Indymedia get their servers back???

Hobbes

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3742284.stm

This seems a bit odd if you ask me. generally if something is taken by a warrent in the US you can generally gurantee by the time it is returned it is worth something as an antique.

mycroft

Everything about this is strange

The FBI has said it was acting on behalf of a foreign government, though for the American subpoena to have power in the UK, it would need approval from either the British courts or the home secretary. Such agreements would usually be made over investigations into terrorism, though nobody involved has been able to confirm this.

quote from here

Sources in indymedia who contacted the FBI were told the FBI hadn't commited the raid.

I'm not saying break out the tinfoil hats, but it's bizarre

bonkey

from_the_article wrote:

The servers in the outskirts of London were taken last week by the FBI

I thought the FBI's remit forbade them from operating outside the US?

jc

dahamsta

The thing that confuses me is why the FBI is involved at all. They say that they're acting on behalf of other governments, and it's been suggested that this is the case because Rackspace is an American company. But Rackspace in Britain is incorporated in Britain, so if a subpoena is served on them, surely the British company has to act within British law? In which case, why didn't these governments approach the British government directly? The whole things stinks to high heaven.

adam

Redleslie2

bonkey wrote:

I thought the FBI's remit forbade them from operating outside the US?

jc

Seems to be a bit unclear whether it was FBI personnel who seized the servers or whether it was done by local authorities following an FBI order/request. It could be a case of routine harrassment or it could be something else - From the International Federation Of Journalists site.

The IFJ believes the seizure may be linked to a September 30 court case in San Jose California, in which Indymedia San Francisco and two students at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania successfully opposed an application by Diebold Election Systems Inc to remove documents claiming to reveal flaws in the design of electronic voting machines which are due to be used widely in the forthcoming US Presidential election.

Sleipnir

bonkey wrote:

I thought the FBI's remit forbade them from operating outside the US?

jc

It most certainly does. That's alarming to say the least.

wheels of ire

According to the BBC, this involved the securocrats of Italy, Switzerland, along with the US and its haemhorroid, the UK. They invoked the little heard -of Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty, apparently usually used to combat cross-border crime like money-laundering, kidnapping, oh yes , and terrorism.
It seems that Berulstasi has accused Italian Indymedia of 'supporting terrorism'
Just another justification for attacking those who dissent?
And the Swiss, profiteering from the safe-keeping of unsavourary funds from regimes dodgy in the extreme, say it involves the G8 meeting in 2003.
Given the enormous amount of money we keep hearing is being spent on security services, surely they have all this already? If not, why not?
So is this this old-fashioned intimidadation, or what?

dahamsta

Is that a stereotype in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?

wheels of ire

dahamsta wrote:

Is that a stereotype in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?

No doubt you are willing to share this shaft with us? Stereotype, what do you mean?
And could we agree a definition of terrorism?

mycroft

It's now emerging that the request to seize the server orginated inItaly

Stranger and stranger......

bonkey

Its getting better and better....the more this story continues, the more agencies are denying that they had nothing whatsoever to do with it...

Reg have this article on it at the mo...good read.

jc