charged.  

For a clear explanation of what this means we talked to Stephen Bainbridge, professor of law at UCLA, who is an expert on securities law.

First, Bainbridge explained to us that the indictment alleges a conspiracy.  In other words, a number of people acting together in furtherance of a criminal enterprise.  

This, he explained, means this person, the unindicted co-conspirator, is someone the prosecutor is naming as having been part of the conspiracy. However, for any number of reasons, the prosecutor has decided not to charge this individual (at least not at this time). 

There could be a number of reasons why, he told us.

One possibility is the unindicted co-conspirator could be a corroborating witness who is going to get immunity from prosecution in exchange for testimony.

Another is when an entity is named as an unindicted co-conspirator there may be evidentiary reasons where the prosecutor thinks this person is part of the scheme, but not sure they can prove it at trial, he said.  

Bainbridge added that this person may have also engaged in active plea bargaining.  

Steinberg wasn't explicitly named in the indictment, but Bloomberg News was able to figure out that he was the "portfolio manager whom Jon Horvath reported at his hedge fund." 

There are a lot of different reasons why the individual is identified as a co-conspirator, but not named explicitly in the indictment. 

According to Bainbridge, it's typically regarded as bad form to identify an unindicted co-conspirator in an indictment by name.  

There are a lot of reasons why the prosecution wouldn't identify an unindicted co-conspirator, he said.  For instance, that person could be a potential corroborating witness.  They could also be in the middle of plea negotiations.

Sometimes they are named in the indictment, though. 

"It's often the case that the prosecutor will decide there are some defendants, for whatever reason, they don't want press charges against.  Yet, they will name the person in the indictment as a co-conspirator because, even though they aren't going to charge them, they need to in the indictment, identify who wall the members of the conspiracy were in the event that the case does go to trial.  Part of the proof would be to prove the full extent of the conspiracy."  

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U.S. Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren was pilloried by right-wing bloggers Monday for practicing law in Massachusetts without a license there.

Now, her opponent, Republican Senator Scott Brown, is calling for her to release a full list of her corporate clients,

"There is a list, and it does exist," Brown said in a letter to Warren.

Here are the companies we already know have been represented by Warren, who has touted herself as an advocate for consumers:

• LTV Steel – Warren helped the bankrupt industrial conglomerate write a U.S. Supreme Court petition in the 1990s, the Boston Globe reported Tuesday. LTV was reportedly crusading against a Congressional requirement that it pay millions for retirees' health care.
• Warren also represented Travelers Insurance in its Supreme Court quest to gain immunity from asbestos claims in exchange for creating a fund for victims.

However, both of these clients are absent from her faculty bibliography, which lists Supreme Court briefs she filed for non-corporate clients. The clients that are listed include the American Association of Retired Persons, a group of professors, and a trade association.

Right now, it's unclear whether she's represented corporations other than Travelers or LTV Steel, and her campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

Her campaign released this statement regarding the LTV case, according to the Globe.

"Elizabeth is a bankruptcy expert and has fought for years for a strong bankruptcy system that makes sure retirees, employees, victims, and others can demand payment from insolvent companies and get a fair shake."

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Arizona's Sheriff Joe Arpaio, best known for his fights with undocumented immigrants, received quite a blow Tuesday from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

The federal appeals court ruled Arpaio can't detain suspects based only on his belief they are here illegally, Courthouse News Service reported Wednesday.

Arpaio has garnered his fair share of headlines in the past for his harsh stance on fighting illegal immigration.

Back in June he arrested a 6-year-old girl during a raid on suspected undocumented workers.

A three-judge panel on Tuesday upheld an injunction in a class-action lawsuit against the sheriff that was initially ordered in 2011.

The judges also found that the group of people suing Arpaio for his alleged racial profiling were likely to succeed in their suit, saying "mere unauthorized presence is not a criminal matter, [and] suspicion of unauthorized presence alone does not give rise to an inference that criminal activity is 'afoot,'" according to CNS.

A lawsuit accusing Arpaio of systemically profiling Hispanic citizens began in July.

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Clarence Thomas made headlines this week when he trashed law school rankings and blogs that called his clerks "third-tier trash."

But plenty of his clerks went to fancy schools.

A Google search, which is by no means exhaustive, brings up the following former clerks:

• Kirkland & Ellis lawyer Jennifer Hardy attended U.S. News & World Report's number-one law school, Yale. She clerked for Thomas in 2004-2005.
• University of California law professor John Yoo attended Yale law. The infamous author of the "torture memos" went on to clerk for Thomas.
• McGuire Woods partner John Adams attended U.S. News' number-seven law school, University of Virginia. He clerked for Thomas in 2006-2007.
• Quinn Emanuel partner Sanford Weisburst attended University of Chicago's law school, which is ranked number four in the nation. He clerked for Thomas in 1999-2000.
• Hughes Hubbard's John Wood attended the nation's number-three law school, Harvard. He also went on to clerk for one of the nation's most entertaining justices.

