Lawyers? Check. Guns? Check. Money? Check

We can all condemn the excessive force involved in the commando assault early this year -- complete with helicopters ferrying heavily-armed personnel of the Special Tactics Group -- to serve an arrest warrant on one Kim Dotcom, an alleged infringer of copyright. Especially when it turns out that whoever went through the checklist required for STG involvement, ticking boxes, simply lied.*

The "yes" box was ticked next to questions about whether Dotcom was armed, had a history of violence, was showing current signs of violence and had issued threats to kill.
Mr Davison said the police documents also claimed officers faced the threat of injury or death if the specialist squad was not used.
But under questioning, the sergeant was unable to point to any information supporting the claim police officers were in danger during the raid.

[...]

Mr Davison said the form had noted the source of intelligence was visits to the area and a two-year investigation by the FBI.
He then pointed to the section on the form which said the information had been verified by the STG's "intelligence team".
The officer said that, contrary to the form, the intelligence team had not checked the briefing report.

At the same time, one of the police rationales is to be applauded. I can cheer wholeheartedly for the idea that a similar military assault should be launched against every wealthy person who becomes a person of interest to the law.

* DotCom's lawyer had the opportunity to bring up this history of mendacity thanks to the government's ill-judged appeal against an earlier court decision, that the arrest warrant had been invalid.