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Emails flowed back and forth, focused on how Dotcom — or “Billy Big Steps” as one Ofcanz analyst called him — could get permanent residency. The inquiries ignored the simple truth spelled out in the GCSB’s own guiding law — that while it might use the term “permanent resident”, the definition meant anyone with residency. To fail to spot the legal problem would mean the GCSB had to fail to understand its own law.

As the GCSB worked through the issue, they escalated the question to Wolfensohn, the legal officer. He was the bureau’s expert, and had been heavily involved in drafting the GCSB’s law in 2002 and 2003, when it was created and passed. Wolfensohn considered the issues and wrongly ruled there was no illegal surveillance because the Dotcoms and van der Kolk “only had residence”.

A GCSB staff member told Ofcanz not to worry. The issues had been documented and filed in case the sole oversight figure, the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, Paul Neazor, ever needed to be briefed. “People here have been very relaxed about it all.”

The relieved police analyst reinforced how seriously it was being taken. “We didn’t want to look like one of those Police that disregard laws for personal gain — you know that ones (sic).” The analyst added: “We are all very happy that no breach occurred and we can go back to celebrating taking down that criminal mastermind.”

And that’s where it lay until Wormald, under oath in court, let slip there were secrets he could not tell.

DOTCOM KNEW INSTANTLY. He began talking of a spycloud held by the National Security Agency — a huge pool of captured information which had been harvested from internet cables and stored for later use. Looking back at comments made at the time, his prescience was remarkable. Nine months before Snowden began to leak the existence of top secret networks, Dotcom was talking about the architecture of the systems used against him.

Dotcom is believed to have spoken with Snowden. The emergence of the whistleblower, initially, in Dotcom’s old powerbase of Hong Kong seemed a happy coincidence. It is likely it created an opportunity to make contact. “I’m really passionate about this whole privacy matter,” says Dotcom. “Everything that happened to me, all these intrusions — I feel really strongly about it. It is almost a calling now.”

Later, when Snowden’s information began to emerge through reporting in the Guardian and Washington Post, a new business

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