There are probably more top-tier law school graduates who clerked for Thomas. The point is, even man-of-the-people Thomas might be impressed by an Ivy League degree.

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This week Dealbook looks at what, if anything, can be to done to fix the high cost of legal education in this country. 

It asks if it's smarter to pay law professors less and/or replace them with practicing attorneys who theoretically wouldn't charge much since they're already drawing a big paycheck elsewhere.

The Times isn't convinced it would work—why earn less at a university (around $130,000/year) when you can make "well over a million dollars a year" as a partner at a firm? 

To get some insight, we spoke with a New York-based attorney who graduated from a top-tier school and asked to remain anonymous. She thinks the article overlooks one key reason people teach in the first place: the rewards of the job. 

"It's great for the resume, and I know many practicing lawyers who would be great teachers. I knew a partner who did it at NYU and he loved the experience he got. They already have full salaries, so they wouldn't have to be paid the same way," says the criminal litigator, who works for a major firm in Midtown Manhattan. 

As someone who graduated toward the end of the recession two years ago and watched her friends struggle to find a job, our source sees the system as deeply flawed. She also sees it skewed toward those willing to write off the debt as "future pay," or students too entitled to care. For these reasons, she's fine with lowering teachers' pay. 

"I think anything they can do to decrease the cost of tuition is a good thing," she says, adding most law schools aren't worth their salt, and that students must compete to get into "the best [and most expensive] school." 

"In New York, it's a hard market to break into if you're not in the Ivies. People don't care about undergrad, but in this profession, you're going to get asked where you went to law school for the rest of your life. A lot of firms only interview at the top five, ten, and fifteen schools," she said. 

Though she landed a prestigious job, some of her peers weren't so lucky. 

"One friend had a full scholarship to a third-tier school that got downgraded to a fourth-tier school, and she's had a hard time getting her foot in the door," she said. "I think people should anticipate that even with the degree, the job's not a guarantee." 

DON'T MISS: What one woman learned traveling through 'Hidden America' > 

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LONDON (Reuters) - Kweku Adoboli, a "rogue trader" accused of bringing UBS to the brink of collapse, learnt his behavior from colleagues at the Swiss bank who later "stabbed him in the back", his defense lawyer told a London court on Thursday.

Adoboli, 32, was arrested on September 15, 2011. He is now on trial for fraud and false accounting that cost the Swiss bank $2.3 billion. He has pleaded not guilty.

His lawyer Charles Sherrard told Southwark Crown Court that Adoboli's three colleagues on the Exchange Traded Funds (ETF) desk had actively taken part in some of the fraudulent behavior he is accused of.

He said they had later "stabbed him in the back and left him to bleed on the prison floor" after he ran into trouble.

Sherrard said Adoboli had learnt some of his ways, such as the use of an illicit "umbrella" account to disguise his true trading position, from others in UBS and that there had been, and perhaps still were, other "secret books" within the Swiss bank's trading accounts.

Prosecutors say Adoboli was an "out of control" rogue trader who had abused the bank's trust in him for personal gain, while his defense team have argued UBS turned a blind eye to rule-breaking as long as it made the bank money.

The court has previously from former bosses of Adoboli who said they were unaware of the trader's activities until he confessed to unauthorized deals the day before his arrest.

One of his colleagues on the ETF desk John Hughes told the court on Tuesday he had reported Adoboli to his manager for exceeding his trading limits.

Hughes also said he felt stupid for not telling bank bosses about the "umbrella" account Adoboli used to hide his unauthorized trades.

(Reporting by Estelle Shirbon and Michael Holden; editing by Guy Faulconbridge)

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In a statement made today, New Zealand Prime Minister John Key has apologized to Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom.

The apology came after a government report (pdf) found that the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) had illegally intercepted communications by Dotcom despite the fact he was a permanent resident of the country and the agency is only authorized to deal with foreign threats.

Key's statement this afternoon reads (via One News):

"I apologize to Mr Dotcom, I apologise to New Zealanders because every New Zealander that sits within the category of having permanent residency or is a New Zealand citizen is entitled to be protected from the law when it comes to the GCSB, and we failed to provide that appropriate protection for him."

"My own view is the agency has let itself down very badly, it essentially failed at the most basic of hurdles, there are a number of times when it could have resolved the issue, and in fact New Zealanders were entitled to believe the agency would have performed a lot better."

Dotcom's mansion in New Zealand was raided earlier this year after a request by the FBI. Before the raid the GCSB gathered information even though it did not have the jurisdiction to do so. Key says that the police were mistakenly told Dotcom was a foreign national.

See also: The Case Against Kim Dotcom Is Looking Like A Complete Disaster >

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