Indymedia servers seized

Moriarty

Feds seize Indymedia servers
By John Leyden
Published Friday 8th October 2004 18:44 GMT

The FBI yesterday seized a pair of UK servers used by Indymedia, the independent newsgathering collective, after serving a subpoena in the US on Indymedia's hosting firm, Rackspace. Why or how remains unclear.

Rackspace UK complied with a legal order and handed over hard disks without first notifying Indymedia. It's unclear if the raid was executed under extra-territorial provisions of US legislation or the UK's Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA). Provisions of RIPA make it a criminal offence to discuss warrants, so Rackspace would not be able to discuss the action with its customer Indymedia, or with the media.
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Rackspace US has issued a statement which says that the investigation "did not arise in the United States", but which sheds very little light on the whys and the wherefores.

In the present matter regarding Indymedia, Rackspace Managed Hosting, a US based company with offices in London, is acting in compliance with a court order pursuant to a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT), which establishes procedures for countries to assist each other in investigations such as international terrorism, kidnapping and money laundering. Rackspace responded to a Commissioner’s subpoena, duly issued under Title 28, United States Code, Section 1782 in an investigation that did not arise in the United States. Rackspace is acting as a good corporate citizen and is cooperating with international law enforcement authorities. The court prohibits Rackspace from commenting further on this matter."

Dai Davis, an IT lawyer at London law firm Nabarro Nathanson, said Rackspace's statement fails to clarify the legal basis of the raid. "If it was a RIPA warrant, Rackspace can't refer to it. Most RIPA warrants can be issued by the Home Secretary," he said. "The FBI has no jurisdiction in the UK and would need to act in concert with UK authorities, such as the security services or police," he added.
Net effect

The seizure of Indymedia's servers affects more than 30 Indymedia sites worldwide. The list of affected local media collectives includes Uruguay, Andorra, Poland, Nice, several French groups, Euskal Herria (Basque Country), multiple Belgian sites, Serbia, Portugal, the Czech Republic, Italy, Brazil, the UK, part of the Germany site, and the global Indymedia Radio site. One of the servers taken down at Rackspace provided streaming radio to several radio stations and served files related to the Blag Linux distribution, among other purposes.

While Indymedia is not exactly sure what prompted the action, the group does have one strong idea. A French Indymedia site last month posted photos of what it believed to be undercover Swiss police officers photographing protesters at a French event. Indymedia received a request from the FBI to pull those photos down, as they "revealed personal information" about the undercover police, said Indymedia press officer Hep Sano.

"They never clarified what they meant by personal information," she said. "The photos were taken on a public street."

Indymedia believes the photos were eventually pulled, but ironically cannot check on this as it no longer has access to the servers or hard disks. The group has not even been notified if the FBI is even involved in this seizure or whether or not the servers or just hard disks were confiscated.

"We are still trying to work with the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) to figure out who is charging us and with what crime," said Sano. The EFF did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

Indymedia said yesterday's raids were part of a wider pattern of "attacks" against independent media outlets by the US Federal Government authorities over recent months. Last month the Federal Communications Commission shut down community radio stations around the US. Two weeks ago the FBI requested that Indymedia takes down a post on the Nantes Independent Media Centre that had a photo of some undercover Swiss police. In August the Secret Service used a subpoena in an "attempt to disrupt" the New York City's Independent Media Centre before last month's Republican National Convention in the city.

Indymedia (AKA Independent Media Center) was set up in 1999 to provide grassroots coverage of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) protests in Seattle. It has continued to report on controversial subjects often under-reported in the mainstream media since then; but this week has marked the most controversial chapter in its operations. ®

Hm.


I realise comment is usually required for things like this, but I'm rushing and just thought others may be intrested. I'll be back later.

Nuttzz

dear god no! where will I get me daily dose of paranoia?

mike65

Good to see Uncle Sam striking a blow for freedom loving peoples!

Yes I am being ironic, even I would'nt do that to 'em.

Mike.

Memnoch

i wouldn't normally give a lot of weight to Indy media stuff, but if the US gov is so adamant at shutting them down, there must be some truth somewhere :P

on a more serious note, maybe they should make the same kind of effort with fox news?

Stabshauptmann

The legalities of that are hard to fathom. They dont know who has charged them or with what but they suspect a foreign governmnet? Strange ammount of power there.

Sparks

Hmmm. So indymedia are a completely discredited bunch of loony lefties - but they're also such a serious threat that the US administration orders their shutdown from across the Atlantic and gags the company from telling anyone what the reason for the shutdown was?

There's something rotten in the state of denmark here...

Sparks

Even sillier, the story seems to be that the reason was that the French indymedia site (hosted on a physical disk in london) had photos of two undercover swiss police who were doing security for a G8 summit (presumably looking into left-leaning groups who might stage protests).

Makes you wonder why it's the FBI and not the Swiss Police who're stomping on Indymedia...

ferdi

:rolleyes:

Havelock

http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=66930

well worth a read

SkepticOne

Havelock wrote:

http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=66930

well worth a read

That page has a link to the alleged photos of the Swiss undercover police here. If the whole thing was an attempt to protect their identity it would seem to have backfired. Far better to have done nothing really if that was their intention.

Zombrex

Memnoch wrote:

i wouldn't normally give a lot of weight to Indy media stuff, but if the US gov is so adamant at shutting them down, there must be some truth somewhere :P

Very true. Normally the IndyMedia reports are as biased and one sided as some of the large media organisations they are attempting to offer a counter-point too, so I wouldn't exactly say IndyMedia is a shining example of intelligent journalism. But they must be doing something right to incure the rath of the FBI

BuffyBot

Swiss undercover police here

Not patricularily steathy of them, was it?

"Do you mind posing for a series of photographs"

"Why, yes we will"...

chewy

its similar to the last discussion of what should and shouldn't be on indymedia... if im following the story rightly the editors did decide to blank out the faces of the people after they were first notified of them but again once the pictures are put up they'll remian existing?

alot of indymedia take down pictures of alleged undercover cops cos you just don't know they could be just some block and it protect them aswell

ReefBreak

I have Indymedia.ie listed under the "Humour" folder in my favourites list. It's sometimes mildly interested to read the non-stop bickering & in-fighting that takes place among the far-left.

egan007

freedom of speach my ass

Hydrosylator

They're lucky it was their servers that were seized and not their writers. What with the total lack of liberty in america these days, especially where politics is involved.