Megaupload says a number of users are from the US government

The legal fight to extradite Kim Dotcom, the main man behind Megaupload continues to rage. Dotcom and other principles at the file storage site are facing multiple charges ranging from copyright infringement to racketeering and money laundering. As part of the legal campaign, the website was shut down leaving users with no access to files they had saved there.

The problem is that many of these users have legitimate files on the service that they can no longer access. Dotcom says that he, and his legal team are working to get the website reinstated to allow users to retrieve their legitimate files and take them elsewhere. Megaupload has been talking with the Department of Justice in the United States to get users access to their data.

One interesting thing that has come out of the fight to get files back up and open to users has been Megaupload claiming that it has discovered a number of site users that were from the US government. The Electronic Frontier Foundation is working on behalf of users of Megaupload that have legitimate personal files saved on the service to get their data back. The EFF is right now simply identifying people who have lost files and keeping track of them while Megaupload appeals to the Department of Justice to open the site back up.

Dotcom said, "Guess what – we found a large number of Mega accounts from US Government officials including the Department of Justice and the US Senate."

"I hope we will soon have permission to give them and the rest of our users access to their files," Dotcom told us.

[via TorrentFreak]